A sure sign Christmas is over

And it's time to get back to sectarian business:

Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests attacked each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning on Thursday.

Palestinian [!] police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon* to separate the two sides.

That's more like it. All is well with the world again, and the Lamb of God who came to take away its sins has been safely put back in storage for another revolution of the Earth 'round the Sun.

Priests brawl at Jesus' birthplace

* Must be a local delicacy; I've only had it with chicken and prosciutto.

Chad Fradette: Wise man or sorcerer?

Interesting comment here posted by one of the Green Bay Nativity scene agitators, Taku Ronsman. Ronsman confirms that Chad Fradette, who originally installed the Jesus, Mary, and Joseph figurines, did so as an act of political defiance. Ronsman quotes the city councilman as saying, “I'll keep going on this until this group [the Freedom From Religion Foundation] imposing Madison values crawls back into its hole and never crawls out.”

Another remarkable observation is attributed by Ms. Ronsman to Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt, characterizing the Wiccan pentacle that was installed and subsequently vandalized for its “association with witchcraft,” and regretting, on those grounds, his decision to allow it in the first place.

This would explain the absence from the Nativity scene of the “wise men from the east” introduced in Matthew 2:1 (unless Fradette is planning on erecting them at a later date). One needn't be a credentialed etymologist to recognize the derivative forms of “Magi,” which is the term for the wise men used by the New International Version of Matthew.*

Not only that, but the same Greek word that's translated as “wise men” and “Magi” becomes “sorcerer” in Acts 13:6. How's that for political correctness? When you're facilitating the illegal immigration of the Nativity set into Egypt, you're a wise man, but when you're a Jewish false prophet, you're a sorcerer.

So I wouldn't be so quick to denounce the Wiccans for their “association with witchcraft” while at the same time celebrating some Iranian sorcerers for their gifts and their heroic protection of the Saviour against the depredations of King Herod.

The Green Bay Press-Gazette has an entertaining account of last night's public meeting and council vote, including the entreaties of one Tim Entringer, who declares Christianity the One True Religion™ and therefore its god(s) must be kept on the roof of City Hall.

* My default Bible is the KJV, for the poetry.

This should be good

Mayor Jim Schmitt said ... no further displays would be put up until the City Council debates the guidelines he drew up with City Attorney Allison Swanson, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported Tuesday.

The guidelines include provisions limiting religious displays to the month of December and requiring them to contain legitimate religious symbolism.

No word yet on who gets to decide that. Or on the novel (and ancient) questions raised by a government religious requirement.

The Christmas brouhaha in Green Bay gets sillier by the moment, and Schmitt has banned all seasonal decorations — save for the Nativity scene — until the city can decide on a policy. Schmitt declared a decoration moratorium after some character climbed the City Hall roof, dragged down a five-pointed star and threw it in a hedge.

Now, according to the sidebar in this item, it turns out City Council President Chad Fradette only uploaded his crèche onto the roof to slap at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is apparently challenging another Nativity set-up in nearby Peshtigo.

Well, at least Fradette had a secular purpose.

If these clowns keep this up, Nativity scenes will be the least of their concerns, because if Green Bay voters can find one more thief, the lot of them will be installed in a Good Friday diorama at the earliest available opportunity.

Another take, from here:

It never ceases to amaze me that a small minority of Christians who clearly feel threatened by the concept of religious pluralism feel the need every holiday season to wage this pointless battle. They aren't putting their Nativity scenes up in public spaces to celebrate their faith. They're doing it to pick a fight with those whose beliefs are in the minority. It's nothing other than faith-based bullying.

I don't know if I'd go that far, at least under the present circumstances, although it sure as hell is tempting. And Chad Fradette certainly seems to be copping to the antagonism stance.