Christmas lights banned

The Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail have carried different stories about the assault on Christmas by political correctness. Caroline Graham in The Mail on Sunday depicted a Los Angeles where Christmas was not mentioned, with media and shops mentioning only the "holidays"; however, there was official celebration for other religious events.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1094537/We-8217-ve-flogged-America-8217-s-Hallowe-8217-en-comes-desperate-plea-Don-8217-t-let-steal-Christmas.html

That Los Angeles is not typical of America is some cause for hope; surely in the rest of America, this would not happen?. But the degree to which this wiping away of Christianity has official sanction can be seen by the attitudes of one Broadcaster. "After the local NBC News last night a message flashed up wishing viewers: Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah and a Blessed Kwanzaa." This isn't an accident of circumstances, based on (say) a lack of demand for traditional Christmas cards in the shops; it is a deliberate policy.

In Newcastle, a woman was told by a Housing Association officer to take down her lights in case it offends her neighbours. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1094868/Mother-told-Christmas-lights--case-offend-non-Christian-neighbours.html. This had no official sanction and the Mail notes that the ban was condemned by a muslim councellor.

Although this was the action of one busybody housing worker acting independently, and Los Angeles, we hope, is not typical, the idea that Christmas is to be ignored or discouraged follows the logic of the assumptions behind political correctness, which is that the traditional British or American culture is potentially offensive, racist and dangerous; on the other hand, it is incumbent on enlightened people to celebrate and promote every other culture except their own.

Blair: Christian or progessive liberal?

An interview on the BBC today with Tony Blair, discussing his conversion to Catholicism. One of the commentators afterwards seemed to intimate that Christian fervour had led to the Iraq War, although another said that it was moral fervour that motivated him. The tired old story, almost certainly untrue, that they "prayed together" before starting the war was wheeled out again, showing how a lie becomes truth if told often enough.

The irony is that both Bush and Blair were not Christian enough; they were both captivated by the ideology of democratic fundamentalism, an offshoot of progressive liberalism. The ideological justification for Iraq War was to bring Freedom and Western-style democracy to the Middle East. Blair's political careers shows that his voting record was often against christian doctrine, but entirely consistent with progressive liberal beliefs; the Bush presidency and the Republican party have been suborned by the ideology of neo-conservativism, a form of liberal neo-imperialism.

However both would believe that this democratic fundamentalism is a natural consequence of Christian teaching. This is part of the confusion that bedevils Christianity in the modern world today.