The “U.S. Capitol Holiday Tree”

National Review Online is upset about the “U.S. Capitol Holiday Tree” in Washington, D.C., another attack on Christmas. But what argument, finally, do they have against it? If you believe that the government ought to honor and celebrate Christmas, then you believe that the government ought to express and favor Christianity. If you believe that the government ought to express and favor Christianity, then you believe that society, and the state which is the society’s political expression, has a substantive character which is at least in part Christian. But you cannot believe all that, and at the same time believe that the essence of America—and its global mission—is the elevation of universal democracy, since universal democracy requires the strict secularization of the state.

Years ago, I was shocked when Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition endorsed the secular-liberal idea of America as a “level playing field.” I had thought that the Christian Coalition believed in the idea of America as a Christian country. It turned out that, at least in the public realm, the Christian Coalition’s allegiance to liberalism trumped its allegiance to Christianity. As long as the same remains true of conservatives generally, their argument against the “U.S. Capitol Holiday Tree” remains nothing more than an unprincipled exception. (To get an idea of what I mean by unprincipled exception, you could start by reading this and this and this.)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 22, 2003 09:32 AM | Send