Captain Oblivious

NewDonkey, a blog run by centrist Democrats (too far to the right for me, most of the time), has a pointed reminder of the failure of conservative Christians to consider their own faith's origin as a minority religion in cultures thoroughly dominated by other belief systems:

Have Christians forgotten how many early martyrs died because of their refusal to pay homage to the "universal" religion of the Romans? And have Protestant Christians (who undoubtedly make up the vast majority of those upset at the resistance of Jews, Muslims, and the irreligious to the idea of demanding univeral acknowledgment of Christmas) forgotten that the imperial establishment of Christianity by Constantine was the beginning of what the Reformers considered the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Church?

...

The Incarnation is as radical, unsettling, and difficult an idea as ever, and Christians would do well to spend the season meditating on it, and respecting the Divine Image in everyone they meet. That approach is incompatible with a triumphalist demand that everyone they meet bend the knee to the questionable trappings of their holiday tradition, and even more incompatiable with the claim that Christians in a free country are being persecuted if they must suffer under the handicap of equality.