{"id":94001,"date":"2025-12-19T11:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/94001\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:00:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T11:00:19","slug":"texas-church-condemns-ice-in-caged-nativity-scene-atop-rainbow-pride-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/94001\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Church Condemns ICE in Caged Nativity Scene Atop Rainbow Pride Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sign up for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.them.us\/newsletter\/subscribe?sourcecode=copilotunit\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Agenda<\/a>, Them\u2019s news and politics newsletter, delivered Thursdays.<\/p>\n<p>A Dallas Methodist church that has been known for making political statements has continued that tradition into the holiday season with a pro-immigrant message built into its Christmas Nativity scene.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than the usual tableau \u2014 featuring Joseph, Mary, and Jesus surrounded by barn animals, straw, and eventually, the Three Kings \u2014\u00a0Dallas\u2019s Oak Lawn United Methodist Church erected an outdoor Nativity scene that features an image of Mary and Joseph caged inside an immigration detention center, according to <a data-offer-url=\"https:\/\/www.umnews.org\/en\/news\/nativity-scenes-art-spotlight-immigration\" class=\"external-link\" data-event-click=\"{&quot;element&quot;:&quot;ExternalLink&quot;,&quot;outgoingURL&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.umnews.org\/en\/news\/nativity-scenes-art-spotlight-immigration&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.umnews.org\/en\/news\/nativity-scenes-art-spotlight-immigration\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">United Methodist News<\/a>. The church is located in Dallas\u2019s Oak Lawn neighborhood, which is known as an LGBTQ+ district.<\/p>\n<p>While Mary and Joseph are stuck inside the metal cage, which is adorned with razor wire at the top, they await the baby Jesus, who is not added to Nativity scenes until Christmas Day. The cage itself includes signs in Spanish and English that say \u201cHoly are trans lives,\u201d Holy is the refugee,&#8221; and &#8220;Holy are our unsheltered neighbors.&#8221; The display, according to church leadership, is meant to make parallels between the Biblical story we all know and our present day world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt Christmas, we remember that God chooses to be with those the world pushes to the margins. May this scene call us to make room \u2014 in our hearts, in our city, in our policies \u2014 for the Christ who comes as an unhoused immigrant child,\u201d the Church wrote in a Facebook post. The entire scene is at the top of the church\u2019s front stairs, which were painted the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.them.us\/story\/texas-abbott-rainbow-pride-crosswalks-oak-lawn-methodist-church\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">colors of the LGBTQ+ Pride flag<\/a> in another political statement from earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for The Agenda, Them\u2019s news and politics newsletter, delivered Thursdays. A Dallas Methodist church that has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[223,24544,27,29,28,19756],"class_list":["post-94001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-news","tag-splitscreenimagerightfullbleed","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}