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For the adults this Christmas season

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Jim Thompson

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

I am going to attempt to write this in a way the little ones get no news from me. What you tell your children is your business, but I intend to challenge it here.

My brother and I were raised to focus on Christ at Christmas, not any other being, real or imagined. I raised my daughter the same way.

Secularizing Christmas is like saying Easter is about Peter Cottontail. It is robbing our children of the truths that we commemorate and that are important.

If you choose to tell your children a “story” about Christmas, and then as they get older, change that story, how are they supposed to know the truth?

It is like taking a prisoner out of jail and putting them on the witness stand to testify for or against a person being prosecuted for a crime. This is the easiest testimony for a lawyer to break, “Now, tell me, are you now telling the truth when you lied to the court in your own case? Why should we believe you now?”

Then, later in life, already having been lied to as a child, how does one discern the truth when it comes to the big subjects of the day?

For instance, these scientists and others that want me to believe their stories about climate change and global warming, I want to ask them what stories they told their kids when they were little, and if it was the holiday season. I suspect I know the answer.  

My next question: If you will lie to a child, how do I know you are not lying to me now?

Our church just completed a series on the Ten Commandments. In the sermon titled, “You shall not bear false witness” covering Exodus 20:16, our pastor cited studies that confirm that most adults lie three or four times within a 20-minute conversation. This is just routine, and we don’t even think about it.

Apparently, our modern culture has numbed us to the act of lying, that of both receiving and telling lies.  

Other studies will tell you we live in the most cynical of times. No one believes anything.

It used to be we treated the words of politicians with skepticism and the words of scientists as the truth. Now we do not discern the source – all may be lies.

And just perhaps this starts with what we tell our kids at the high Holy holidays. Think about it and think about what you are telling your kids this Christmas.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.

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