A progressive Baptist church in Evanston, Ill., has received national recognition after using its annual Christmas Nativity scene to reflect harrowing scenes from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the greater Chicago area.
The Lake Street Church‘s politically-tinged holiday scenario shows Mary and Joseph wearing gas masks and standing up against a fence. They are looking at a baby Jesus, whose hands are zip-tied. The infant is also wrapped in an aluminum foil-looking blanket. Positioned behind the masked parents are Roman guards in wraparound sunglasses and tactical vests with “ICE” written on them.
Since September, the Department of Homeland Security has been carrying out a large-scale immigration enforcement campaign in Chicago — dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.” Agents have detained over 1,000 people in the process.
Throughout the operation, federal agents have deployed tear gas in a busy neighborhood; arrested a local police officer whom they accuse of overstaying his visa; detained an alderperson checking in on a constituent, as well as a WGN producer who was simply walking to a bus stop; orchestrated a PIT maneuver on a vehicle; and shot and killed a man shortly after he dropped off his daughter at school.
The church explained its decision to host the political display in a Facebook post last month.
“This installation re-imagines 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 post explained.
“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.”
Baby Jesus’ aluminum blanket is an example of the materials used by those detained by ICE agents in detention facilities.
“The zip ties on the infant’s wrists directly reference the children who were zip-tied by agents during a raid on a Chicago apartment building earlier this year, where most residents were U.S. citizens: a stark reminder that enforcement terror does not discriminate by documentation status,” the church continued in its social media post.
The gas masks worn by Mary and Joseph allude to ICE agents’ deployment of chemical weapons against protesters, journalists and community organizers.
If the art piece appears to lack subtlety, it’s by design.
“This installation is not subtle because the crisis it addresses is not abstract.” the church stated in its Facebook post. “We hope viewers will join the conversation about what sanctuary means when families fleeing violence are met with separation, detention, and dehumanization.”
The Rev. Michael Woolf, Lake Street Church’s senior minister, is no stranger to political activism.
Last month, Woolf was among several protesters who were physically constrained and detained by ICE agents in the greater Chicago area. A social media video showedthe pastor being grabbed by agents, thrown to the ground and arrested. He was released after about seven hours in custody.
Woolf isn’t the only religious official to have faced off with ICE agents in the Chicago area. In September, federal agents fired pepper balls at Pastor David Black of the First Presbyterian Church — an action defended by Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. Black was not severely injured by the incident.
“Christians have to look at the birth story — not just a sort of a rosy sort of tale that we can just read in scripture — but actually sort of wrestle with its coming into being in context,” Woolf told Chicago newspaper Pioneer Press last week, about his church’s Nativity scene.
In 2023, Woolf’s church had also set up a Nativity scene which saw the baby Jesus laid in a bed of rubble to evoke the image of people in Gaza trapped under debris from buildings destroyed by Israeli weapons.
“We don’t speak for all Christians,” said Woolf. “But we certainly speak for a certain strand of community that’s trying to take that message and say: ‘If Jesus were born in America right now, what would this nativity set look like?’”
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