Conservatives’ Christianization of Christmas and the Left’s Multiculturalism Are Both Un-American

David Greenberg of Rutgers posted a guest editorial in the New Jersey Star-Ledger just before Christmas 2017 lamenting the battle over holiday greetings. He writes, in part, in an article titled ‘“How Christmas Became a Political Hot Potato” published in the print edition [but not, to my knowledge, online] on December 23:

The holiday season is here again, and as a break from arguing about sexual harassment, we can all look forward to a lovely spell of denouncing and unfriending one another over which holiday greetings to use. 

With Donald Trump as president, we can be sure that no cultural scab will go unpicked. After all, among his many pioneering achievements, Trump is our first president to win the White House— at least in part — on a pledge to roll back the freedom to say “Happy Holidays.” 

“I’m a good Christian,” he insisted on the campaign trail. “If I become president, we’re gonna be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ at every store. ... You can leave ‘Happy holidays’ at the corner.”

How on Earth did such an innocent gesture become so politically charged?

Of course, the Christian Right has been railing about “Happy Holidays” for a long time. It’s part of their campaign to fight an imagined “War on Christmas” and to lecture us to “keep Christ in Christmas.” But Greenberg makes the valid point that Christmas has become increasingly secular:

The secular consensus gained strength in the 1960s and ’70s, as the Supreme Court ruled prayer in public schools to be unconstitutional and otherwise reinforced the traditional wall between church and state. 

As recently as a few years ago, Trump bade his fellow Americans “a wonderful holiday” and “happy holiday season” — precisely the sort of inclusive messaging that he would assail as a candidate.

This is true. I would add that, since Christmas was made a legal holiday by both the Federal and state Governments, it is by definition a secular holiday. How can a religious holiday be a legal holiday in a nation dedicated to the separation of religion and state? It can’t—not without violating the constitutional protection of religious freedom and freedom of conscience. This issue went before U.S. District Court in Ganulin v. United States, in which the Court ruled that the recognition of Christmas as a legal holiday for purposes of a paid day off did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because “the Christmas holiday has become largely secularized” and that the government was “doing no more than recognizing the cultural significance of the holiday.” The attempt by any political leader to Christianize Christmas is therefor un-American. People are free to celebrate the Christmas season in any way they like, with or without Christ, with or without religion, and with or without the greeting “Merry Christmas”. That’s America.


But the Left’s “solution” to the Christian Right’s pushback against “Happy Holidays” is at least as bad, if not worse. Greenberg goes on:

As the Republican Party adopted a right-wing populism on cultural issues, it was only a matter of time before this delicate balance was upset. The country grew polarized. 

Democrats championed multiculturalism and drew on their civil libertarian bona fides to paint themselves as the natural home for Muslims, Hindus and members of other religions whose ranks were swelling. On the right, Christian leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson led evangelicals into the political fray, forming a bedrock of a new GOP coalition.

Multiculturalism is a rejection of American culture, which is rooted in individualism.

More precisely, multiculturalism obliterates the very idea that America has its own culture. It rejects the idea that all people are created equal by virtue of our common humanity as beings possessing the capacity for reason, for which it follows that every single one of us should be judged on the content of our character, not our race, cultural background, national origin, or other insignificant attribute. Under a veneer of “inclusiveness”, multiculturalism sneaks in collectivism by tribalizing America into racial, cultural, or ethnic group identities, undercutting American culture and the individual rights that automatically flow from that individualist culture. The corollary of this is to undercut the principle of inalienable individual rights, held equally by all individuals, and protected equally at all times by government under the law—and to switch the concept of rights from the individual to the group, paving the way for government to favor some groups over others at the expense of political equality.

Whether the religious conservatives’ attempt to Christianize the secular end-of-year Christmas season is a reaction to the Left’s multiculturalism, or the other way around, both are an attack on Americanism. I reject both viewpoints. America is neither a Christian nation nor a multicultural nation. It is an American nation—a nation of the Enlightenment including the values of reason, individualism, freedom of conscience, and free market capitalism.

Related Reading:

A ‘War on Christmas?’ No: A War on non-Christians

Move Over, ‘Happy Holidays’: Starbucks’ Cup Opens a New Front in the ‘War on Christmas’

Christmas: A Holiday for All

"Learning Experience", or Anti-Americanism?