Posted on 12/11/2019 6:23:44 PM PST by lightman
A Progressive United Methodist congregation in Southern California is marking the Advent season with an outdoor nativity display featuring the holy family in cages.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the depiction of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as refugees in cages likens one of the most well-known images of the Christmas season to photos that have become synonymous with criticism of the Trump administration’s border separation policies.
“We don’t see it as political; we see it as theological,” Claremont United Methodist Church lead pastor the Rev. Karen Clark Ristine told the Times.
“Imagine Joseph and Mary separated at the border and Jesus no older than two taken from his mother and placed behind the fences of a Border Patrol detention center as more than 5,500 children have been the past three years,” Ristine posted on the church’s Facebook page, likening economic migrant detainees to those fleeing persecution as refugees.
The United Methodist Church has an official stance opposing any immigration restrictions.
This isn’t the first time Claremont has politicized a nativity display. In 2013, the church depicted Trayvon Martin, a young black man shot and killed in Florida, in place of the infant Jesus, in a black hoodie, bleeding from an apparent bullet wound. That 2013 display, according to the artist who fashioned it, was intended to spur discussion on gun violence.
The church’s annual bid for publicity appears to be successful: in 2013 the Trayvon Martin-themed display was reported in national as well as local publications. This year, the Times is joined by CBS News, the Washington Post and several local TV affiliates offering coverage.
IRD has previously covered a transgender nativity. Any choice to replace Christ with a political statement or gender-swapping affirmation is just that – making our own statement, rather than coming to worship the Lord who arrived in a humble manger.
Jesus hates the religious.
What they aren’t telling you is that they did it to keep the illegals from stealing the nativity scene.
“Progressive” Methodists = closet atheists
Therefore:
Lutheran (EL C S*A) Ping!
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Marantha! Come, Lord Jesus!
The August 19 date refers solely to the adoption of the gaysbian agenda, NOT to the “Full Communion” agreement.
This is what happens when churches go against the Bible and appoint women to be ministers. The blasphemous display is wrong-headed emotion manifesting itself in Leftist politics.
Friday pic ping.
Tacky. Baby Jesus wasn’t lying in a cage.
Joseph and Mary weren’t illegally sneaking into a sovereign nation.
WINNER!
Yes; these idiots conveniently forget that Jesus’ family was traveling to register for the census (legally) - and that He said people should pay taxes, too.
Lame
And they wonder why the churches are dying. Liberals, cancer to humanity!
I was raised Methodist.
It’s garbage like this that caused me to leave that denomination.
Shame!
It was actually to keep the pesky idiot kids from breaking them and stealing Baby Jesus
What are these virtue signallers doing to accommodate homeless illegals?
Joseph and Mary were obeying the law onerous and inconvenient as that was. They stayed together as a family too and didn’t divide it to gain illegal entry.,
They’re attention wh@res. Pass the collection plate, Eh!
My Mom became a Methodist after she remarried 30+ years ago. I cannot STAND going to church with her, and I’ve told her why.
We agree to disagree. :)
I don’t get it. They didn’t cross any borders going from Nazareth to Bethlehem. It would be as if Indiana had a census and required everyone to go to Indianapolis. They were also not detained.
As many of these types do, the seem to be conflating the Nativity with the Flight into Egypt, to give the Holy Family credentials as refugees. They leave out the part about how the Holy Family went back home after there was no longer any threat from Herod.
Though this be madness yet there is Methodist in it.
If they have to state “it’s not political”, it’s political.
Additionally, the Reverend is a liar. The pics of cages were taken during the Obama Regime. Joseph and Mary were not illegal aliens. They were traveling to a legally required census.
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