Posted on 12/16/2006 12:20:04 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Nativity captivity: Baby Jesus thefts a prank or an affront?
By John Wilkens
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
December 16, 2006
As sure as Charlie Brown will pick out a scrawny Christmas tree, as sure as Nat King Cole will sing on the radio about roasting chestnuts, somebody somewhere will steal a baby Jesus from a Nativity scene.
It's become something of a holiday tradition – and more culturally charged now than ever.
Thieves have already struck this year in Des Moines, Iowa; Youngsville, La.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Santa Fe, Texas; Dover, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Ind.; and Naugatuck, Conn. The Naugatuck Nativity was hit last year, too.
In Cheviot, Ohio, where a public display was victimized not once but twice last year, authorities bought three Jesus figurines for this season's festivities – one for the manger and two backups. They also installed a security camera.
San Diego County is not immune to the phenomenon, although no local incidents have made headlines this year. Last December, Vista was the site of a creche crime spree. Four days after Christmas, a maintenance worker found a dozen baby Jesuses dumped in a parking lot near Buena Vista Park.
“Every Christmas we get a bout of ornament thefts or vandalism,” said sheriff's Sgt. R.M. Castaneda. The figurines were stolen from the front yards of homes in the Shadowridge area.
No arrests were made, but he suspects juvenile pranksters were involved. They usually are in these kinds of cases, he said.
But some people question that conventional wisdom. They see the plundering of Nativity scenes as a side skirmish in a wider culture war over Christmas.
“Certainly not every one of these is a case of anti-Christian hostility. A bunch of them are drunk teens motivated by stupidity,” said Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the New York-based Catholic League.
But a fair number of them, she added, are the work of “rabid secularists so filled with hate for any public expression of religion that they will stoop to vandalism and theft.”
On its Web site, the Catholic League tracks what it considers attacks on Christmas by retailers, schools and government agencies. The “Christmas Watch” also lists thefts of baby Jesus; almost two-dozen have been reported so far this year.
“It seems to be something that is happening with more frequency,” McCaffrey said.
Statistics verifying that are hard to come by – law enforcement agencies here and elsewhere usually lump all petty thefts together – and McCaffrey admitted it is difficult to know the motives of those who are taking the figurines.
But she said some of the incidents clearly are trying to send a message. In Southborough, Mass., thieves took a Nativity scene but left intact non-religious decorations such as Santa Claus, reindeer and penguins. In Plaistow, N.H., they removed the baby Jesus and left a beer can in the manger.
In Des Moines, a Christ child was stolen and then returned about two hours later. The figurine's eyes and head were burned, red nail polish was poured on its legs, an electrical cord was wrapped around its neck, and an “S” was carved into its hand, according to press accounts.
“This is one sick sucker who managed to do this,” the homeowner told a reporter.
Castaneda said the sheriff's department will occasionally get a holiday-decoration theft that “crosses the line into hate crime” because it also includes graffiti or other evidence of bigotry.
Last December, in Port St. Lucie, Fla., authorities characterized one of their incidents as a hate crime after someone stole a baby Jesus from a Nativity and positioned a wise man so he appeared to be worshipping a sheep.
Sometimes there is a different agenda. Three years ago, in Maumee, Ohio, a figurine was stolen, painted black and returned with this note: “I thought I would point out that Jesus was not an Aryan but actually a man of color.”
Not everyone sees something sinister in what years ago might have been dismissed as teenage mischief. Some, like Austin Cline, a regional director for the Council for Secular Humanism, believe too much has been made of the “War on Christmas.”
He runs a Web site that includes satirical versions of old war posters. One is called “Crush a Creche,” and depicts a soldier's boot moving toward a Nativity scene. According to Cline, it depicts how “Christian Nationalists seem to perceive the alleged threats to their treasured religious symbols.”
(The Catholic League criticized the poster in a press release, calling it “a true characterization of the anti-Christian animus at work” and a peek into the mind-set of those who “seek to neuter Christmas.”)
Then there is a Web site called “Lordnapping,” which offers tongue-in-cheek advice to people who have stolen a baby Jesus. “You liberated him from his uncomfortable (though historically accurate) environment for one reason: He deserves a warm bed with a soft pillow and nice sheets (we recommend hand-milled cotton, 400 thread-count or above). This is not the time for modesty. Tuck him in.”
