← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Ep 1277 | Why We Don’t Do Santa & Why Jesus Wasn't a Refugee
01:01:37
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Here's why we don't do Santa Claus in our home. Also, Jesus was not a refugee. We are getting into all of this on today's theology episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com use code ally at checkout for a discount. That's good ranchers.com code ally.
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Hey guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. All right. We decorated the Relatable set for Christmas. One of you messaged me or you commented somewhere and you said, where's Relatable's Christmas tree, y'? All. I had completely forgotten about that. I think that I would have forgotten if someone had not brought it up. So thank you so much. I wish that I had remembered earlier because I like to max out the Christmas tree behind me as much as possible. And I actually think it makes the set look better. And it makes me think I need to paint these walls because ever, ever since I got my colors done and I realized that black actually washes me out because I'm in autumn, I've realized my set is all the wrong color scheme. So one day, maybe next year, you'll show up here and you'll see that we have painted these walls Relatable green. We'll see about that. But for now, we just have Yuletide decor. And, and I know that I'm going to get comments about the reindeer. I don't know what the comments will be. You guys Surprise me sometimes. Some of you are going to like it, some of you are not going to like it. There's going to be a random troll out there that says, you've changed, Ally. You would have never had a reindeer last year. I got a comment just the other day from someone saying, you know what, stop with this new y' all thing that you're saying. You're trying too hard. And I was aghast because I am a born and raised Texas. What am I supposed to say? Use Guys, we don't say that here. I don't. I don't even know how to say anything besides y'. All. It's just efficient. So I know that I'm going to get some comment on the reindeer. I like the reindeer. It's Dasher specifically. I decided that. All right, let's get into this Christmas themed episode. Today I get asked every year without fail, from a new follower, listener, viewer, what do you think about Santa Claus? As a Christian mom, do y' all do Santa Claus? And my short answer is no. And I'll give you the explanation for why. And I first want to say, before I give my explanation, that this is a Christian liberty issue. Okay? So we have freedom as Christians to disagree on this. So you can of course post your commentary, post your opinion about this, and you can disagree with me, and that's completely fine. We are both Christians, we both love God's word, and we're trying to do the very best we can to disciple our children. I don't have any condemnation for you if you are pro Santa family. And I hope that you will be respectful in your comments to me if you differ from my perspective on this, and I imagine that many of you will. Because I grew up as a pro Santa person, I was raised believing in Santa, believing in the Easter bunny, believing in the tooth fairy. I don't think my parents pushed these things very hard. But it is fun to imagine. And I do believe that imagination is a really important part of childhood. That's why I think reading fiction to your children like the Chronicles of Narnia, even though those things aren't real, stretching your imagination as a child is really important. And I've always loved having an imagination and loved being creative in that way. So I don't think it took very much for, for me to believe in Santa Claus. But I was the youngest and my brothers are ten and seven and a half years older than me. And so when you have older siblings who obviously realize that Santa Claus is not real, long before I did as the Youngest child, you kind of grow up more quickly. You just do. And I remember I was 6 years old and I had just lost a tooth. And I looked out the window and I said something to my 16 year old brother about the tooth fairy coming. And he kind of like made a noise or rolled his eyes or something like that. And I noticed that reaction and I was like, wait a second. And I don't remember if I asked him if tooth fairies aren't real. He probably just told me, you know, how like 16 year old boys are. I don't remember exactly what he said, but his reaction really made me start thinking, and I was thinking all night about that. Hang on. Why did he act like it was silly for me to believe that the tooth fairy is going to come tonight and take my tooth and give me money in exchange? Who else would be doing that? Hang on just a second. Then of course I started thinking about everything else, like the Easter bunny and Santa Claus. And I decided this was in the summer. I decided the next day I was going to confront my mom about this. And I still remember we were in the backyard and I asked her if the tooth fairy is real. And she just paused and she told me, no, it's not. And then, shock of all shocks, my deductive reasoning really was kicking in. And this was devastating to me when I asked her, hang on, does that mean that Santa Claus is not real? And she told me the truth that Santa Claus is not real. And I was like really hurt. I don't think this is the experience of all kids. And I'm not saying it's going to be. I'm not saying you're irreparably traumatizing your child by telling them that Santa is real. But I was, I was legitimately hurt by this. I was shocked by this. And I think also the fact that I was so young in my belief that I really wanted to hold on to was like disrupted while I was still in kindergarten was a little bit jarring for me. But I remember declaring from a young age that I was not going to tell my children that Santa Claus is real. And again, this is not me trying to make the point that you are going to make your child feel betrayed. I have a wonderful relationship with my parents. I trust them very much. I never had a hard time believing and knowing that Jesus is real, even though they told me that Santa was real when he really wasn't. I, I didn't have all of that stu stuff that some people warn may happen to your kids if you lied to them. About Santa Claus. I just felt hurt in the moment, and I just knew that I didn't want to tell my kids that Santa was real. And so that really leads me to my first reason of why we personally do not do Santa Claus. Because it causes confusion. It is a form of deceit, I believe, and it can cause confusion in kids. Of course, we want our kids to trust us. Uh, we want them to believe what we have to say, especially about important spiritual and mysterious matters. And it can cause this kind of dissonance or confusion in a child when we tell them that someone is real, is giving them gifts, is watching them when they're sleeping or when they're awake, is taking a tally of the good deeds they do, the bad deeds they do, putting it on a list, and then allocating gifts in accordance to their behavior, and then to tell them one day that that system of morality around Christmas time doesn't exist. I do believe that that causes, even if just for a moment.
