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This is really an issue that the Constitution deals with quite adequately. By exclusively displaying Christmas symbols to the exclusion of other religious symbols appropriate during the same time of year, a government entity would clearly be violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment. If they wanted to clutter the lawn of the town hall with all the myriad symbols of the many religious traditions represented here in the U.S. they would avoid such a violation, but it would certainly be to the satisfaction of no one. The wise choice is for government to stay out of it altogether.

What is really intriguing to me is why Christians feel abused by this notion. As a Christian myself, I feel no necessity to have government come to my aid in the proselytizing of my faith. That is a job that was specifically given to each individual believer when they inherited the Great Commission that Christ bestowed on His followers. He did not beseech Rome to brow-beat the populace into a general conformation to a set of theological principles. One could make the argument that the faith took a decided turn for the worse when Constantine made Christianity the state religion. Christianity, like all true faith, is a personal matter that, though celebrated corporately, is confirmed in each person privately, as a relationship between the creation and the creator.

When government becomes involved in matters of the divine, it no longer becomes an act of devotion, but rather an exercise of power. As there is ultimately only one power that the Christian (or devout follower of any faith tradition)acknowledges, the arm twisting of a temporal authority seems mildly comic. It seems all the more so for a religious tradition that assures us that it is the meek that shall inherit the earth, not the domineering or pugnacious.

As someone that carries the burden of spreading the Good News of the Gospel, I have to say that Christians who insist the government take on that burden for them have abdicated their personal responsibility for the dissemination of the message and have become both timid and lazy. Take up you own cross and follow! Make no demands of others, but freely offer. Offer what? The very thing that by definition no government can ever offer. Self-sacrificing love. Government is of this world. We have been taught to merely be in it. Government was created by this world. We have our origins in the world unseen. Shall the unseen remain unknown? That is our burden, one that is far beyond the reach of something as earth-bound as government.

A religious symbol should only be displayed by an entity that holds the object of that symbol in their heart as THE overriding truth in the universe. Our constitution forbids such a declaration by the state. As a result, the lawn in front of City Hall should remain unadorned.

The question then becomes, what's on your lawn?

Learn more about this author, Bruce L. Eaton.
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