Eighty-five percent of Americans claim some form of religious affiliation. The public display of religious symbols, though, is always controversial, whether we’re talking about the Ten Commandments in a courthouse or nativity scenes in a park. In the ongoing debate about religious imagery’s proper place, where do we draw the line between private faith and public religious expression?
Baker Institute, Rice University
The same principle applies to crosses and nativity scenes. Though both have been so cheapened by commercialization and poor taste that some may regard them simply as common cultural artifacts devoid of much religious meaning, they are nonetheless key symbols of two fundamental elements of Christianity: the birth and death of Jesus. Similarly, the Menorah is not just a candlestick, but the symbol of a Jewish miracle story.
To display these alone on public property is to violate the law, as it is currently--and, I believe, correctly--interpreted by the courts. To include them in a hodge-podge, in which the infant Jesus is visited by Frosty and the three Wise Reindeer, illuminated by a Menorah, with a wreath hanging on an arm of the cross, robs them of their significance. Why do it at all?
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