All's well in Warren

I just got through to the secretary of the mayor’s office of the Detroit suburb of Warren, Mich., and asked her if there is a holiday display this year at the town’s City Hall. Without missing a beat, she said, “You mean the nativity scene?”—which is a curious answer when you think about it, because if you were to walk through the atrium of that municipal building today you would find besides the crèche, a lighted tree, snowmen, reindeer, ribbons, ornaments, wreathes, and a “Winter Welcome” sign.

She must have been on her guard. And indeed, when it dawned on me that the poor woman may very well abide in a continual state of bracing for another complaint from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, I greeted her information with a hearty, “Oh, that’s very good news!” At which point the public servant seemed relieved.

For many years the city of Warren displayed its very eclectic holiday panorama, with no unpleasant repercussions for its elected officials. But in 2010 the mayor received a series of letters from the Freedom from Religion Foundation requesting the removal of the baby Jesus forthwith. Finding no sympathy in high places, the anti-religion group changed its tack the next year and asked the city to put a sign near the manger scene with these words:

“At this season of The Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds” (Placed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation).

The city said no. The mayor wrote a letter:

“I have reviewed the 2-sided ‘sandwich board’ sign. The language on the proposed sign is clearly anti-religion. … This proposed sign is antagonistic toward all religions and would serve no purpose during this holiday season except to provoke controversy and hostility among visitors and employees at City Hall. Your phrase that ‘Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds’ is highly offensive and is not a provable statement. If you requested permission to put up a sandwich board saying that there is no Santa Claus, you would be met with the same response. …”

The foundation then filed a lawsuit based on the First and 14th amendments. The U.S. District Court said no, as did the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “The nativity scene, when accompanied by this collection of secular and seasonal symbols, does not amount to an establishment of religion or for that matter an impermissible endorsement of it,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffery S. Sutton.

And so the beat goes on, Christmas after Christmas. And up above:

“He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, ‘As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (Psalm 2:4–6, ESV).

All is well in Warren. The Lord reigns over all.