Record Number of State Capitols Display Nativities, Including Wisconsin
Two non-profit organizations have joined forces to assist private citizen groups in organizing a record-breaking number of Nativity scenes on the groundsof state capitols during this Advent season.
According to a press release from the Thomas More Society, 43 state capitols, including Wisconsin’s, will feature Nativity scenes this year. The society is collaborating with the American Nativity Scene committee to facilitate this initiative.
Thomas More Society is offering support to ensure that individuals who wish to sponsor a Nativity scene at their state capitol can do so, as protected by the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Every year, WFA takes our Christmas sign and Nativity to the state Capitol to put on display in the first-floor rotunda. This year, we were the first organization to put our sign and display up on December 1st. The state Christmas tree was up and decorated; and just a couple of hours earlier, the governor had lit the tree that he insists on referring to as a “holiday tree.” During the tree-lighting ceremony, however, high school choirs that had been invited were singing traditional Christmas carols, not just secular Christmas songs.
Over the years, there has been an ongoing battle of the signs, and now a battle of the nativities, with Freedom from Religion Foundation. According to a press release from Freedom from Religion, headquartered in Madison, for 27 years we’ve had a battle of the signs, and for about 11 years we’ve had a battle of the nativities.
Our Christmas sign says, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” 2 Corinthians 9:15. Then in huge letters, the sign says “JESUS,” followed by “Merry Christmas from Wisconsin Family Council.”
Freedom from Religion is apparently now combining their sign and their blasphemous so-called nativity display. Freedom from Religion says that its own display is an “irreverent cutout by artist Jacob Fortin” that “depicts Founders Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington gazing in adoration at a ‘baby’ Bill of Rights while the Statue of Liberty looks on. A sign beside this tongue-in-cheek depiction reads: ‘At this Season of the Winter Solstice, join us in honoring the Bill of Rights, adopted on Dec. 15, 1791, which reminds us that there can be no religious freedom without the freedom to dissent. Keep religion and government separate!’” How’s that for a cheery, truthful Christmas message?
Our sign and traditional nativity display offer a stark contrast with Jesus as the central word on the sign and the central figure in the Nativity.
A smaller sign accompanies our Nativity. It reads, “Jesus…and she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21),” as you can see in the picture to the right.
We want every visitor who is in the building this month to see the beautiful Christmas tree as well as the truth of this holy season. We are privileged to receive permission each year to put the sign and Nativity up, and it’s always done with a prayer that God will use them to encourage young and old alike to know that at this time of year, we are worshipping the Creator, not the Creator’s creation, as some do, such as those at Freedom From Religion Foundation.
If you’re in Madison this month, we hope you’ll stop by the state Capitol and take time to go to the first floor to see the displays there. If kids are with you, this is a great opportunity for some worldview and Bible instruction, as well as sharing with them, as their ages allow, that we can install these displays because we have religious freedom in our state and in our nation.
The battle between good and evil, truth and error, will rage until Christ returns and declares time shall be no more and all evil will be eternally banished. Until then, we keep telling the truth of Christmas and of the entire Gospel everywhere we can, every opportunity we have—and Christmas is a perfect time to share the good news—in our state Capitol and everywhere. To echo the glorious Christmas carol, let’s “Go, tell it on the Mountain! That Jesus Christ is born!”
