Like all secular expressions of the holiday, "The Elf on the Shelf" steers far clear of religious faith, insisting instead on a broadly defined system of "believing" in Christmas — vague yet ethically unobjectionable ideals.
Hagee's claim that Hitler was "partially Jewish" fits into an emerging American right-wing revisionist genre, with both evangelical and secular expressions, that is rewriting the Holocaust by recasting the victims of Nazi persecution, such as Jews, liberals, communists, and homosexuals, as having been themselves the architects of Nazi persecution and the Holocaust.
Anthropological studies have shown that indigenous religions gave birth to many forms of art that, in the course of development, won independence as secular forms of expression.
(For leaders of the secular left, the expression "useful idiots"—apocryphyally ascribed to Vladimir Lenin must sometimes come to mind).On March 10th, the archbishop urged the government to protect children from the effects of a proposed welfare reform that will cap benefit rises at 1% a year, implying a real-terms cut.
Alvin Hansen explained the mass unemployment of the 1930s with the expression "secular stagnation".
Other secular scenes give full expression to Sogdian interest in the splendour of contemporary court life and prowess in hunting and warfare.
His paintings, especially the triptychs, are among the most significant and accomplished of the late Netherlandish period The Reformation brought changes in outlook and artistic expression as secular and landscape imagery overtook biblical scenes.
Daphne is officially married to Fred in the eyes of the Church, Velma is a brainy nun who discovers secular clues with her expression "Jinkies, the Lord is Great," Shaggy enters the priesthood under his God-given name Norville Rogers and has taken a vow of fasting, and Scooby-Doo is left behind at the homestead to guard it against druggies and teenagers looking for sell-able copper.
While such religious architecture dominated the Middle Ages, there were also important architectural expressions of secular power.
