Christmas Message
The following is a reprint of the Phyllis Schlafly Column, which was published on December 25, 1975.
The Angel Gabriel said to the virgin engaged to Joseph the carpenter: “Hail, Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. You shall conceive and bring forth a Son, and shall call his name Jesus.”
Mary said to the angel, “How can this be since I know not man?” The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you. The holy child who will be born of you shall be called the Son of God.” And Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word.”
The birth of the Son of God is the most important event in all history. We measure our time from then, nineteen hundred and seventy-five years ago. At that time, Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus was the most powerful person in the world. Today, the Emperor is forgotten, but Christmas, the birthday of Christ, is being celebrated everywhere, except in the one-fourth of the world controlled by Communism.
Man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, poverty, suffering, disease and death might drive us to black despair if there had never been a first Christmas. Across twenty centuries, we are sustained because the Son of God came on earth and suffered poverty, injustice, pain and death, so that we may all be eligible for eternal happiness.
We should heed the message from the One whose birthday we celebrate today: Love God. Keep His Commandments. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren, you do for Me. If you would be perfect, give what you have to the poor and follow Me.
Amidst all the problems in the world today, let us pause to rejoice in the message that the angel brought to the shepherds on that first Christmas: “I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all people. For this day is born a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.”
Christmas Hope
The following is a reprint of the Phyllis Schlafly Column published on December 24, 1974. With just a few changes, our late founder’s message could easily apply to 2022.
If there ever was a time when the world needs the Christmas message of Hope, it is today. On all sides we are confronted by the prophets of gloom and doom. The environmentalists foresee a dismal future of man’s greed consuming the earth. The population control specialists predict the world is running out of space.
The economic forecasters tell us that inflation will be with us for years, and we will continue to be short of oil. Henry Kissinger takes a defeatist view of foreign affairs and says that the United States “could not win an arms race” against the Soviets and therefore must accept whatever terms they demand.
All these dire warnings from the experts are having a depressing effect. From the American worker concerned about keeping his job, to the Israeli soldier who worries about his country’s survival, the attitude is growing that the future is bleak and that our fate is controlled by powerful forces over which we have no control.
Our religion teaches that we must avoid both Presumption and Despair. Presumption is the sin of believing that God will take care of everything so there is no need for the individual to do anything to improve himself. Despair is the sin of believing that all is lost, that nothing we can do will make any difference.
It is time for each of us to listen to the Christmas message of Hope — the invitation to men of good will everywhere to tread a narrow line of faith and action that succumbs neither to Presumption nor to Despair.
To have Hope is not to be a Pollyanna or a chaser of rainbows, but to be pragmatically realistic. In 1939, the New York World’s Fair was called “The World of Tomorrow.” The best intellectual, scientific, and business minds came there to display their most imaginative ideas for the coming decade.
Yet, look at all the major areas of invention and progress they missed: jet airplanes, transistors, computers, antibiotics, nuclear energy, and space travel. The reality of progress turned out to be more spectacular than man’s most vivid imagination.
The truth is that there is no ceiling on man’s ingenuity and resourcefulness to cope with problems — so long as we operate in the American climate of freedom. When we combine the Christmas message of Hope, with the can-do philosophy that carved our great nation out of the wilderness, we will surely find that our future is brighter than any of us could ever dream.
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