Liberty Counsel Hails School's Decision to Silence 'Cold in the Night'
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
December 15, 2005
(AgapePress) - - In a sudden about-face, a Wisconsin elementary school has decided to drop a secularized rendition of the Christmas hymn "Silent Night" from its upcoming "winter program." Public outrage and a lawsuit threat have prompted Ridgeway Elementary School in Dodgeville to pull the song "Cold in the Night" from its December 20 holiday celebration.Recently, some 150,000 American Family Association members protested the school's decision to offer a faith-purged version of the popular traditional carol, "Silent Night," sending e-mail messages to Wisconsin's governor, to the state's education board, and to the principal of Ridgeway Elementary. Many critics feel the school's plan to include the secularized song reflects a trend toward anti-Christian bias and censorship of the true, religious meaning of Christmas. (See earlier story)
Attorney Mat Staver with Florida-based Liberty Counsel had threatened to file a lawsuit against the Dodgeville School District if school officials did not back down. "We were obviously very concerned about this," he says, "because this is a secularization of a very well-known Christian Christmas song that really captures the essence of Christmas."
In fact, historians have confirmed the very non-secular origins of the song known in English as "Silent Night." The lyrics were translated by a Christian minister, Rev. John Freeman Young, in the mid-1800s. The words to the original song -- the German carol "Stille Nacht" -- were written in 1816 by a 26-year-old Austrian pastor named Joseph Mohr, who got together with church organist and composer Franz Gruber in 1818 to turn Mohr's reflective Nativity poem into a new song for a special Christmas Eve church service in honor of the Savior's birth.
However, the rendition of the song Ridgeway Elementary planned to have students perform in the winter program, a selection using the traditional melody but reworded and dubbed "Cold in the Night," completely silences the Christian message originally embodied in "Silent Night." The new lyrics evoke nothing more substantive than a wish to be indoors, out of the winter weather, as in "Cold in the night, no one in sight, winter winds whirl and bite, how I wish I were happy and warm, safe with my family out of the storm ...."
Meanwhile, the permitted seasonal observances in Dodgeville schools have included decorating classrooms with images and references to the secular African American holiday, Kwanzaa, and with Menorahs, associated with the Jewish religious holiday Chanukah. Also "in" are popular secular symbols of Christmas, such as Santa Claus and La Befana -- a character from Italian folklore sometimes portrayed as a genial "Christmas witch" -- an old lady who rides a broom and distributes candy and gifts to good children and lumps of coal to the bad.
A Symbolic Skirmish in the War on Christmas
Liberty Council took issue with the Dodgeville schools' apparent decision to exclude Christian messages, specifically, from its "winter" holiday observances. "Christmas is a state and federal holiday," Staver points out. "We don't change the names of any other federal holiday, nor do we change the words to songs commemorating these holidays." He insists that it is "absurd" for Ridgeway officials to have children sing "Cold in the Night" in place of the traditional carol and it only mocks "one of the world's best-known Christmas songs" for them to do so.
Liberty Counsel sent a letter to Ridgeway Elementary officials, demanding the school address the situation, but the legal group did not receive a favorable reply initially. "They defended their song," Staver notes, "so we sent a second demand letter and said we needed to have an immediate response; otherwise we would take legal action."
The pro-family attorney says Ridgeway Elementary finally backed under the threat of a lawsuit and pressure from thousands of protests. "We are now pleased to say that 'Cold in the Night' has been dropped from the program," he reports, "and the school has now assured us that they will sing 'Silent Night' along with other traditional Christmas carols."
Staver calls this outcome "a great resolution to a situation that was symbolic of the war against Christmas this year" and ongoing attempts to strip the religious significance of the holiday. The good news, he adds, is that "'Silent Night' is back," and children in Dodgeville schools will now have the freedom to sing about "the real, true meaning for the season."