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Mistrust between the parent and child, and again, maybe temporarily, confusion about what is actually true that our parents teach us, but what is actually true about the. A mysterious and supernatural realm? Who does see us? Who does know when we're awake and when we're lying down? Who does see all that we do, good and bad? Who do we have to give an account to? And of course, we as Christians know the answer to that. So I'll get into the theological side of this in just a second. Let me go ahead and pause. Tell you about our first sponsor for the day. It's EveryLife. EveryLife is America's pro life diaper company. They're not just a diaper company, though they do make amazing diapers and wipes. It's what we use exclusively in our home. They work so well, totally clean materials. They also make other baby items like lotion and shampoo and body wash and things like that. But they also have a feminine care line. How refreshing is it to have a company that can define what a woman is, that cares about the sanctity of life starting at the moment of conception, and lives out those values in a godly way, and also in a way that helps us by creating really clean, really effective products for all stages of a woman's life. So you need to be buying these products from every life. They're an amazing company with awesome and clean and effective products. If you go to everylife.com women, you can check out their feminine care line. And when you use code ALI10, you'll save 10% on your order. That's everylife.com women use code ALI10 at checkout to save 10% on your EveryLife order.
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Okay, so let me give you some perspective from some professionals on this. And again, you can take it with a grain of salt. You can agree with some of it, disagree with other parts of it, that's fine. But I do want to bring us to a place of theological thoughtfulness in all of the things that we tell our children, not just about Santa Claus, but but the media we allow them to watch, the books that we allow them to read, the messages that we convey to them, especially in these formative and extremely malleable years. So this is according to the Christian Post. There's a psychologist by the name of Kathy McKay and she is a co author of a 2016 study in Lancet Psychiatry. She said this the Santa myth is such an involved lie, such a long lasting one between parents and children, that if a relationship is vulnerable and this may be the final straw, if parents can lie so convincingly and over such a long time, what else can they lie about? So I just want to highlight the caveat there, that if a relationship is already vulnerable, so this might not describe most of the relationships out there that you have with your children, but if this is already home, that is fraught with chaos and fraught with different kinds of distrust and seasons of betrayal, whatever it is, a divorced family, an unstable family. And some some way the realization of this lie can add insult to injury. So it has the potential impact of causing mistrust through deceit. But even more than that, I believe that it causes theological confusion when you think about Santa Claus, as I've already described, he sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows when you've been bad or good. So be good, for goodness sake, be good. Because Santa Claus sees you. And if you're not good, if you don't do the things that you're supposed to do, then he will not give you as many gifts or your gifts won't be as nice. If you're not as deserving as he deems you to be, then maybe you're not going to have as fun of a Christmas as you could have if you follow his list of rules. And the reason why I think this causes confusion is because that is a legalistic form of Christ of God. God is the one who really sees us when we're sleeping, who knows when we get get up and when we lie down. He is the one who is omnipresent. He is the one who is omniscient. He is the one who not only sees all of our deeds, but hears all of our words and knows all of our thoughts and even judges the intention of the heart. But the incredible thing about Jesus is that he is not allocating gifts based on some tally of whether we've done more good deeds or whether we've done more bad deeds. But he is a gift giving. He is giving gifts by grace, through faith. And the greatest gift is salvation. So there is a real omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient gift giver that I think can be eclipsed by the confusion that a counterfeit form of God in Santa Claus can possibly cultivate. And there's actually an article about this. I hadn't read this article until this year and I've just articulated the take I gave to you many times over the years. But this is Ligonier Theologian Sinclair Ferguson points out that many people's view of Christ actually looks more like Santa than the God of the Bible. So this is the other side of the confusion. Whereas my argument is that people can make Santa Claus look too much like Christ, but adding legalism in, he is arguing that some people can make their Christ look too much like Santa Claus. So he argues that many people imagine a Santa Christ who is basically a plagian Jesus. He assumes everyone is naturally good and simply checks if we've been good enough to earn a happy life with Jesus as the cherry on top rather than the Savior of helpless sinners. Others picture a semi, semi plagian Santa Christ who like Santa rewarding the nice list, gives grace in heaven only to those who have already done their very best on their own, turning salvation into a bonus for self helpers. A third common version is a mystical Santa Christ whose value lies in the warm feelings and personal spirit of Christmas that he inspires. So it doesn't matter if the biblical story is historically true, everyone can invent their own feel good Jesus. In