Sometimes the worst sins originate with people who pose as Christians.
Indeed, nothing but the sin of pride could compel so-called Christians to use Jesus’ birth as a political prop.
Last month on Facebook, Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois, posted photos of a monstrous “Nativity” scene distorted for the purpose of protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ lawful enforcement of federal immigration statutes amid the unlawful interference of maniacal leftists.
“This installation reimagines 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 church wrote.
Shockingly, baby Jesus had zip ties on his wrists.
“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 prideful, virtue-signaling author of the church’s post wrote.
Perhaps even more appallingly, Jesus’ blessed mother and earthly father, Mary and Joseph, sported Antifa-like gas masks.
“The gas masks worn by Mary and Joseph reference the documented use of tear gas and other chemical weapons deployed by ICE agents against peaceful protesters, journalists, and community members advocating for immigration reform and bearing witness to human rights abuses within the system,” the post continued.
It will hardly shock readers to learn that last month ICE agents had to arrest the church’s pastor, Michael Woolf.
Nor will it shock readers to learn that at least one YouTube video of a church service identified Woolf’s pronouns. That identification — “he/him” — appears at the 35:17 mark of the video below.
(Note, too, that Woolf encouraged his congregation to think of Christ’s second coming as rooted in fear.)
Nor, sadly, will it surprise readers to learn that the Lake Street Church’s website features “social justice” as well as a “Covenant” that celebrates “soul liberty, which challenges us to embody God in the world each in our own way.”
All of this combines to produce a jarring impression, at least in the mind of this particular Christian.
Of course, one thinks first of the apostle Paul:
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” (2 Timothy 4:3).
Nonetheless, even in the absence of scriptural warnings against false teachers, any Christian who truly seeks Jesus would have to recoil from the very spirit of the Lake Street Church’s “Nativity.”
As a conservative and longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, of course I applaud ICE’s efforts. But that hardly matters in this case. After all, the impression left by the church’s distorted Nativity scene goes well beyond politics.
Imagine, for instance, a church that created a Nativity scene with a political message I endorsed. Even then, I would not celebrate that abomination.
And the reason should be obvious. The Nativity depicts God’s coming into the world in order to save me from my sins. How could I dare use that act of divine mercy as a prop with which to showcase my political opinions?
Only the sin of pride, of self-conceit, could persuade me to think that much of my own views.
In short, Woolf and the creators of the Lake Street Church “Nativity” had it wrong on every front. We may forgive their wrongheaded political ideas. But the pride that inspired their blasphemous scene should make us tremble.
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