Religious freedom. Separation of church and state. Probably no time of the year brings these issues to the forefront more than Christmas does.

The Seattle-Tacoma Airport was recently asked if a giant menorah could be displayed along with several Christmas trees. Their decision was to just remove the trees rather than open themselves up to requests for all sorts of other religious symbols as well.

It seems like each Christmas countless communities deal with whether to place religious displays on the lawn surrounding their courthouse.

The "inquiring photographer" for our local newspaper asked folks whether schools should include "Christmas" in their year-end concerts. Everyone said "yes" except for one teacher who gave a fairly waffled response.

Individuals of Christian faith struggle with whether to exclusively use "Merry Christmas" in their communications to others or use the phrase "Happy Holidays," especially when they do not know the faith of the person they're talking to.

And I am still not sure exactly what Kwanzaa is all about. I think it is more of a cultural celebration than a religious one but it reminds me of two things. One is the name of an airline. And the other is Festivus -- the "made up" holiday that was on the Seinfeld show. "Festivus for the rest of us." (Ultimately I think that Kwanzaa is a good thing; I just do not understand quite why it was scheduled right after Christmas, almost in competition with Christmas.

As I have walked my Christian journey, I have experienced a change in my feelings on all of this. I used to feel that, yes, we should show signs and symbols of Christmas wherever we want and that it wasn't necessary to show signs of other religious celebrations. After all, that is how our founding fathers wanted it to be, I naively (and perhaps fairly incorrectly) thought.

At this point, I guess that I do not know the "answer" to all of this but I do fear that a government which promotes a single religion (or lack thereof) does not produce a people who are healthy in their spirituality. In general, it will produce a people who just "go along to get along." As far as the favored religion is concerned, there is no call to be evangelistic because what's the point? It's the religion that they are all supposed to practice anyway. To me, this will breed a spiritually apathetic culture.

I have written before that I do not do a lot of questioning of my faith ... at least I don't think I do. I am not sure that is spiritually healthy. I think that "deep soul work" as I have heard it called occurs when a certain amount of questioning and struggling is going on. (Of course, that can be questioning and struggling over hearing God's call; it doesn't necessarily have to involve questioning one's entire faith.)

Ultimately, I am not against public area displays of Christian Christmas symbols or Jewish Hanukkah symbols. As far as government properties, I have no problem with local communities deciding to display whatever they feel is appropriate. However, when private groups want to place displays on public property, I feel that there should be a review process to make sure that the planned display is in good taste and appropriate for public viewing.

All in all, my opinions on this subject have lightened up some over the years as I have formed an opinion that a religion sponsored by the state is not necessarily beneficial to the religion itself.

What do you think?