all of these versions, he says Jesus functions like Santa Claus, a cheerful gift giver who makes good people happier, instead of the Holy God who invades a fallen world to rescue the spiritually bankrupt. So well said, the Scriptures system systematically strip away the veneer that covers the real truth of the Christmas story. Jesus did not come to add to our comforts. He did not come to help those who were already helping themselves or to fill life with more pleasant experiences. He came on a deliverance mission to save sinners, and to do so he had to destroy the works of the devil. So what he is arguing, what we're kind of both arguing together, two sides of the same coin, is that Jesus and Santa Claus can get confused if we are presenting two entities that look very similar, are both in a different realm, can both defy the laws of physics, both in some way live out of time, and have very similar characteristics. But Santa Claus is the one who will give you all of your immediate desires and will fulfill all of the temporary pleasure that you long for, because he is giving you something in the form of a tangible gift right and front of you. Like, it's no wonder that we as people, but especially children, have such a hard time actually focusing on Christ, the real gift giver, who doesn't give you everything that you want on your list, who isn't fulfilling all of your desires one morning, but is giving you a gift that is far greater in the form of salvation. So I actually think that the whole thing, Santa Claus narrative and the focus on that has the possibility of eclipsing the gospel message that is central to Christmas. And that is my second reason. So, first reason is that the deceit causes confusion and possible mistrust. And that's not good. We're supposed to disciple our children. They should be able to trust us, especially with important things like what exists on the other side. And then number two, the big reason is that I believe it distracts us, and especially children and families and society from Christmas's true meaning. And I see people say, well, it's just, you know, there's a mystery to it that makes Christmas really magical. When you imagine that there's someone at the North Pole who sees you, who has elves and who is flying through the night. And while I do think imagination is really fun, we can imagine things while still, still telling our children the truth. And the reality is, is that there is already a beautiful mystery of Christmas that no one truly understands, because we are natural people who were intersected by the supernatural when Jesus became Emmanuel, God with us made flesh. Like, that is the mystery of Christmas. John 1 is the mystery of Christmas that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and was light in the darkness and light among men. Like, that is the mystery. There really is a supernatural realm. There really is this incredible place that we read about, but we can only imagine called Heaven. There really is a good and a bad. And there really is a good gift giver who is responsible for giving all of the gifts that we have, both tangible and spiritual. And so, like why would we create a counter narrative to that? A cheapened narrative, a legalistic narrative that gives all of the wrong lessons about morality and about what saves you and about what satisfies you and about what fulfills you. I don't think that it is wrong to have Santa Claus be some kind of side character of Christmas. As long as we are telling our kids, sure, like it's fiction, it's fun. We can tell them about St Nicholas and who Nicholas really was and some of the stories surrounding them. That something that are surrounding him, that something that we've done in our home. We don't forbid all pictures of Santa or all movies that have Santa or Rudolph the red nose reindeer. Again, I think fiction is fun. I think that we are hardwired as image bearers of God to love a story. And so I think all stories can be reflections of the greater story. So as long as all of the characters and all of the parts of Christmas, whether it's the Christmas tree or Christmas carols or hot chocolate or the gifts that you give or Santa Claus or Rudolph, are all reflections of the greater story, God's eternal plan of redemption and the gospel message that we see at Christmas, I think that's fine. But when Elf in a Shelf, on a shelf, whatever it's called, we've never done that before. It's too much work. It seems like when that starts to be the taker of our joy or like the source of our stress and our energy and not discipling our kids and telling them what the Advent, the coming of the Lord actually means in their lives, well, then we have veered into idolatry. Then things don't become so much. They're not as much a Christian liberty issue as an idolatry issue. I'm not saying that everyone who does Elf on a Shelf or everyone who does Santa Claus and tells their kids Santa Claus is real is committing idolatry. I'm not saying that. But I do think that wherever we are directing our heart in our energy at any time of year, that it can become idolatry. And I think that we have to do our best to protect our kids from that. Here's some differences that are written out by desiring God. That's John Piper's ministry. Santa's gifts are earthly, material and temporary. Jesus offers eternal joy, salvation and the fruit of the spirit. Santa's gifts are offered on the basis of good works. Jesus offers his free gift by grace, through faith. Santa Claus is not real. