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“I watched her angst rising,” Wilkinson said. As soon as the singers finished their set, Wilkinson continued, he walked up to the microphone, thanked the assembled crowd, wished them Merry Christmas and cut short the event with one act left on the docket.

“I chose to shut things down before it compromised any relationships the Salvation Army has in the community,” he said.

As it turns out, Wilkinson need not have fretted. He says another mall official told him the following day that the two carols constituted “traditional Christmas music” and, as such, were permissible forms of expression at the mall despite their lyrics’ constant references to Jesus, the Lord, the Bible and Christianity.

I chose to shut things down before it compromised any relationships the Salvation Army has in the community

The American composer Jester Hairston wrote Mary’s Boy Child in 1956 to hail the long-ago birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem: “Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today / And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.” Go Tell It On The Mountain, meanwhile, is an African-American spiritual that exhorts people to disperse “over the hills and everywhere” to proclaim Jesus’ birth.

The group that sang Mary’s Boy Child and Go Tell It On The Mountain opened their set with two other songs, at which point the promotions director approached Wilkinson to ask for the noise level to be toned down. The musicians were using guitar amps rather than performing acoustically, an expectation Wilkinson said the Salvation Army forgot to tell them about.