How Much Christianity is Acceptable During Easter?

This week folks at my church were told that while a local non-profit appreciates our donation of Easter Bunny Baskets (mainly candy for the kids) religious literature of any kind is strictly prohibited in the same baskets. So Easter Bunny Baskets are fine – provided we don’t say a word about where and why they came from.

On some level, I guess I could understand. You don’t want a bag of goodies stuffed with religious propaganda. But really, no religious lit of any kind? Not even “With Love and Easter greetings from Church X”? Really?! The person with whom I talked about it, was very polite and friendly and insisted there was no bad faith on their part. I actually do believe that. But it's not really a question of good faith/ bad faith were are talking about here. It is whether a policy makes sense or not. We can all give any examples of policies enacted in good faith, which were – politely speaking – not smart. Now we can all add another one to the list.

Let’s be very clear. It is not about protecting someone’s freedom of religion being violated by receiving an Easter Bunny Basket with a card. If your conscience is so tender that a simple message in a gift bag might offend you – you probably should not take it in the first place. Or take the basket, and throw away the card. But this is really not about that.

This is a case of someone being so petrified of anything that smells of religion – that their only reaction known to them is to ban it altogether. I understand the separation of the church and state. I also know, that the religious right has worked long and hard to make people sick of religion. But just as some religious people are prone to religious fanaticism, so too are some secularists and atheists. It's just a different sort of religion, but its zeal and intolerance are strikingly familiar. We are all human, after all: religious or not.

We have been involved with this local non-profit for many years and will continue to do so. But Easter is too precious for us, too much at the heart of what we do the other 51 weeks of the year, for us to agree to give it up and go for the neutered "Season's Greetings".  There is a reason why we do this – and believe it or not, is not to win converts or souls. It is Easter. And we do think, that once a year we should be allowed to state it a little more clearly.

What do you think?