Christian defiance this Christmas season

Christians aren’t biblically required to display or act out the nativity of Christ. We aren’t mandated to keep Christian symbols erected on taxpayer-funded property.

But seeing these things can bring us joy and remind us why Christ was born and why He died on the cross. The Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians that our Savior “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. … And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.”

We openly defend our religious symbols because, in this country, we can. We’re not at the point where we can lose our lives for speaking out against the government. In a country with a representative political body and free speech (for now), we have the legal means to keep our faith front and center and refuse to be pushed out of the public square.

One small act of defiance at a time, within the law, can make an impression. For instance, disgruntled atheists sued the Concord Community Schools in Indiana, claiming that a live nativity scene in a high school’s Christmas event violated the so-called separation of church and state, which isn’t found in, around, or under the U.S. Constitution. A federal judge issued an injunction against what a local TV news report called the “grand finale” of the Christmas show. The school complied with the live nativity scene order but substituted humans with mannequins. Another TV news outlet reported that the audience “erupted” with applause at the sold-out event.

Doug Johnson, a student’s grandfather, said he’d “like to say ‘we won.’ There was a lot of happy people in there tonight.” John Parsons, a father of a student, said his daughter had been an angel in the scene last year and was “very disappointed” with the court decision.

Parents said they don’t care what the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which sued on behalf of a student, thinks about the mannequin display. “They’ll have issues with it just because they do and the more we pay attention to this issue the more it gives them the limelight, that’s kind of why I told my daughter don’t fuel their fire,” Parsons said.

In another show of defiance, the Board of Supervisors in Harrison County, Miss., recently opted to keep a nativity scene on tax-funded property, despite a Washington, D.C.–based atheist group’s demands to remove it. The American Humanist Association is now suing the county for its courthouse display.

“It is a symbol of a cultural event that has shaped the culture of the world for 2,000 years,” Pastor Argile Smith told the Sun Herald in Gulfport, Miss. “Taking away a nativity scene from a courthouse would be like taking away books from a library.”

In our increasingly anti-Christian society, these and other nativity scenes might be banned any day now. Acts of civil defiance should give Christians the courage and the confidence to push back in their small way.