A NATIVITY scene in which the hands of the infant Jesus are zip-tied and Mary wears a respirator mask is on show outside a Baptist church in Chicago — a city where the Trump administration’s immigration raids are a source of tension and fear.
Lake Street Church of Evanston seeks to bring “the Gospel into a modern-day context”, a senior minister there, the Revd Dr Michael Woolf, said.
He told the Church Times: “We are asking, what would it be like if Jesus came into the world today, here in Chicago?”
The scene also shows Jesus wrapped in an emergency foil blanket, and masked centurions wearing green vests labelled ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). A post on social media about the scene provoked support from some, but also outrage and accusations of blasphemy from others, as well as threats to the ministry team.
Dr Woolf said, however: “We have had a fantastic local response. Folk who are living through this have been brought to tears that the church could care for them in this way. We are simply showing people being zip tied naked, and separated from their families — and this is all happening here in Chicago.”
Dr Woolf was arrested three weeks ago during a protest outside a detention facility near the church. He faces three charges as a result. A photo of him under arrest, wearing a clerical collar and being forced to the ground by police, appeared on news outlets around the world.
LAKE STREET CHURCH OF EVANSTONLake Street Church of Evanston
He said: “If they can treat someone with a collar on like that, with the world watching, what are they doing to people just down the road in what is a concentration camp? It is Jesus who is being locked up, and Jesus that is being abused, and our faith leads us to challenge it. . . We will not go away.”
Last year, the same church’s nativity scene depicted Jesus born in the rubble of Gaza.
Chicago has experienced some of the highest level of ICE raids over the past few months. Episcopal clergy have joined protests against the policy of rounding up, detaining, and deporting migrants, and have supported migrant communities.
Other churches in the US are also using nativity scenes to highlight the immigration raids. In a traditional wooden nativity outside St Susanna’s RC Church, Dedham, Massachusetts, other figures are present — but the Holy Family are not. Propped up in the centre where the manger should be is a sign that reads: “ICE was here.”
Over Christmas, some churches are to hold services and vigils outside detention facilities.
The Revd David Woessner, an Episcopalian priest in Massachusetts, is planning a nativity service with a donkey outside an ICE facility in Burlington on Christmas Eve. He told the Religion News Service: “It is a full Christian worship service celebrating Christmas, telling the story of Jesus’ birth, and telling the story of the Holy Family as a refugee family.
“We celebrate knowing that our Saviour comes into the world as a person who is oppressed, a person who is persecuted and fleeing government violence into a family that is under the thumb of tyranny and empire. Yet God comes into the world — the light of the world comes into the darkness.”
