‘Tis the season for leftist church pastors to pull out their favorite brand of spiritual abuse. By this, I mean cheapening the Nativity story to forward a political agenda through emotional and spiritual manipulation.

This heresy, unfortunately, is practiced worldwide.

In Massachusetts, a Catholic church, St. Susanna, removed baby Jesus from His rightful place at the center of the Nativity display, replacing Him with a sign stating, “ICE was here.” Another sign added, “The Holy Family is safe in The Sanctuary of our Church.”

'ICE was here’: Dedham church’s Nativity scene protests immigration crackdownhttps://t.co/cJzRj5jrNE pic.twitter.com/uM2VpfLtSQ

— Boston.com (@BostonDotCom) December 3, 2025

Outside of Chicago, Lake Street Church of Evanston’s Nativity display showed baby Jesus cuffed with zip ties and wrapped in an emergency blanket, while Mary and Joseph were clad in gas masks as if they were protesters anticipating getting tear-gassed during an anti-deportation protest.

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,… https://t.co/E6yHYMGNLF pic.twitter.com/dWWp43C6oE

— The Western Journal (@WesternJournalX) December 5, 2025

In the UK, Christian protestors staged a Nativity in which the Holy Family was floating in an inflatable dinghy, which is often used to smuggle illegal aliens onto the shores of Great Britain.

ناشطون يجسّدون “العائلة المقدسة” كلاجئين أمام كاتدرائية سانت بول في #بريطانيا بهدف تسليط الضوء على محنة اللاجئين المعاصرة#عينكعلىالعالم pic.twitter.com/wlHqQXIL31

— العين الإخبارية (@AlAinNews) December 13, 2025

These are three examples of a false narrative of a false gospel.

First, refugees aren’t illegal migrants. Second, Jesus and His parents weren’t refugees. Refugees are defined as persons who have to flee their countries because of war, violent social unrest, or persecution. They usually cannot ever return to their homes. Those who claim that Jesus and His family qualify for the title of “refugee” are either over-applying the term, are ignorant of the world map during biblical times, or are banking on the fact that many people are ignorant of the Nativity story. They are, in essence, taking a grain of truth from the Nativity story and then twisting it for emotional and spiritual blackmail to forward political agendas — like protesting immigration officers attempting to uphold the Rule of Law.

Let’s crack open the Bible to dissect the false narratives of these grifters.

Matthew 2 documents the entire affair. Mary and Joseph indeed had to travel to Bethlehem, the town of Joseph’s birth, to comply with a census. They were legal citizens complying with the law — therefore, not refugees.

After Jesus was born, King Herod of Judea — the puppet king over the southern province of Israel — found out about Jesus’s birth from the three wise men and tried to trick them into betraying Jesus’s location so he could kill the baby. Herod was very worried about losing what little power the Romans allowed him to have.

The wise men found Jesus and gave Him their gifts, but they didn’t go back to King Herod because they were warned not to in a dream. Joseph was also warned to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt in a dream, which he promptly did, leaving secretly at night. They weren’t exactly fleeing violence, war, or persecution, but obeying God’s warning. Therefore, the Holy Family still wouldn’t be considered refugees. Their flight was immediately justified because King Herod sent soldiers to kill all the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem after he realized that the wise men weren’t coming back.

When King Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and told him to take Mary and Jesus back to the land of Israel, which he did. They went back to Judea at first, but Joseph was again warned not to linger there, so the Holy Family settled in Galilee. Galilee was a part of Israel, though it was technically a different province and ruled by a different leader. Judeans considered Galileeans to be lesser Jews and kind of like the country cousins. Even though the Holy Family didn’t settle back in Judea, they still weren’t refugees.

All of the places in which Joseph, Mary, and Jesus lived were a part of the Roman Empire. It’s comparable today to fleeing California for Texas. State borders were crossed, but technically, they never left territory controlled by the larger Roman Empire.

The Left’s distortion and manipulation of the Nativity story isn’t new. The group He Gets Us posted this ad in 2022:

In a well-written piece for The Conservative Woman discussing the UK desecration, Gavin Ashenden writes:

One of the strangest perversions of contemporary Christianity is the assumption that it is primarily about inclusion, and only secondarily (if at all) about truth, judgement, repentance or salvation.

Almost every diocesan press release – from London to Southwark to Manchester – and a great deal of Anglican commentary repeats this incantation: Christianity equals inclusion. Exclusion, we are told, is the supreme sin.

This is not merely odd: it is ignorant.

The Jesus of the New Testament bears little resemblance to the Jesus with whom much of the Church of England now appears to be in relationship.

The Nativity story is not a parable that justifies modern-day illegal immigration. Jesus wasn’t a refugee by any definition of the word, and He didn’t come to be used as a political cudgel to justify the whims of leftists.

Jesus came to be a light in the darkness. God the Son came to Earth in the form of a tiny, helpless infant to save us all. His loving sacrifice started in the cradle and was made perfect through the cross. He did not come as a king riding on a great white steed. He came quietly on that silent night in a lowly stable — not to change the temporal politics of that time, but to change the course of history and live out God’s plan.

The false narratives established by modern-day churches are distractions. Thankfully, the real story of the miracle of Christ’s birth will outshine all of those who seek to distort it.