FOX NEWS host Megyn Kelly recently explored the widespread reluctance of public entities to embrace any mention of Christmas – let alone the religious themes that accompany it. Specifically, she pointed out the fact that the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., is now referring to the holiday as “Sparkle Day.”
Franklin Graham, son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, joined Kelly to discuss the extent to which Christianity has been relegated in our society and the root cause of the ongoing trend.
“It’s all over the country,” he said. “You have the secularists and the humanists who are wanting to take Jesus Christ out of his birthday and they want to deny he ever existed.”
Beyond the enclaves of atheist extremism, Graham noted that the push to erase any public mention of Christ is extending further into the nation’s various governmental tiers.
The faith leader offered a quick salvation message in the midst of the interview, noting that Jesus “came to this earth for a reason and that’s to save us from our sins.”
To accept Christ’s free gift of salvation, he noted, one must only believe in Him. At this point in America’s evolution, Graham suggested, the grace of God through His Son is desperately needed.
“Our hearts need to be healed,” he said. “We look at all of our problems – the violence that we have, the discord in our country, the separation we see between the Democrats and the Republicans, between the races. It is only Jesus Christ that can bring us back.”
Kelly then asked her guest to respond to the prevalence of sex and violence in our culture, which seems to increase as religious expression is curtailed.
“We are glorifying sin,” he said, “and people have got to understand that God takes sin seriously because sin will separate us from God for eternity.”
In addition to ‘Sparkle Day’ in Pittsburgh, the host mentioned several other examples of Christmas being removed from public settings. A courthouse in Minnesota, for example, banned the display of red poinsettias based on their ostensibly Christian connotations.
“That’s the world in which we live,” Graham lamented, noting that Christians must not accept this assault on their faith passively.
“A lot of times Christians are polite and they don’t want to be confronting anybody or fighting anybody,” he concluded, “so they just back off. I think it’s time that Christians need to write their politicians, need to stand up and defend their rights; because if you don’t, we’ll lose them.” Western Journalism
