-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! * Veritas Vos Liberabit * THE FEDERALIST(r) DIGEST The Conservative e-Journal of Record Date: Christmas 2000 Federalist #00-51/52.dgst Retrieve today's Christmas Edition as HTML printer-friendly text or PDF -- it's much easier reading than e-mail text! Link to: http://www.Federalist.com/current00-10.asp Please Support The Federalist! Link to: http://www.Federalist.com/support.asp CONTENTS: The Founders The Gipper For the Record Upright Liberty Good News Ictus Imprimis Christmas 2000 ______--------********O********--------______ THE FOUNDERS "Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no persuasion move thee to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so thou shalt live jollily, for a good conscience is a continual Christmas." --Benjamin Franklin ______--------********O********--------______ THE GIPPER "The Christmas spirit of Peace, hope, and love is the spirit Americans carry with them all year round, everywhere we go. ... The tree that lights up our country must be seen all the way to heaven...its lights fill the air with a spirit of hope, and joy from the heart of America." --Ronald Reagan ______--------********O********--------______ FOR THE RECORD "This year, Americans will spend up to $30 billion on Christmas. What would happen if a real-life grinch really did steal the trappings of Christmas? Would we have anything left to celebrate? Our consumer culture says the meaning of Christmas is found in parties, presents, and extravagant self-indulgence. Well, if the cultural grinches have stolen the meaning of Christmas, then -- like the Whos of Who-ville -- we'll just have to get it back. But we mustn't make the mistake of latching onto the wrong thing, as the Whos did. Shopping is not the answer, nor should we be lured into some kind of sacred frenzy of good works either. Good deeds performed for wrong motives and giving gifts to increase our own self-righteousness are empty and vain conceits." --Charles Colson ______--------********O********--------______ UPRIGHT "The concerted effort to minimize Christmas has resulted in it being our national Happy Holiday holiday. The Christmas season is now the holiday season. Christmas parties are now holiday parties. Christmas is a time for giving and receiving presents and in many homes, nothing more. Who is this fellow, Jesus Christ, anyway?" --Lyn Nofziger ++ "Could the roots of Christmas consumerism be in our own tradition? ..[H]istory suggests that Christmas became such a commercialized holiday, in part, because Protestants did not make it a holy day." --Charles Colson ++ "In a few more days we will celebrate Xmas, the day we commemorate the birth of you-know-who. ...It seems the modern consensus of enlightened people that his name should be used in polite society only when cursing.... [P]oliticians are often eager to associate themselves personally with you-know-who, even -- and especially -- when they rather flagrantly ignore his injunctions.... He was out of step then, and he is out of step now. He is eternally out of step, and eternally more powerful than those who keep in step. You know who I mean." --Joseph Sobran ++ "The dogmatism of science has become a new orthodoxy, disseminated by the Media and a State educational system with a thoroughness and subtlety far exceeding anything of the kind achieved by the Inquisition; to the point that to believe today in a miraculous happening like the Virgin Birth is to appear a kind of imbecile...." --Malcolm Muggeridge ++ "Christmas has always been a part of our national tradition. It became a national holiday for no reason other than its profound religious meaning." --John F. McManus ++ "Only when we give of ourselves, just as Christ gave himself for us, can we find meaning and redemption in life." --Charles Colson ++ "And in Christmas we find another symbol of truth. In Christmas we find the greatness, the heroism, the courage that we too often deny in our fearful shabby literature of life.... But here at Christmas we find the supreme and transcendental hero, the Hero of heroes -- the Star which is the Light that man should follow as far as he can in his human way, the hero that is God." --E. Merrill Root ______--------********O********--------______ LIBERTY "My heart is filled with gratitude to Almighty God for his unspeakable mercies with which He has blessed us in this day. For those He granted us from the beginning of life, and particularly for those He has vouchsafed us during the past year [of war]. What should have become of us without His crowning help and protection? "Oh, if our people would only recognize it and cease from self-boasting and adulation, how strong would be my belief in the final success and happiness to our country! But what a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world! "I pray that on this day [Christmas] when only peace and good-will are preached to mankind, better thoughts may fill the hearts of our enemies and turn them to peace." --Robert E. Lee ______--------********O********--------______ GOOD NEWS "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." (Psalm 19:1-4) "The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of God shone 'round them." (Luke 2:9) "...The star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they [the Wise Men] saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh." (Matthew 2:9-11) "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1:17) "Grace to you and peace ... from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth." (Revelation 1:4-5) ______--------********O********--------______ ICTUS IMPRIMIS "A Christmas wreath can be a pagan symbol of false religion, or a symbol of the eternity of God, he who is without beginning or end. The colors of Christmas are symbols of the blood (red) of Christ that washes away sin and grants eternal life (green) to those who believe.... Symbols can be used to glorify God or to further false religion. The key is relating all areas of life to the Lordship of Christ." --Rev. Brian M. Abshire ______--------********O********--------______ CHRISTMAS 2000 THE STAR SEEN ROUND THE WORLD As we celebrate this last Christmas of the millennium, we view a world everywhere much disjointed and frayed -- hardly a fit kingdom for the Prince of Peace, whose coming to Earth we commemorate. We point to two far-removed places, each fraught with significance for the deepest meanings of freedom, to examine our conflict-riven world -- the birthplace of Jesus Christ, whom we honor as Our Savior, and the birthplace of the American Revolution. This week in the Holy Land, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, penned his traditional Christmas letter, saying, "We celebrate Christmas this year, with its message of peace, which we live in times of suffering and lack of peace." Associated Press described the West Bank town of Bethlehem, where Jesus was born over 2,000 years ago, as today a "ghost town." The typical displays are gone, no Christmas lights comfort the darkness. His Beatitude, Patriarch Sabbah, reported Bethlehem, the "center of our celebrations ... is under siege and experiencing famine. Its residents cannot leave it, nor can the visitors enter it. ...Pilgrims this year will not share with us the midnight mass. ...In Bethlehem, the Savior has been born. From Bethlehem, from amidst our sufferings and prayers, we ask God Almighty for the salvation of the whole world." And two weeks ago in Lexington, Massachusetts, site of the 1775 battle on Lexington Green called "the shot heard round the world" -- which started the Revolutionary War -- a federal judge upheld a local ordinance banning Nativity displays there. Every year from 1920 through 1972, the town has maintained depictions of the Holy Family on the Green. From 1973 until last year, local religiously affiliated organizations have sponsored and maintained the town's Nativity display. Lexington Selectman Peter D. Enrich stated the real purpose of the ban: "What we're trying to do is preserve the Green and keep it out of control of groups who want to express religious beliefs that conflict with its historic battle for freedom." But, as Chuck Colson analyzed the historical ignorance of the selectman's comments: "The truth is that the minutemen -- local merchants and farmers who stood on that village green to repel the red-coated British invaders -- were also motivated by their deepest religious convictions. Pastors in Boston and throughout New England argued that the Revolution was justified in part because King George and the British government were depriving the colonists of religious freedom -- even imposing the Church of England on them. The Revolution was more than just a reaction to taxation without representation; it was also about the right to freely worship God. What a supreme irony! On the very ground on which our forefathers stood to defend liberty and create a new country, the very thing they fought and died for is being suppressed in the name of political correctness." In the Holy Land and Lexington, this year there are no Christmas observances as those were celebrated in years past. Historically, the actual year of Christ's birth is thought to be between 6 B.C. and 4 B.C., at the end of Herod's reign. The first mention of Christmas as a formal Nativity feast occurred in a Roman almanac dated A.D. 336. The day we celebrate Christ's birth, December 25th, was not chosen on the basis of historical evidence but rather to replace the pagan festival natalis solis invicti, the birth of the sun god Mithras, at winter solstice. The Christmas star that guided the Wise Men to Bethlehem may have been any of a number of recorded astronomical events coinciding with the likeliest dates of that first Christmas. Halley's Comet appeared in 12 B.C., and ancient Chinese texts note "exploding" stars, or novas, observed in both 4 and 5 B.C. Exceptionally bright planetary conjunctions occurred in 2, 6, and 7 B.C.; among these, the most promising candidate for the Holy Star was the triple conjunction of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in 6 B.C. The prophet Isaiah wrote of the coming Messiah, that "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light...." Clearly, well before the birth of Jesus, humans longed for light in the days of greatest darkness. Early Christians selected December 25th for the Nativity feast to proclaim that Jesus Christ was the real Light of the World, the true "Sun of Righteousness," as well as the Messiah foretold in Jewish faith. As Jesus later said, he had not come to destroy the law and the prophets of Judaism, but to fulfill them, and so he also fulfilled the deepest human longings expressed in other traditional celebrations. And we Christians believe these aspects of our human nature are not merely enduring, but eternal -- because we humans are all created in the image of Eternal God. Our American Christmas heritage derives, like so much else, from the mingled Christmas traditions of immigrants from many lands, with differing religious beliefs and customs of worship and celebration. Our name for this Holy Day arises from the old English Cristes Maesse, or Christ's Mass, and as the name suggests, the holiday was first observed in Early America among the Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Moravians who settled predominantly in the Middle Atlantic colonies and the South. Influenced by Puritanism and Calvinism, the New England Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists looked askance at a celebration they deemed based on "heathenistic traditions." New England colonial authorities outlawed Christmas from 1649 until 1658. The General Court of Massachusetts in 1659 set a fine of five shillings per offense, punishing the observance "of any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forebearing of labour, feasting, or any such way." Contemporaneously, the Assembly of Connecticut forbade the reading of the Book of Common Prayer, the keeping of Christmas and saints days, the making of mince pies, the playing of cards, or performing on any musical instruments. Peter Kalm, wrote on Christmas Day 1749, about Philadelphia's holiday: "Nowhere was Christmas Day celebrated with more solemnity than in the Roman Church. Three sermons were preached there, and that which contributed most to the splendor of the ceremony was the beautiful music heard to-day....Pews and altar were decorated with branches of mountain laurel, whose leaves are green in winter time and resemble the (cherry laurel)." Philip Fithian, of colonial Virginia, recorded in his diary entry for December 18, 1773: "When it grew to dark to dance....we conversed til half after six; Nothing is now to be heard of in conversation, but the Balls, the Fox-hunts, the fine entertainments, and the good fellowship, which are to be exhibited at the approaching Christmas." Fithian's Christmas Eve in 1775 diary entry from Staunton, Virginia, described other common pastimes of the holiday celebration: "The Evening I spent at Mr. Guys--I sung for an Hour, at the good Peoples Desire, Mr. Watts admirable Hymns--I myself was entertaind; I felt myself improvd; so much Love to Jesus is set forth--So much divine Exercise." But his 1775 Christmas Day entry noted the vastly different observances of the Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians: "Christmas Morning--Not A Gun is heard--Not a Shout--No company or Cabal assembled--To Day is like other Days every Way calm & temperate-- People go about their daily Business with the same Readiness, & apply themselves to it with the same Industry." The first state to declare Christmas a legal holiday was Massachusetts in 1856. Although, as late as 1886, an American Methodist newspaper termed Christmas a day "on which more sin and sacrilege and pagan foolishness is committed than on any other day of the year." Nevertheless, by the Civil War era, most of our shared Christmas traditions were set, and the January 3, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly featured a drawing of encamped soldiers receiving Christmas gifts from home. Nearly all Americans (96%) celebrate Christmas today in some form or another. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
