The Claremont United Methodist Church in California is using the birth of Jesus this year to showcase its climate change agenda.
The installation features a mural depicting the Holy Family standing in front of a scene with smoke spewing from industrial rigging and pollution in the background, reported the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin Tuesday.
The scene also features the phrase, “Creation in peril.”
According to the report, the church’s Associate Pastor Martha Morales said the Creative Peacemaking Committee made the decision this year to focus the Christmas scene on concern for the environment after previous efforts to feature immigration as a focal point.
The Nativity scene at the Claremont United Methodist Church in Claremont, California on December 11, 2019, depicting a scene of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in separate cages as refugees. The display is aimed at drawing attention to the conditions faced by migrants seeking asylum in the US. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
Morales explained, describing the Holy Family as “marginalized”:
This idea for the Nativity scene was born out of wanting it to be a prophetic message about our faith and how we act and live it out in the world. Christmas is not just the story of the birth of Jesus. This is not just a time when we feel all calm and peaceful and give each other nice presents. The story of Christmas is a deep and challenging story of a marginalized family that fled their home to go to Egypt. We tend to ignore the really challenging parts of the Christmas story.
Each Christmas, the church uses its Nativity scene to signal its views on various social justice issues, including Black Lives Matter last year, and, in 2019, depicting the Holy Family as caged illegal migrants.
Morales, however, said the goal of the church’s display is not political, but educational.
A man expresses disapproval at a Christmas nativity scene that depicts Jesus, Mary, and Joseph separated and caged, as if asylum seekers detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at Claremont United Methodist Church in 2019.(David McNew/Getty Images)
“Our hope is that it will be a prophetic message,” she said, the Daily Bulletin noted. “The purpose is to remind everyone that if we’re not responding to our neighbors with justice and mercy, then we’re not responding to the call of Christmas.”
The church’s website features a “reconciling statement” that says:
As faithful disciples of Jesus and his teachings, we advocate for the full inclusion and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons and their families in the church and community.
As a congregation, we commit to welcoming and being led by clergy of any gender or orientation. We offer all the pastoral and congregational care of our church to all people.
“This includes continuing to offer the sacraments of baptism and holy communion; and this explicitly includes our sacred rituals, including marriage by our clergy and in our church building,” the statement reads.
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