Castaneda said most of the figurines stolen last year in Vista were returned to their owners. Joyce Belanger's baby Jesus wasn't among them. The family keepsake – her son gave it to her more than 30 years ago – is still missing, she said, and attempts to find a suitable replacement have been unsuccessful.
She has time to keep looking. She alternates her holiday displays (one year religious, the next year not), and this season it's a secular turn. But even if she finds another baby Jesus, she said, the next time she puts up the Nativity, it will be indoors, away from thieves, whatever their intentions.
Also link to this news story:
Stolen Baby Jesus Returned With Devil Horns
http://www.local6.com/spotlight/10527845/detail.html
If someone steals the Baby Jesus out of my front yard, I am going to call the police and tell them I am a Muslim trying to celebrate the birth of one of our prophets. I will also call the TV stations and newspapers.
Betcha I'll have it back in 24 hours and the perp will be thrown in jail for at least six months.
So are more teens drinking now than at any other time of the year, say New Year's, spring break, end of school/graduation, end of summer, Halloween, etc?
Are there other peaks in vandalism and criminal mischief associated with those other high periods of teen drinking?
Or is there something else more intolerant and sinister at work?
I'd say it is comparable to the liberal bigots who vandalized homes and signs during the 2004 election when a family/business posted a Bush/Cheney2004 sign in their yard (keyword "election violence") or the June 06, 2006 desecration of churches (6-6-6").
If it were up to the liberal trash,BABY JESUS WOULD HAVE BEEN ABORTED!
It's not nice to mock TROP. They issue fatwas over such public statements.
Al Gore has said that Jesus, Mary & Joseph were homeless (which they were not).
I suppose if he were speaking to Planned Parenthood, he would be discussing how Mary wouldn't have had to bear the "shame" of proclaiming virgin pregnancy if she'd had adequate access to "family planning services" even if the fertilization was not through conventional means.
Perhaps, in viewing image of the Christ-child of the nativity, they have a small taste of what's comming. Out of fear and guilt, they try to hide the child...throw it away..."be gone from us!".
But Man and God are inseparable...we can't hide from each other, because God is always searching for us. Adam was the first to discover this.
The guilt felt by so many in this country and elsewhere, who are still struggling with the fact that they are NOT God, drives them to foolish and resultless actions. They mock the very thing that they know is true in their hearts with actions guided by the "idea" implanted by those before them who still have not come to the fact that they are not God.
It is, and always has been, a futile search for heaven on earth, or in other word, nirvana.
Merry Christmas
FMCDH(BITS)
It is an object. I don't worship objects. It is a reflection on those that hit first... give them some more little Jesus...suss to steal.... give them your cheek some 70 times....
Then shoot dead. :)
If it had been up to the Muslims,Mary would have been stoned for being pregnant and not married.
Perhaps a hate crime. Steal a menorah or something important to a Muslim and see if they call it a "prank"
Not just any religion, just Christianity, the one which promotes love, peace on earth, goodwill towards all mankind, moral decency, and declares that Jesus Christ is the Lord and savior of all mankind, who was crucified, died and then was raised from the dead.
Clearly, Satan has no reason to fear other religions, only the one true one, and this is why Satan works in those he has seduced. His servants in turn attack Christ's church by every means possible in order to destroy Christs rule (through the church) of the earth, and thereby destroying all of mankinds hope of salvation an offer of eternal life from the penality of sin, death.
In a normal world, you'd think these anti-religionists would be up in arms over the one relgion that thinks it's their ordained duty to slaughter all those who refuse to accept their "allah" god and it's pedophile prophet, and establish it's totalitarian rule over the whole earth.
But this is not a normal world.
Nativities should be put out in non tamperable cases built BIGGER than Ever so the PC Nazis can suffer.
I am noticing more nativities out this year than ever. Have counted six when out driving the other day.
Stealing is stealing; report the theft to the police and hold their feet to the fire until they find the perp who stole the baby Jesus figure. Introduce the theiving son-of-a-bitch to a jury of his peers which should send him to prison for such debauchery as heathens like he or she would probably prefer and deserve anyway. On the other hand, if the perp is a prominent democrat, send him to the Senate.
Merry Christmas
Ricky/Bobbie = quilty!
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