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life he's not a character, but the true and living God. Santa Claus only comes once a year, but Christ says he is always with us. So why replace worse? Why? Why replace the best news with worse news? John Piper writes this. After Easter, Christmas should be the happiest day of the year in Christian worship. The reason I say after Easter is that Good Friday and Easter is the goal of Christmas. The death and resurrection, the salvation of sinners through the death and resurrection of Jesus is the goal of Christmas. Christmas is not the goal of Easter. Christmas is a means. The salvation of sinners on Good Friday and Easter is the goal. I love that. And these are some great passages about what Christmas actually means. Luke 19:10. For the son of man, that's Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. First Timothy 1:15. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. First John 3:8. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sitting from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. That's really good news. This again from desiring God. So the birth of the Son of God, the very God very man, is simply stunning and glorious and infinitely serious. An overflow of the happy news. The angel called it good news of crate joy. Good news of great joy. It was like one descriptor, one positive descriptor wasn't enough. Good news of great joy. Great joy. Not small joy, not a little bit of joy, but great joy. Luke 2, 10, 11. And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord. That is the good news of Christmas and of the Advent that we are celebrating right now. There are some ways to specifically incorporate Santa into Christmas. Maybe you start right now, maybe you haven't done it so far. Maybe you're listening to this and you realized, okay, I can put more effort into ensuring that this is the central focus of this holiday season. So let's talk about what that could look like. Let me pause tell you about our next sponsor first. And that is Good Ranchers. You guys know how much I love good ranchers. In our home last night I had some of their wagyu beef, and their wagyu beef comes in patties and I love that. Or at least this bag of meat did. But I made it Ground beef turned it into tacos. My husband will tell you I have like some kind of obsession with Tex Mex. I can't even think about dinner outside of the context of Tex Mex. Every meat is going to turn into a fajita or enchilada or something. I don't know. And so that's what I did last night. Everyone else had pasta, but I had tacos with my good ranchers meat. I love how versatile it is. We love their non pre marinated chicken. It is like the protein, the go to protein in our house because all of my kids will eat it. I just love feeling so prepared that I always have a freezer full of all American meat. A subscription to Go to Ranchers. So you get that box of American meat to your front door every month would be an amazing gift for someone in your life. 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My mom did such a great job, even though we did, I did believe in Santa Claus for a little bit there. My mom did such a great job though at pointing to Jesus. Every year she would host a birthday party for Jesus and she would invite all of the kids in our church and in our neighborhood and we would have a birthday cake that she would make and we would blow out the candles for Jesus. And it was a fun celebration. Again, not banning Christmas trees and Christmas decor and, you know, reindeer and Santa Claus and all of that. But all of that was meant to point to the celebration of Jesus. Now you might say, well, Jesus wasn't really born on December 25th. That's okay. It doesn't really matter if Jesus was born in September. It doesn't matter because this is the time that we celebrate his advent, whether it his coming to the earth, whether it happened in September, whether it happened in December. It is okay that we celebrate his birthday on a different day of the year in the Christian, in the Christian calendar. So that's one thing. You can host a birthday party for Jesus, whether that's just with your immediate family or whether that's with everyone reading the Christmas story at the beginning of Luke or the other gospels and trying to understand this mystery of Christmas and God becoming flesh and what that actually accomplished. We have my mom especially, but we have too. We have all kinds of like nativity scene toys that my kids play with and we talk through that. There are all kinds of Advent devotionals. And even if you didn't start on December 1st, that's okay, you can start now. There are plenty on Amazon. We have a few. I can't think of what the title is. I think it's just 25 days of Christmas, like some Advent family devotional that we have. And even if you don't feel like an equipped theologian, even if you don't feel like you know everything about the Gospel or about scripture, about Jesus, that's okay. This is an opportunity for you to learn too. And you don't have to. To be a well versed theologian to disciple your kids. Is it important for you to read God's Word? Absolutely. Be plugged into a church, be discipled by people who are further along in their faith than you? Yes. Growing in knowledge and wisdom and our understanding of God is so important. But don't let that stop you from teaching your kids what is biblically good, right and true. God has entrusted those kids to you right now. And it's just like anything else. If we wait until all of the circumstances are ideal or we think we have the proper amount of expertise to contribute to something, we may never dive into the thing that God is calling us to do. And so God's grace and his wisdom will meet you where you are. If you don't have an ESV study Bible, get you an ESV study Bible by the grace of God. We've worked with various ministries this year and we have given away John MacArthur study Bibles, ESV study Bibles. I think the total has been over 6,000 and I can't, you know, pat myself on the back at all for that. It's the ministries who are extremely generous. All I have to do is post the link and I am so happy to be able to engage with my audience in that way. And I'm so thrilled that whenever we post those links of the Bibles being free and being donated to you.
