Written by Don Byrd
Today’s news includes a report from the Washington Post that a holiday display featuring an angel falling into a pit of fire was vandalized at the Florida State Capitol. The display was offered by a group calling itself the Satanic Temple. If you are just tuning in, I know what you are thinking: huh?
Regular blog readers will recall that Florida’s State Capitol rotunda has included some interesting displays during the holiday season the last couple of years. There have been Nativity scenes and menorahs, of course, but that’s not all. A festivus pole made of beer cans commemorate a holiday created on the TV show “Seinfeld.” A plate of pasta with eyes depict the “deity” known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, revered by Pastafarians everywhere. Most recently, the Satanic Temple added the diorama of fallen angels and hellfire. Happy Holidays, I guess?
Some of the displays at the Florida Capitol doubtless represent the true diversity of American faith. Others are a form of protest that government property is used to promote religious holidays at all. Courts have allowed religious displays if they are presented in the right context: either alongside secular displays, or in a forum, like Florida’s, that allows any group equal access to the display space.
The protest from atheist and secular humanist groups reflects an if you can’t beat ’em, join’em tactic. If government is going to celebrate Christianity this holiday season, they seem to be saying, then our religious views (or anti-religious views) should be celebrated as well. And who can blame them? Government should represent all constituents, regardless of religious perspective. It should not favor one religion over another, nor favor religion over non-religion. If the First Amendment stands for anything, it certainly stands for that.
So Nativity-at-the-Capitol advocates can claim success by following the Supreme Court’s rules of government holiday displays, but that apparent victory brings consequences: the manger scene is either watered down in a sea of reindeer, or sits by beer cans and pasta, all claiming equal significance.
I am not inspired by this arrangement. Are you? Lost in this new holiday tradition of First Amendment gotcha is an important question I wish more Nativity advocates would ask, before expending holiday energy and legal resources waging this fight: what exactly is the point? What is the benefit to Christianity of telling the story of Christ’s birth from a prime spot of government real estate?
I would suggest there is no benefit at all. In fact, Christianity is done more harm than good by using the crutch of government to promote its message.
Religious symbols stir hearts when they are expressions of personal conscience and belief, not when they are expressions of government resources. Religion is most alive when it flows from true soul freedom, without the hand of government showing the way. In other words, we shouldn’t want the help.
But there is another reason why Christians should perhaps decline the offer.
I have always been taught the importance of the fact that in the Gospel, Christ’s birth occurred in a most humble place. He could have been born in a seat of great civic power, or born to a leader of government. He was not. Christ’s revolution was of the heart and the soul. His Kingdom is not that of the state but of the spirit. So, why should Christians try so mightily to place the manger at the State Capitol, when the Gospel makes such a point of Jesus having so little to do with it?
I do not believe the cause of Christ is furthered by proclaiming the Good News from the Capitol or the Courthouse. His is a message of humility and peace, centered on caring for the sick, poor, and outcast, on love for all, and a belief in the redeeming power of grace. If Christianity is to thrive, it will be on the vitality and relevance of that message, not the civic power of the platform used to deliver it.
Yes, it may be constitutional, if we contort our government displays in just the right way, to display the Nativity on government property, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. In other words, baby Jesus does not need the State Capitol. And the message of His birth is weakened when we use the mechanisms of the state to deliver it.
So what is this yearly fight all about?
