J. D. Pendry

My town of Saint Albans is small even by small town standards.  The City’s web site lists 10 churches.  I assure you that it’s closer to 50 than it is to 10.  There are probably more than 10 within a one-mile radius of where I now sit typing.  Rush hour traffic here is between 10 and 11 on Sundays and again at 1230 when there’s a mad dash for Mayberry’s Restaurant and other local eateries.  Baptists like to eat, but so do Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics….  You’d think that with such a Church presence, organizations like the ACLU would take their anti-religious freedom and anti freedom of expression wars elsewhere.  Old Soldiers are reading this (I hope) and thinking that the ACLU is violating a basic principal of war, which is to attack your enemy at his weakest point not his strongest.  Unfortunately, that’d be a wrong assumption.  This is why.  When all of those churches fill on Sundays (and they do fill) there are still more people who don’t attend than do.  Secondly, small towns don’t generally have sufficient cash in their coffers to fight protracted legal battles with the well-funded anti-Christian organizations like the ACLU.  Fortunately, there are organizations willing to confront them on behalf of these communities.We are a little hard headed here in a small town named for a Saint martyred for his conversion to Christianity.  In 2002, a Saint Albans High School senior of the spiked hair, body-piercing religion, filed a lawsuit to prevent a student led prayer at graduation.  David Limbaugh recounts the story in his book, Persecution.  A judge issued an order forbidding the student led prayer.  At the point in the graduation ceremony where the prayer would have been, many of the graduating seniors defied the judge by standing and reciting the Lord’s Prayer.  In typical fashion, Spike the atheist didn’t attend graduation and the judge didn’t order anyone arrested for exercising his or her right of free expression.I haven’t figured out what is so offensive or threatening about Christianity.  Yet, each year at Christmas time, people claim the sight of a baby and what it represents offends them.  Convert or die theology or the religious symbols of homicide bombers and be-headers don’t offend them, but they cannot tolerate the image of a baby.  A baby sent as a gift to save them from themselves.Mayor Dick Callaway has been our mayor for only few months.  Dick is also my Sunday School Teacher and a friend.  At our Church Christmas program on Saturday night, I asked him about our missing Jesus.  I also added, jokingly, that my Daughter-in-law told me that if Saint Albans couldn’t find Jesus for Christmas we were welcome in her home, because he’d be there.  I learned from Dick that our park superintendent was acting on bad advice and bad information.  If the Nativity was the lone display on city owned property, it might be an issue.  Problem is, communities nowadays so fear attacks by the ACLU and others, it’s assumed that any display of the Nativity on city owned property would bring unwanted challenges.  The ACLU is frightening people away from Christianity.  Maybe that’s their goal.Our Festival of Lights in the city’s park consists of more than 150 light displays.  The Nativity display is just one of them therefore not challengeable as a Church state issue.On Saturday afternoon, the Mayor put Baby Jesus, the reason for the season, back in the Nativity.