By Lewis Loflin
Lewis Loflin here. Ron Paul’s 2003 piece below cuts to a fight I’ve watched unfold for years: the secular push to strip religion—especially Christianity—from public life. I’ve tracked these cultural rifts before, from A Deist Critique of Anti-Christian Zealotry to my takes on shifting identities in Immigration Policy and Identity Politics. In 2025, with Christmas still under siege and faith sidelined, Paul’s warning about elitist secularism rings truer than ever. Here’s his case.
By Rep. Ron Paul, MD
As we mark another Yuletide, Christmas in America feels hollowed out. Most celebrate it, and even non-celebrants largely respect its traditions, yet that shared goodwill—the Christmas spirit—is fading. A war on religion threatens to bury it.
Through twisted court rulings and decades of cultural pressure, the elitist, secular Left has convinced many that religion must vanish from public sight. The excuse? Someone, somewhere, might feel uneasy in a mostly Christian society, so all must bend to the few. Their endgame: a fully secular America, legally and culturally tilted against Christianity.
This bias has gutted Christmas traditions. Schools and halls ban pageants and Handel’s *Messiah*. Nativity scenes vanish from town squares—or get flak even on church lawns. Office Christmas parties? Now “seasonal” affairs to dodge “hostile environment” gripes. Even Santa and snowmen catch heat as too Christmas-y. This month, Chicago-area firemen yanked decorations from their station after one complainer squawked. “Merry Christmas” has given way to the bland “Happy Holidays”—but what holiday? Is Christmas a dirty word now? Why let secularists bully us into muting our deepest celebration?
The “rigid separation of church and state” isn’t in the Constitution or the Founders’ writings. Both the Declaration and Constitution nod to God—their drafters would recoil at today’s federal hostility to faith. The First Amendment’s establishment clause just barred an official state church, not religion in public life. The Founders saw a Christian, tolerant America where churches outshone the state, teaching morality and civility no government can.
Moral, civil folks govern themselves, needing little state oversight. That’s why the collectivist Left despises religion: churches rival the state for loyalty, and devout souls often put God first. Secularists chip away at our Christian roots, and Christmas could be their next casualty.
December 30, 2003
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
Acknowledgment: I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me draft and refine this article. The final edits and perspective are my own.
