Taking the Fear Out of Christmas
Is it politically correct to use the word "Christmas" in public school settings anymore?
"You try to stay away from terms like 'Christmas.' Don't associate the upcoming holiday with any particular religion."
Those instructions from the principal of a Loudoun County, Va., high school were issued to the staff of the school newspaper at this time last year.
Editors of the Loudoun Raider reluctantly canceled three stories planned for the December 1993 issue, including a feature on how youngsters at a nearby elementary school perceived Christmas.
The high-school principal, Edward Starzenski, didn't base his strict mandate against Christmas on a pathological hatred of Jesus Christ. Instead, his action was rooted in fear. The school was facing a lawsuit from two groups---the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State---over a prayer held at the school's graduation ceremony the previous spring.
"We were very intimidated by the ACLU," Loudoun School Board member Beth LaRock told Citizen. "We were overly cautious" as Christmas approached, in order to avoid a similar controversy.
Scared Into Submission
While the safeguards at Loudoun High School might seem extreme, religious-rights lawyers say that public-school officials across the nation are overreacting in order to protect themselves from frivolous lawsuits filed by the legal Left.
"A lot of schools won't even call it 'Christmas' anymore. Fear seems to be ruling the day," said Kelly Schackelford, southwest regional coordinator for the Rutherford Institute.
"Because liberal secularist organizations have threatened school districts so often, administrators are scared," added Steve McFarland, director of the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "School officials have come to the conclusion that [acknowledging Christmas] is a bigger headache than it's worth, so they pretend it doesn't even exist."
Christian lawyers say that in recent years, lawsuits filed against schools by groups such as the ACLU have declined. But that's not necessarily a good sign.
"The drop in lawsuits may be good news, but it's also bad news in that it reflects how a lot of school districts have been cowed into submission and have sanitized their curriculum from any legitimate, objective acknowledgment of Christmas," McFarland said.
An ACLU bulletin on the topic says this.
"The Establishment Clause prohibits public schools from sponsoring holiday observances-including Christmas programs or Christmas pageants-that promote or emphasize the religious significance of the holiday," the bulletin states.
That kind of language scares some school officials.
"Many school administrators would love to teach about the birth of Christ at Christmas, but they don't, because they fear getting into legal trouble," said Janis Price, director of field experience for the Education Department at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind.
Price spends time in many schools and is familiar with the concerns of school officials.
"Christians are running scared," she says. "They can do a whole lot more than they think."
Completely Legal
Schools don't have to be the Grinch that outlawed Christmas. Legal precedent, Christian attorneys say, clearly permits Christmas observations.
"It is completely legal to recognize and teach the historical and religious basis for holidays in the classroom," said Shackelford of the Rutherford Institute. "There's nothing wrong with celebrating the holidays; it just has to be done in an objective way."
Teachers maintain objectivity by instructing but not endorsing, added Greg Baylor, assistant director of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "It's completely okay for schools to teach students about the origins of religious holidays. Teachers can educate, but not indoctrinate."
For instance, class Christmas celebrations do not violate the Establishment Clause as long as religious implications are not made the entire focus. Otherwise, children from non-religious families may feel pressured toward a particular faith.
Similarly, Christmas musicals are entirely legal as long as there is an appropriate mix of secular and religious songs, and an appropriate mix of different faiths among the religious songs. "The bottom line is that there's good news and bad news," Baylor continued. "Public schools can acknowledge religious holidays; however, these holidays cannot legally be acknowledged in a way that gives them the full significance they're entitled to. That responsibility rests with parents and churches."
Effective Persuasion
What can Christians do to put Christmas back in the classroom? The first step is to counteract the prevalent legal confusion.
"The press hasn't been very good at covering cases, so [school officials] have the mindset that they're going to be sued by the ACLU," Shackelford said.
So Christian lawyers are trying to reassure school officials. Last year the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) sent letters to every school superintendent in the nation summarizing court decisions that permit recognition of religious holidays in public schools. ACLJ offered to assist any school official who had questions.
"No court has ever banned the singing of religious Christmas carols by public-school choirs," the letter stated. "The only case to have ever addressed this issue upheld the singing of religious Christmas carols in public schools."
The letter told officials that it "would be constitutional for a public-school teacher to have students study the Biblical passages that relate to Christmas (e.g., Matthew 1:18-2:22 and Luke 2:1-20) if the purpose was to study the historical or literary significance of the passages."
School districts "are under no constitutional obligation to rename 'Christmas vacation' as 'winter vacation' or some similar name," the ACLJ letter stated. "The Supreme Court itself has acknowledged with approval that Congress gives federal employees a paid holiday on December 25 and Congress calls it 'Christmas.'"
The ACLJ plans to send a similar letter this year.
Opening Doors
Once school officials are convinced of the legality of recognizing Christmas, they are still under no obligation to include it as part of the curriculum
That's where parents come in.
Eric Buehrer, head of Gateways to Better Education and a former school teacher, wanted to assist parents who wished to return Christmas to the classroom. So Buehrer developed A Gift for Teacher, an eight-page Christmas card. In the card's story, Santa Claus visits a public school teacher who prohibits students from learning about the birth of Christ because of supposed church-and-state entanglements.
Santa tells teachers they can legally teach about Jesus' birth, provides documentation from court cases and offers constitutionally allowed lesson plans about Christmas that teachers can incorporate into their classrooms.
"The card clarifies for teachers what they actually can do in the classroom," Buehrer said. "When nearly the entire nation is celebrating Christmas, an objective explanation of its origin is undeniably allowable in schools."
Ann Pullem of Loveland, Ohio, bought two cards last year. She gave one to the local elementary-school principal and the other to her daughter's kindergarten teacher.
"After reading it, the teacher replied that she had never thought about [acknowledging Christmas]," Pullem said.
The teacher allowed Pullem to present the story of the birth of Christ to the class.
" I brought in the creche and my Advent wreath, and I made a little work-paper for the kids," said Pullem. "[The card] really helped open the door."
Buehrer distributed more than 10,000 of the cards last year. Many churches offered the cards to their congregations.
"Our whole philosophy is not about winning a political battle. It's about winning the hearts of the teachers," Buehrer said. "The neat thing is that the ACLU can't do anything about that!"
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