Jesus Divine
Jesus Divine
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Is Jesus, as a non-divine man, not as important as MLK and Columbus?
In the last decade their has been a push to say, "Winter holidays" in place of "Chirstmas holidays" and some say that Christmas shouldn't even be a federal holiday, but even irrelevant of religion, shouldn't Jesus be as celebrated as other figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Christopher Columbus, who are honored with federal holidays?
Martin Luther King and Christopher Columbus have direct bearing on American history. Columbus, searching for a new route to India, landed in the Caribbean and discovered the New World, from a Eurocentric point of view. King spearheaded the overturning of Jim Crow laws in the American South, and took up the cause of other civil rights and human rights issues, such as opposing the Vietnam War.
Jesus lived in Israel, some 1,500 years before the Old World realized that there was a New World. Yes, Jesus has worldwide influence, including here in the United States. So do Confucius and Mahatma Gandhi and even Nelson Mandela. None of these people have direct bearing on American history.
However, since Christianity has played such an important role in American history, for good and for bad, I don't have a problem with a couple of Christian holidays--such as Christmas--also being federal holidays. Since most Americans follow some form of the Christian religion, it makes sense that one of Christianity's holiest days is a day off for the country.
We have a similar arrangement with Jewish holidays in New York City, in which live plenty of Jews. Public schools and colleges have off the High Holy Days of September/October, and also Passover Week in March or April. The non-Jewish students and employees get these days off as well as the Jewish students and employees. I'm not complaining. It really works out when Passover Week coincides with Holy Week and Easter, which it usually does, though not this year (2008).