Christian Attorneys Defend Seniors Who Want to Celebrate Christmas

Christmas, Religious Freedom, , ,

This week Tony Perkins of Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., wrote about senior citizens who were told they could not celebrate Christmas at their living center in Washington State.

Providence Place senior center reportedly told residents they could not put up Christmas decorations, sing carols, or exchange Christmas greetings, because the center accepts federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

One resident contacted attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom about the situation. The attorneys promptly sent a letter to Providence Place explaining that federal policies cannot be used to squelch residents’ free speech and free exercise of religion.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time someone has tried to claim the Bill of Rights prevents everyday citizens from celebrating Christmas.

Public schools routinely try to stop students and teachers from wishing one another a merry Christmas. In 2013 a VA hospital in Georgia prohibited high school Christmas carolers from singing religious songs to veterans.

The First Amendment was intended to protect the free exercise of religion. It was never meant to stop anyone from following their faith or from saying, “Merry Christmas!”

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Satanic Temple Intervening in Lawsuit Against AR Ten Commandments Monument

Religious Freedom, , ,

Yesterday U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker allowed the Satanic Temple to intervene in a lawsuit over the state’s monument of the Ten Commandments on the Arkansas Capitol lawn.

In 2015 the Arkansas Legislature authorized the privately funded Ten Commandments monument that is identical to a monument the U.S. Supreme Court ruled constitutional in Texas a few years ago.

However, last June the American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit against the state to have the monument removed. Now the Satanic Temple will be part of that lawsuit as well.

Both the Satanic Temple and the Freedom From Religion Foundation have made headlines recently over their efforts to oppose Christmas celebrations and displays.

In Ohio the Freedom From Religion Foundation successfully bullied a town into removing a Ten Commandments monument and a Nativity scene from public property.

In the Illinois capitol rotunda the Satanic Temple installed a temporary “Snaketivity” display that features a human hand holding an apple with a snake coiled around it. Beneath the statue read the words, “Knowledge Is The Greatest Gift.”

As we have said before, city, county, and state officials are free to celebrate Christmas. Courts also have ruled that the government can recognize the significant impact of the Ten Commandments down through the years.

We need to understand and appreciate the significance of the Ten Commandments — including their impact on our system government and their relevance to us still today. Unfortunately some groups seem determined to erase anything that acknowledges that significance from the public sphere.

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Unhitch From the Ten Commandments? No.

Current Events, Religious Freedom, ,

Last month we wrote about the unnecessary controversy surrounding Arkansas’ monument of the Ten Commandments. You may recall a group parked a satanic statue in front of the Arkansas Capitol Building for a short time to protest the state’s monument of the Ten Commandments.

As a result, more than a few Christians questioned whether or not the state should remove the Ten Commandments monument from the capitol lawn. We have written about why that’s a bad idea.

Today our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview have published a commentary explaining why the Ten Commandments are still important for us today.

John Stonestreet writes,

What’s the only passage in Scripture personally written down by God? If you answered “the Ten Commandments,” you’re right on the money. Exodus tells us that God audibly spoke these laws at Mount Sinai and inscribed them on tablets of stone with His own finger.

Of course, that’s not the only reason the Ten Commandments have a central place in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Christians have long understood them to be the clearest expression of God’s eternal moral character. Not to mention, they played an instrumental role in shaping Western civilization, including forming the foundation of our legal system and our understanding of justice. It’s why Moses and those tablets can be found at the apex of the U.S. Supreme Court. . . .

The moral principles expressed in the Ten Commandments didn’t come into existence at Sinai. They’re part of God’s eternal character which He built into the very fabric of reality itself. Even more, Jesus relied on the Old Testament throughout His ministry and in His teaching, especially when making the moral case for something. The reason, from a Christian worldview, is clear: Whether we’re talking about the moral principles expressed in the Ten Commandments which Christ perfectly kept or the ceremonial regulations of Leviticus which foreshadowed our perfect High Priest, all of the Old Testament is relevant to Christianity.

We need to understand and appreciate the significance of the Ten Commandments — including their impact on our system government and their relevance to us still today.

You can read or listen to John Stonestreet’s entire commentary here.

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