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ORLANDO, FL (MPG) - This Christmas season, while the outgoing Biden-Harris administration is doing all it can to infringe on religious liberties and endanger peace by jailing pro-life Americans, appointing liberal judges, censoring Americans, and even exhibiting reckless brinkmanship in the war in Ukraine, it is important to examine how communism can quickly eradicate the Christian faith in a nation.

Before Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he gave more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts from 1975 to 1979, including one in which he shared a story about the history of Christmas before and after communism in Ukraine, where a dangerous and costly war now wages.

In an effort to resist the country’s Christians, communist leaders secularized a favorite Ukrainian Christmas carol, “Nova Radist Stala” (Joyous News Has Come to Us). The original song began with these words: “The joyous news has come which never was before. Over a cave above a manger a bright star has lit the world, where Jesus was born from a virgin maiden…” Communists feared the public outcry that would follow a complete ban on Christmas, so they began to slowly secularize the holiday. The first rewrite of the song began: “The joyous news has come which never was before, a red star with five tails has brightly lit the world.” The second rewrite went further: “The joyous news has come which never was before. Long-awaited star of freedom lit the skies in October [the month of the Revolution]. Where formerly lived the kings and had the roots their nobles, there today with simple folks, Lenin’s glory hovers.”

The former Soviet Union eventually began banning Christmas commemorations. St. Nicholas was replaced with “Did Moroz,” or Grandfather Frost. This Stalinist creation wears a red cap and long white beard of Santa Claus, but he delivers gifts to children on New Year’s Eve. Christmas trees were also banned, but people continued to trim their New Year’s trees. Communism folded all Christmas celebrations into a New Year’s celebration.

Christians in the former Soviet Union exhibited bravery and courage in confronting communism’s anti-Christmas campaign. One person recalled how the young people would go out in the streets and sing Christmas carols, knowing that if police heard them, they would be arrested. In communist Romania, Rev. Geza Palffy, a Roman Catholic priest, delivered a sermon in 1983 protesting that December 25 had been declared a workday instead of a holiday. The next day he was arrested by secret police, beaten and imprisoned, and then he died. Inside and outside the Iron Curtain, Ukrainians never stopped singing: “We beg you our Lord, we pray to you today. Grant us freedom, return glory to our Mother Ukraine.” Reagan ended his broadcast: “I guess we all hope their prayer is answered.” Indeed it was.

The secularization of Christmas is nothing new. Today, in some communist or Marxist-influenced countries, Christmas celebrations are restricted or outright banned primarily due to its incompatibility with state ideology.

In North Korea, Christmas has been banned entirely for decades. The state suppresses Christmas expressions with severe penalties, including imprisonment, torture, and even execution. Many North Koreans have no idea about Jesus Christ. Underground Christians have to celebrate in secret. Instead of Christmas, the North Korean regimes have celebrated the birthday of Kim Jong II’s mother. This deliberate elimination of Christmas supplants religious devotion with loyalty to the ruling family.

In China, religion is heavily regulated and Christmas is largely suppressed. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Chinese Communist Party requires the complete subordination of religious groups to the state’s Marxist vision. Since Christian churches are routinely demolished, Christians often surveilled, and church leaders arrested, true Christmas celebrations would have to be kept secret. In public, Christmas is nothing more than a commercialized shopping event. The secularization of Christmas in China serves to instill ideological conformity and loyalty to the state’s ruling party.

In Cuba, Christmas was banned from 1969-1997. Cuba’s government rather wanted Cubans to celebrate secular “Revolutionary Holidays.” Fidel Castro reinstated Christmas after Pope John Paul II visited Cuba and requested he do so. Today, even though Christmas is officially recognized, public religious expressions remain subdued in many areas due to its communist government.

In America, legal challenges to Christmas and holiday displays have been ongoing for decades. The challenges to Nativity displays, Christmas songs and greetings, and decorations are prevalent in public schools, assisted living centers, and in many workplaces. In some instances, students, nursing home residents, and workplace employees have been told that Christmas cards, Merry Christmas greetings, singing religious Christmas carols, and even the colors red and green were not permissible. Liberty Counsel has addressed and overturned hundreds of attempts like these to censor Christmas in the private and public sector.

Around 2003, the censorship of Christmas entered the retail market. Christmas trees were renamed “Holiday Trees,” Christmas decorations were referred to as “Holiday Decorations” or “Holiday Lights.” In response to this trend, Liberty Counsel launched the annual Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign, which is designed to educate and, if necessary, litigate, to ensure that the religious and Christian viewpoints of Christmas are not censored.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The war against Christmas is nothing new and it is certainly evident today in the form of religious discrimination and hostility. Repressive forces have always had the same goal – to first secularize and then to eliminate Christmas and Christian symbols, celebrations and speech. In America, the First Amendment is a guard against censorship and religious hostility. In the retail market, the consumer can decide to patronize stores that recognize Christmas and avoid those that profit from Christmas while pretending it does not exist.”