Heretical Manger Scene is Also Hazardous
To borrow the words of Ronald Reagan, “There they go again.”
The Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois, which dates to 1873, is featuring a creche on its front lawn with a zip-tied baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph figurines wearing gas masks.
According to the church, the manger “reimagines the nativity as a scene of forced family separation, drawing direct parallels between the Holy Family’s refugee experience and contemporary immigration detention practices.”
The church further explains:
“By placing the Christmas story (Christianity’s central narrative of refuge, sanctuary, and sacred family) within the visual language of immigration enforcement and detention, this work asks viewers to confront the disconnect between professed religious or moral values and immigration policies.”
A “disconnect” is right – but it’s the Evanston church’s leadership who have appeared to decouple the commemoration of Jesus’ birth with the truth of Scripture.
Those in the Lake Street Church aren’t the first to demonstrate sloppy theology by trying to imply Jesus was a refugee. They were following the law when they came to Bethlehem for the Census. When Joseph and Mary escaped to Egypt with Jesus after His birth, they were still living within the Roman Empire.
The church went on to refer to the “enforcement terror” allegedly perpetrated by Immigration officials.
One has to wonder if either those with the Lake Street Church or the broader society are aware that during the Clinton Administration, over 12 million illegal aliens were deported across eight years compared to the 4 million deported during the five years of Donald Trump.
Based on the media narrative repeated ad nauseum, most would assume it’s conservative presidents who are more likely to deport those here illegally – but is it true?
Well, if you crunch the number of deportations between 1892 and 2018, you discover that while Republican presidents were in office for 67 years compared to 60 for Democrats, the GOP chief executives averaged fewer each year than their counterparts and a million less overall.
We see a similar drumbeat surrounding attention and blame regarding homelessness depending upon which party is in the White House. While a bipartisan concern, the narrative of heartless or unempathetic conservatives regularly spins up when the GOP is in power.
While the politicization of Christmas is not entirely new, the escalation of the demonization of law enforcement is a dangerous tragedy. The death last week of Sarah Beckstrom, age 20, of the National Guard can be traced to a terrorist who reportedly yelled, “Allahu Akbar!” and was preparing to keep firing his gun before being tackled.
Late last month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported a more than 1,150% increase in violence against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel compared with the same period in 2024.
“After months of Democrat politicians comparing ICE to Nazis, the gestapo, slave patrols, and even encouraging illegal aliens to resist arrest, our brave ICE law enforcement have been assaulted 238 times,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
“Our law enforcement officers have had Molotov cocktails and rocks thrown at them, been shot at, had cars used as weapons against them, and been physically assaulted. Sanctuary politicians need to tone the rhetoric down before a law enforcement officer is killed. They should be thanking these brave law enforcement officers who risk their lives every single day to arrest pedophiles, rapists, murderers, gang members, and terrorists from our neighborhoods.”
As Christians, we sing each year of the “Silent night, holy night” of Jesus’ sacred birth, and that “All is calm, all is bright.” Sadly, radicals are encouraging the exact opposite. The weaponization of the Nativity is not only heretical but also hazardous and gives license to the unhinged to act out in the worst possible way.
Image credit: Lake Street Church of Evanston
