Secularized Lyrics for 'Silent Night'? No, Disinformation from the Christian Right

Have you heard about the school that re-wrote the lyrics to the song Silent Night in order to avoid violating the separation of church and state? If so, you were the victim of a disinformation campaign of lies from the Christian Right. The facts of the case are far different from what the Christian Right reported. Is anyone surprised?

Baptist Press reports:

“When a school changes ‘Silent Night’ to ‘Cold in the Night’ and secularizes the lyrics, it is hostile to Christianity, and its actions violate the First Amendment,” Liberty Counsel President Mathew Staver told Baptist Press.

“The law is clear that Christmas is constitutional, and when a public school intentionally mocks Christian Christmas songs by secularizing their content, they cross the line from being neutral to putting itself in a hostile position.”

The American Family Association issued a press release:

[Mat Staver] says Ridgeway is now a target of Liberty Counsel’s “Friend or Foe” campaign. “As a result of this absurdness, Liberty Counsel has issued a demand letter on behalf of a parent whose child attends this elementary school, and who will be participating in this program if the school does not back down.” That demand letter, he says, asks for an immediate change in the program -- or Liberty Counsel will file suit.

These are typical of reports that appeared in Christian Right outlets, and they reveal that most of the problems probably stem from Mat Staver and the Liberty Council. The school did not “change” the song or “secularize” the lyrics. The school did not violate the First Amendment. The school did not mock Christianity, Christians, or Christians’ Christmas songs. The school was not in a position of being hostile towards Christianity.

The truth is that the school was putting on a recognized, known play about a little Christmas tree. This play has songs which tell the story while using familiar tunes from traditional Christmas carols. This are not secularized Christmas songs, they are completely different songs being used for a different purpose while utilizing familiar music.

The Star Tribune, which is actually a reputable news source, provides the full truth about the situation:

Diane Messer, administrator of the Dodgeville School District, said the holiday show is titled “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift’’ and was copyrighted in 1988. It’s about a family that goes to buy a Christmas tree and uses a collection of familiar Christmas carol melodies to tell the story.

“Somebody totally misunderstood and had the belief that one of our teachers took it upon herself to rewrite the words to ‘Silent Night,’’’ she said. “This program is well within our district’s policy which allows us the use of both religious and secular content in our curriculum and in our productions and performances.’’ ...

[D]istrict administrator Frances Smith said school officials didn’t eliminate any songs, only chose songs out of a songbook, and the ones selected included some traditional Christmas music. “We did not change any words, there was that accusation leveled at us,’’ Smith said. “Our students were singing the songs that were in the book.’’

A glance of the song listing for the program, called Holiday Sing, includes the carol “Angels We Have Heard On High’’ and the song “Let There Be Peace on Earth.’’

Think Progress points out:

That play actually contains numerous songs about Christmas, including the grand finale, an audience-led group singing of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” The play’s creator, Dwight Elrich, happens to lead the New Covenant Singers of Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles.

In fact, “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift” has been performed in several churches, including the Oakwood Forest Christian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee, the St. Anthony Parish School in Des Moines, Iowa, and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church of Abeline, Texas.

It’s inconceivable that Mat Staver was unaware of the origins of the song and the play when he launched his misbegotten crusade. I don’t believe that he is that irresponsible. I do believe, however, that he is dishonest enough to know the truth but still launch a crusade that misrepresents the truth in order to score political points — and he was successful.

The people who listened to Mat Staver never got the full truth and mistakenly trusted his account, so they flooded the school with complaints and forced the school to change its program. The school should have just informed callers that they were misinformed by people they should never have trusted to tell the full truth in the first place, but that would have required a lot more work and a stiffer spine.

Why does the Christian Right lie? Because it works — and because they have apparently lost the ability to deal with reality in the first place.

Rick Duncan, a law professor at the University of Nebraska, has said that writing a Christmas song unrelated to Christianity while using traditional religious music is analogous in some way to taking a song about Martin Luther King and re-writing the lyrics to praise segregation. This is a sign, I think, of just how far off the deep end the Christian Right has fallen (it might also be a sign of how ignorant they are of some common practices in the musical and artistic world, but given how insulated the evangelical community can be, this wouldn’t be a surprise).

How can anyone argue that an absence of Christianity is the equivalent to hostility towards Christianity and expect to be taken seriously? Yet this is precisely the general attitude which the Christian Right has adopted today. I guess this absence of intellectual seriousness is a sign that Rick Duncan and his ilk are hostile to being intellectually serious.

 

Read More:

• Christmas Wars: Recent News
• Christmas Wars: Overview, Rebuttal
• What do Atheists do During Christmas Holidays?
• Should Atheists Ignore Christmas?
• Are Atheists and Secularists Undermining Christmas?
• Is Jesus the Reason for the Season?
• Sources of Christmas Traditions, Modern and Ancient
• Are the Gospels Reliable About Jesus' Birth?
• Should Parents Perpetuate the Santa Claus Myth?
• Christmas Symbols, Christmas Holidays
• Christmas: Religious or Secular?