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Journalism of Courage
With Christmas just around the corner, a church in California is making headlines for its unusual nativity scene which features Jesus, Mary and Joseph separated, and in jails.
The Claremont United Methodist Church came up with the nativity scene in connection with the ongoing controversies regarding the Trump administration’s border separation policies for migrant families caught at the border.
The display sparked several debates after the church’s lead pastor Rev. Karen Clark Ristine shared pictures on Facebook.
Speaking to Washington Post, Ristine said that the nativity scene was intended to highlight the plight of the migrants and to suggest more compassionate ways to treat them.
The pastor said that the scene invokes Joseph and Mary’s journey to Egypt, right after Jesus’s birth, describing the holy family as the best-known refugee family in the world.
Ristine also said in her post that a more traditional nativity scene, showing the family together is displayed inside the church.
The Washington Post report said that the unique nativity scene is one of the many that have come up to talk about modern issues, including gun control, and marriage equality.
Take a look at how people on social media reacted to the California church’s nativity scene:
https://twitter.com/PhyllisSilver/status/1203835915136839681
https://twitter.com/CarolLei4/status/1203781424236634119
https://twitter.com/j_Rooker/status/1203768892176261125
https://twitter.com/NYwonk/status/1203764939112042496
After the Trump administration faced backlash for its immigration policies, the practice of separating children from their families was officially put to an end in 2018.
