//Am I favoring a religion if I participate in a Christmas giving tree, or am I helping a family during what would otherwise be a terribly painful morning on December 25th?//

This is a good statement or question. This is what Jesus talks about when He (as God Himself in the flesh) confronted religious "appearances" and rules and laws with no "heart" or true worship of the Lord. Just do the work and perhaps secretly even, just live it, that is worship, true worship God seeks from His people. Not to diminish the representations of the biblical accounts,but by action and faith in action and when you "know " God Immanuel and you receive Him as Savior of your inherent sin, that you would respond with joy and admit your wrongs and allow Him to sanctify your current life over time, and slowly allow God to mold you into someone who simply would do things that Jesus explained to us in the Bible , His words to do, to forgive others and live life abundantly to share and love each other love our enemies and actually do it even among the confusion and the chaos of human reason and human understandings that at times make no sense. To humbly just do the things and give up your life for others in essence, to sacrifice, that is love. We truly need no "legal" days or special public displays, if we obey the Word and receive the Word of God it would manifest anyway into the people or the followers just doing it living it out. Christianity has long been a a rooted American foundation and you can see the USA as a "unique" nation by far, but ultimately the Bible predicts at some point near the end disciples will be killed for the faith the faith in the unseen. all the good is providential and the heavenly stored realms are actually aware all around us but not fully visible, the creations are evident enough of Gods existence. the actual date of Jesus birth is not the 25th but we should worship and learn about Christ any day, daily surrender to the One True God, Jesus is the living image of the invisible God. Jesus died for sins becasue no human is righteous, everyone is asked or invited to come back home to the peace and free gift of the Holy Spirit to know Him The Lord Our Father God and decide on our own free will, and there are no pre requisites, everyone is welcome to be saved before death. Ultimately , salvation and the meeting of God for real, is not religion at all. The stories,the displays are aspects to the church that worships God and they do have every right, but as people get to know God deeper and seek Him they just do and the symbols and ornaments are much less important as the people that learn to show the love of Christ to others by living it out and doing the will of God by allowing God to use there lives and living sacrifices, we hold no light with our inherited sin, we that receive Christ become mirrors to reflect the glory of His grace and truth which is the light of the world who was and is and is to come Christ, the only light that shines in the darkness , the light , the One can only be Divine becasue it comes from the One True God Creator . Jesus was with God int he beginning and the Word became flesh among us. Immanuel is God with us, Jesus is Lord God the One you are seeking who truly satisfy s, it is not religion , relics, ornaments or saints or symbols but the action of love which responds to the gratitude of the freedom and salvation of what God has already done for you to bring the hope of eternity in a temporary dying world which will ultimately be regenerated and resurrected and death has been conquered by Jesus. As time goes on it seems hard to believe that people, like the journalist wrote, will have to question whether to be attached to a certain "giving" as that action will be given a religious identity or religions name. It makes me wonder if the motive of the so called left in our nation really is about "imagine" all the people living without God with nothing to live or die for, is really a message of peace, or are they part of the universal global plan or deception to make a one world humanist govt. that will utterly destroy imagination and the foundational stories of truth "all" religions and writers and authors find dear. Crazy how scholars claim the Bible is fiction , yet some pretty wild prophets were quoted as saying near the end that is exactly what will happen as technology increases and earthquakes will increase in various places and wars and rumors of wars, etc. That believers in the true God will be killed for not having an "outward" display or commitment to a global "mark" that will be a ticket to buy and sell anything on the current earth system. Food for thought to say the least. But all can be safe in the arms of the true God, wise men still Him..Jesus is the only way, displays or not He reigns.