Creativity in protest: This church set a nativity scene in a cage

By Joe Berkowitz

Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of people in more than 700 cities gathered to protest the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy and lax approach to reuniting separated families. While the sheer numbers serve as an indication of the cultural temperature regarding this policy–and the mainstreaming of “Abolish ICE” as a cause sheds light on where some politicians stand–sometimes it takes just the right combination of messenger and message to get the point across.

Christ Church Cathedral in Indiana recently launched its “Every Family is Holy” campaign with an initiative that places Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus statues inside a cage on a church’s front lawn. The congregation claims the Holy Family has been placed in “ICE detention.” It’s a creative solution to the problem of getting across the degree to which ICE’s tactics run counter to religious scripture. Perhaps supporters of the policy who are familiar with the bible interpret Jesus as a leader who only wanted to secure America’s borders at all costs. (Fun fact: Jesus’s birth took place roughly 1776 years before the founding of America.)

The three holy figures are placed in what Fox and Friends famously described not as a cage but rather as “walls built out of chain-link fences.” The display went up around 10 p.m. on Monday night and is already causing a stir on social media.

CBS News interviewed an associate clergy member at the church, Cannon Lee Curtis, about the scene, and he said, “We have been active as a church caring for those in need–including people who are coming to our country, seeking a better, safer life for themselves and their kids . . . My greatest hope is that those in power, those who could end this today, will say, ‘We are not going to treat people coming into our country this way.’”

 
 
 

 

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