All posts Holiday trees in Rhode Island
11/29/2012 8:31:04 AM
By Carmen Fowler LaBerge with Scott Lamb
Related article College: Students Can’t Sell ‘Christmas’ Trees With leftover Thanksgiving turkey now gone, it must be time to pull down boxes of delicate ornaments and strands of electric lights from the attic. Yes, it is time to decorate the … holiday tree.
Let’s all sing together now:
O holiday tree, O holiday tree,
Thy candles shine so brightly.
You understand, don’t you, that if we call that evergreen sitting in the corner of our living room a “Christmas tree” then we will cause suffering to people who aren’t Christians. And, if an elected official – mayor, governor, school board president, etc. – refers to it as a “Christmas tree” then there would probably some violation of the First Amendment going on, right?
Well, maybe in Rhode Island.
In what has become an annual tradition of political correctness run amok, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee has once again opted for the label “holiday tree” as the official name for the decorated state fir. In his explanation, he dropped this Tannenbaum, er, bomb of illogic:
“I’m just continuing what other governors have done,” Chafee told the Boston Herald after dedicating a separate tree to soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I just want to make sure I’m doing everything possible in this building to honor Roger Williams.” …“In my own house, I’m free to have a Christmas tree, and it’s with great pride,” Chafee said.
Of course, a Christmas tree itself has no divine mandate. Christians are not commanded to put up trees and decorations, nor does Christ need us to defend His honor by demanding that secularized officials correctly label cultural items attached to our religious celebrations.
But even if we don’t take this “Christmas war” bait thrown at us by Governor Chafee, we can still pass judgment on his ridiculous nomenclature: this is just silly. Roger Williams must be rolling over in his grave when he hears his name and the idea of religious freedom being used to create vacuous pockets of religious emptiness.
The glory of the incarnation is that this “Immanuel, God with us” event ushered in the beginning of the end for the lostness of humanity. God became like us in order to redeem us, impute Christ’s righteousness to us, and eventually bring us to heaven – becoming like Christ in His glory.
Renaming a tree doesn’t change any of that. It is not all that easy to do away with Christmas. The Truth is the Truth whether people believe it or not. Jesus is Lord and currently resides in Heaven. Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, and no one can vote Him off the throne. People of faith have always lived in the context of a world that rejected the Truth for lies (read Romans 1).
Forget about Chafee, but don’t forget about the tree, especially the one on Calvary:
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’ – so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” Galatians 3:13-14 (ESV)