December 19, 2003
Dear Concerned Citizen,

The annual cleansing of the public square of Christmas symbols doesn’t have to be the final word on social expressions of Christianity. Christians of all denominations can do their part to take back the Holy Night, using the great American institutions of private property and individual initiative. We can put up attractive displays on our own property, displays that are easily visible to the public. And we can invite the public onto our own property, to enjoy something we have created to both entertain and teach. It is entirely appropriate that we do this, since freedom of religious choice is one of Christianity’s contributions to Western civilization. By presenting the Christmas message and inviting a response, we are replicating in miniature, the pattern of salvation.

For instance, the Westminster Presbyterian Church has just concluded its eighth annual “Bethlehem Experience.” The members and friends of the church transform the church grounds into a replica of a small Middle Eastern village. Guests drive through the miniature Bethlehem, to feel what it might have been like that Holy Night so many years ago, that Night we still celebrate with awe.

Two of my sons and I drove up from San Diego to this suburb of Los Angeles, for a first-hand experience of the Bethlehem Experience. We suspected we were in for a treat when the cars waiting to enter the church property curved around two long suburban blocks. Evidently, the community has such high expectations of this annual event, that people willingly wait forty minutes to drive on to the church property. We were even more impressed, when a gentleman dressed as a Roman soldier tapped our car window, as we waited. “Hail, Caesar! Does your chariot have a discus player?” He handed us a CD, a gift from the church. The CD featured genuine Christmas music, (no Rudolph or Frosty here), Scripture readings and a welcome from Pastor Dick Thompson.

When we finally passed through the gates, it was like going back in time. The back of the church parking lot had been transformed into a crowded market street. People in period costumes hawked their wares: bread, belts, beads, rugs, and herbs were all for sale. Children helped their parents as apprentices in small shops. Goats and sheep roamed the streets. Roman soldiers stopped people, demanding that they pay their taxes, and enroll in the census. An innkeeper shouted that he had no room.

Outside the town, was a stable. A teenaged girl held a baby and a young man held the reins of a donkey. Children in angel costumes looked on from above. People from the village came to kneel in worship, wonder and awe, at what God had brought to pass. And so did a lot of the people in their cars, people from another time, stepping back in time to participate in a timeless event.

There is a time and a place for a head-on confrontation with the ACLU. But there is also a time and place to simply be attractive, to draw people closer to the Christian message. The power of attraction is that it is positive, rather than confrontational or divisive. It also emphasizes the key fact that the Christian message is never meant to be imposed, but always embraced. No religion has ever stressed the importance of human choice and decision in the way that Christianity does. What God has done is only part of the Christian story. How we respond to God is also part of the story. The shepherds and the Magi chose to worship the new- born king. King Herod, on the other hand, plotted to kill him.

Our Western civilization, with its emphasis on the individual and on freedom, has deep Christian roots, whether our post-Christian, post-modern neighbors realize it or not. In comparison with Christianity, other major world religions place a far greater emphasis upon fate or the caprice of the gods, than upon human volition. Christianity teaches that each one of us will be judged by what we choose to do or not do. Freedom of conscience matters to us so much because we imbibed this from our Christian forebearers.

Some of our neighbors use the force of the state and its judiciary to strip the public square of all Christian symbolism. How deeply appropriate it is, that we respond by making every effort to attract all our neighbors to the beauty of the Christmas message. For without Christianity, at least vestigial Christianity, it is doubtful that individual choice and conscience would be such important features of our society.