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Putting Religious Displays Back Where They Belong

by Jorge Gomez • 7 min read

Many Americans don’t realize it, but there’s an incredible revival breaking out all across our country right now. We’re witnessing the greatest comeback and the biggest positive change for religious freedom in our generation. You and every American is experiencing more religious freedom today than at any point in the last 50 years.

Hope is being renewed. Religious freedom is thriving—and nowhere is this clearer than in the restoration and rebuilding of monuments, memorials and religious displays.

How often have you seen or heard about crosses being torn down? What about the many veterans memorials that have been desecrated for including a Scripture? What about Nativity displays outside a city hall or in a public park that were carted off into storage? How many times has a religious symbol or reference been scrubbed because someone claimed to be “offended”? There are simply too many examples to count.

Here’s the good news: Now you can help reverse this widespread destruction. Now you can be a part of the national effort to rebuild and restore.

Thanks to the landmark victories for religious freedom that you helped First Liberty secure in the Coach Kennedy and the Bladensburg Peace Cross cases (Kennedy v. Bremerton School District and American Legion v. American Humanist Association), historic displays with religious references and imagery no longer have to be hidden. That includes Ten Commandments monuments outside government buildings, nativity scenes in city parks and prayers to open public meetings. These can be put back where they rightfully and legally belong. For you, it means in your community you have the legal foundation to restore religious memorials, monuments and displays—and to confidently defend them if anyone tries to tear them back down.

One example of this seismic shift in favor of religious freedom is the Ten Commandments display outside the Arkansas state capitol.

For years, radical groups including the ACLU, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the American Humanist Association and the Satanic Temple have been trying to topple this monument. Their legal challenges continue to this day.

But according to the law and the Constitution, this display doesn’t have to go anywhere. The Supreme Court made clear that public religious displays should be seen as “presumptively constitutional.” The victories in American Legion and Kennedy brought an end to the days of offended observers forcing governments to scrub all public references to the divine.

In this new dawn for religious freedom, this means the Ten Commandments display in Little Rock can stay right where it is.

Attorney Lea Patterson and First Liberty Live! host Stuart Shepard recently visited the Arkansas Capitol to discuss our ongoing defense of the monument. They also talk about how you, and all Americans, can join First Liberty’s Restoring Faith in America movement to save and preserve our nation’s religious heritage.

Check out their conversation:

NOW YOU CAN: Righting Past Wrongs and Rescuing Religious Freedom from Suppression

For decades, public religious expression was censored and people of faith were stripped of their constitutional rights. Religious Americans were accustomed to playing defense and reacting to violations of our First Freedom. But with the incredible new momentum for religious freedom, we cannot stand idly as enemies of freedom plan their next attack. It’s time for us—for YOU—to go on offense.

Preserving Ten Commandments monuments or crosses on government property is only one way to bring back America’s religious heritage. There are countless ways to reclaim our country’s heritage of religious expression. Here’s how you can help restore faith right where you live:

• A football player can ask teammates and opposing players to pray together on the field after a game (and ask coaches to join as well).
• You can ask your school board to open meetings with a prayer.
• Your city can put up a menorah for Hanukkah and a nativity scene for Christmas.
• Your local city, county or state government can display a Christian flag or any other flag with religious imagery outside its building.
• Your local police station can put up a memorial for fallen officers containing Proverbs 28:1 or the “Police Officer’s Prayer.”
• A teacher can put up a 10 Commandments poster in her classroom.
• Your sheriff’s department can display America’s national motto “In God We Trust” on their patrol cruisers.
• Faith-based organizations like Teen Challenge can receive government funding and fully participate in programs (such as drug rehab) without discrimination.
• You can help spread the word at your church or local ministry that they cannot be excluded from government grants or benefits programs (for homelessness, drug rehab, food banks, etc.) simply because they are faith-based.

Americans from coast to coast are taking a stand. God has opened an incredible door, and those who’ve been robbed of their constitutional rights are now free to fearlessly live out their faith.

Will you stand for faith? To restore faith in America, we need you to spread the word on how to revive faith in your community. We encourage you to share your expressions of faith on social media. Tell your friends, family, congregation, pastor and your elected officials to help restore faith in your community. YOU are the catalyst that can help kindle a new fire for faith and freedom. Together, let’s renew hope in our country and restore religious freedom for generations to come.