Greatest Story Ever Told's Opening Act Tweaked To Advance Assorted Agendas

In the frantic effort to co-opt all of culture to advance the cause of comprehensive revolution, not even the symbols of the sacred and solemn are immune from being hijacked for the purposes of advancing the agenda. In fact, it is often the only time that otherwise intended for destruction will be tolerated by those already having pledged their loyalty to the one bent upon toppling the Most High.

According to a story published in the 12/9/19 edition of USA Today, a Methodist church in California erected a Nativity depicting Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as detained refugees. Apparently, this is not the first time the congregation has utilized what ought to be a reverent display to propagandize on behalf of a faddish social cause.

According to the pastrix, the previous year's addressed the California homeless crisis. The 2019 version wanted the beholding to imagine Mary, Joseph, and Jesus separated at a Trumpian detention center in juxtaposition with the presupposition that “Jesus grew up to teach us kindness and mercy and a radical welcome of all people.” It seems this holiday display compounds the factual and philosophical fallacies and omissions one year to the next.

The first of these needing to be addressed is the issue of California's homeless problem. Foremostly, Mary and Joseph were not homeless. The couple anticipating the Messianic child were ordered by Roman decree to travel from their home in Nazareth to the town of their ancestors for the purposes of registering with the census and paying their taxes.

If the congregation wants to do more than posture, preen, and virtue signal as to how bad they feel about the homeless epidemic, perhaps they would do well to reflect upon what is causing this lamentable crisis. They might be surprised to learn that the sort of progressivism likely embraced by many attending this sort of church has exacerbated the situation.

For example, since easing the restrictions on cannabis across America (supposedly for so called “medicinal purposes” even for patiences not suffering metastasized cancer, seizure disorders, or glaucoma but usually for nothing more than lazy ass syndrome).homeless rates have skyrocketed noticeably. For often those for whom the consumption of this intoxicant has become the central organizing facet of their existence find it a challenge to keep themselves satisfactorily employed and domiciled.

One can legitimately debate the role to be played by government and/or charity in addressing this issue. However, it will not be resolved --- something that elites might not even want to see transpire as a number paradoxically have a vested interest in seeing that the problem remains ongoing ---- unless individual responsibility and choices are recognized for the role they play in terms of ruined lives.

Though the Holy Family was not homeless in the terms of having no designated locality of habitation once their business with the regime had been concluded, if we want to take the presuppositions as expressed by the interpretative spin of this particular Nativity to their logical conclusion, do the statists possess the conviction to point out the implications of California's infamous taxation and regulatory bureaucracy upon the homeless situation?

For if the taxes and level of government intrusion beyond basic safety becomes too great, businesses will either close or leave California. In turn, those working for these enterprises will end up losing their jobs. That could result in the forfeiture of their homes if there are not a sufficient number of open positions in which the occupationally displaced can find reemployment.

Often in America, if one found themselves in a situation where they could not find employment to their liking, there was always the possibility of making one's own job through some sort of entrepreneurial undertaking. However, given the extent to which government has come to exert punitive influence over nearly every aspect of life to the point that in order to sell doodads at a flea market one has to beseech a permit and then often have to preemptively estimate before hand how much revenue might be generated from such transactions one could easily be discouraged from pursuing the very forms of basic commerce that could have prevented one's plunge into destitution.

The reflection put into the display depicting the Holy Family as detained refugees is no better than the narrative casting them as typical homeless. The press statement referring to the figurines depicted in this manner states, “Jesus grew up to teach us kindness and mercy and a radical welcome of all people.”

Jesus did emphasize kindness and mercy. However, He just as much emphasized that these qualities can only be extended when certain conditions are met. For the same corpus of divine revelation proclaiming the salvation found in Christ also just as explicitly extols “let all things be done decently and in order.”

It is because kindness and mercy play such a central role in Christian ethical thought that the nation is justified in exerting stringent oversight in regards to whom it will decide to grant entrance.