Good Grief! More Thoughts on Charlie Brown and Culture Wars

by: Godsbooklover

My brother wrote about our mutual favorite holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, a couple of days ago.   Since he’s away for the weekend, I thought I’d throw in my two cents on why I love this program (which is nearly as old as I am) so much…

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He has a round head and a knobby nose, his dog wins more contests than he ever will, and even his friends all call him a loser. He talks through a megaphone but no one listens to him.  And when he chooses a “sincere” Christmas tree, everybody laughs.

I know I’m not eccentric or even unusual in naming A Charlie Brown Christmas as my all-time favorite televised holiday special.  I was probably six or seven when I saw it for the first time.  Having followed the Sunday Peanuts strip since before I could read, the characters felt to me like old friends.  Watching the annual telecast became one of my most-anticipated Christmas rituals.

Charlie Brown, the War on Christmas, and what it means for the culture-at-large

Just saw my first “War on Christmas” story for 2012, from a group called ‘Arkansas Society of Freethinkers‘ doing the annual secularist freak-out.

But as you read this, remember: the repeated refrain we hear in the media is that there IS no such ‘war’, and that it’s a contrived creation of the “Christian right” and Fox News.

From Statepress.com:

“This isn’t about Charlie Brown or Christmas, it’s about the separation of church and state,” Anne Orsi, the vice president The Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, said in her statement voicing opposition to the actions taken by the Terry Elementary School in Little Rock, Ark.

The school took students to a [stage] performance of “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown,” reinvigorating a debate between the pious and secular.

The school should not have taken the children to see this play, regardless of giving the option to attend. Not because it violates the Constitution or breaks freedom of religion, but because the state should not have any say in the spiritual or religious education of our children…