Banning the Word Easter

Alabama’s radio station WHNT reported that an elementary school principal allowed teachers and students to hold normal Easter celebrations, but banned the uses of the term “Easter.” The principal claimed her authority for this ridiculous rule was “religious diversity conflicts.” The school in Madison, Alabama, called Heritage Elementary, still had an egg hunt and a costumed rabbit, but Principal Lydia Davenport said neither could be referred to using the word “Easter.” She said it was ok to still feature a bunny, but she said, “we just make sure we don’t say ‘the Easter bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others because people relate the Easter bunny to religion.” The principal allowed the egghunt to go on, but she ruled that the prizes had to be of different shapes rather than just eggs. No explanation was given about what restrictions were put on the egg hunt, but presumably it was the fear that somebody might slip up and call one of the eggs an “Easter egg.”

DeToqueville Admires Our Christianity

Alexis de Toqueville is a name well-known to educated Americans as a remarkable Frenchman who traveled our country in the mid-19th century and wrote his perceptive commentaries about what kind of country we had formed. His book, published in 1835 after nine months of traveling, was called Democracy in America. It has been described as "the most comprehensive ... analysis of character and society in America ever written."

Here are some words of wisdom from Alexis de Toqueville's book, which I think would be appropriate on the day after the great Christian feast of Easter: "Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention.... In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united." Alexis de Toqueville continued: "The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.... They brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion."

Then, in Book Two of Democracy in America, de Tocqueville added this: "Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America.... In the United States ... Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it."

This is just more confirmation of the fact that the people who created America believed in their right and duty to call upon Almighty God and His Son Jesus Christ in all kinds of public places and events.

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The Book That Made Your World

Every now and then it's interesting to have a foreigner give his impressions of how different he sees the America we think we know. That's what Alexis de Toqueville famously did in the 1830s. Now, a scholar from the country of India named Vishal Mangalwadi is the author of a book that presents a view of history that is both informative and provocative. It's called The Book That Made Your World. As a young man growing up in India, Mangalwadi wondered how the Western world became so successful while his own native India remained backward and in the "clutches of poverty." He came to the belief that the Bible created the soul of Western civilization, that the Bible is the root of all that is good in literature, science, education, and government. He says that the belief that man is made in the image of God, that man has creative ideas, a soul, and a freewill radically changed the world and its inhabitants.

More Evidence about Washington’s Religious Faith

**Previously recorded by Phyllis Schlafly**

For many, many years, Americans observed today, February 22, as George Washington’s Birthday. Several years ago, under pressure from the unions, Congress made Washington’s Birthday one of our legal three-day weekends and passed a law that Washington’s Birthday should be observed on the third Monday in February. So we enjoyed our three-day weekend last week. But today gives us another opportunity to remind listeners about the true greatness of the man who is properly called “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.”