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That the, that they are all flying off the shelves in a matter of like 30 minutes. I mean, we sellouts, for lack of a better term, of those books so quickly, of those Bibles so quickly. And so I'm so thankful that there are so many of you who are reading the Bible for the first time this year. And if you don't have an ESP study Bible, that's what I use. I love it. I started, I started reading that when I was a sophomore in college and it really deepened my understanding. You can get it on Amazon. It's not very expensive at all. So I just encourage you to do that. And maybe before the end of the year we'll have another giveaway where we'll give away some free Bibles. So just talk about Jesus, talk about the Gospel, talk about what really happened. You could also talk about St. Nicholas. We could talk about the origins of Santa Claus. This according to Ligonier. He was a real 4th century bishop who lived in Myra on the southern coast of what is now Turkey. He was born into a wealthy family, but he devoted his life to serving Christ. He gave his entire inheritance to the poor. So he was known for his generosity. He was known for his gifts, gift giving. He would travel Europe and give gifts to children on December 6th in his name. Actually, he didn't do that. People started doing that in remembrance of him. It was specifically on December 6th that in the name of St. Nicholas, people would give gifts to children because he was a giver of gifts to children. So you could talk about that history. And then from there the myth of Santa Claus kind of evolved. Christmas hymns are a beautiful way to meditate on the truth of Christmas and on the truth of what God did for us. Why it is so amazing that the Messiah came, that the king came as an embryo and then a newborn baby in very humble means, and not as a warrior as so many were expecting, and not as adult royalty. But he symbolizes.
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Exactly what God always does is that he defies the expectations of human beings. He doesn't define wisdom and success and power the same way that we do. And obviously Jesus is God. He is so much more than just a symbol of what God does. But it is so like God to seemingly stack the odds against himself and then to take down all of the powers that be. And that's of course what Jesus did, not only in the earthly sense, but also in the heavenly sense. I just want to leave you with a couple passages that really encourage me that I love how they describe this mystery of Christmas. Colossians 1, 15, 18 He Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. How much better is that is that than Santa Claus? So much better. And also just not the image of this wimpy Jesus who just exists to cheerlead you on your path to self love and self fulfillment. So much better. The Gospel is so much better. Last passage in this segment, Hebrews 1:1 through 3. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification, purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So that is who Jesus is. And that is missed so often. It's not just missed among those who call themselves progressive Christians. We're about to get into them in a second. But gosh, it's missed by prosperity Gospel preachers and adherents, those who believe that Jesus really is just like Santa Claus, that he's here to give us what we want, and that a sign of his favor and his love for us is by our material blessings. And that's just not the case. I mean, Jesus says, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the downtrodden and the destitute. That's my paraphrase there. That's not to say that we have to be materially impoverished. But people who really see Jesus as one who gives fame and success and material and earthly glory, they see him wrong. But on the other side of that, I argue in my first book, you're Not Enough, that the prosperity gospel professing Christians and that the progressive gospel professing Christians, they both believe in a different side of the God of self. The left might see him as a political activist that is here to help them meet their political ends. The prosperity Gospel adherents see him just as a source of their own personal fulfillment and wealth. But neither of those sides really see Jesus for who he is, as king who came to defeat the works of the devil, who came to kill our old self and to kill our sin and to mortify our flesh so that we could take up our cross and follow him, be reconciled to God and live with him forever. Both sides miss that. Um, but I've got some stories specifically on what's going on in progressive churches and how they pervert and manipulate Christmas is they pervert and manipulate all things to make a political point. And in so doing, they completely missed the gospel, which is the saddest part of that so we'll get into that in just a second. Let me go ahead and tell you about our, our third sponsor for the day. Y' all will be happy to hear. We only have four sponsors today, so gotta make them count. Next sponsor is Preborn. All right, if you're thinking about where to give your money at the end of the year before Christmas, put your money where your heart is. You're pro life. You care about life inside the womb. I mean we just talked about Jesus coming as an embryo. We know that God cares about life inside the womb. And one way that you can do that, that you can live out those values is by donating to preborn. Preborn is a pro life organ organization. They resource a network of clinics across the country with the tools they need to serve pregnant moms in need, especially this. I think like one of the most important things that they do is supply these clinics with ultrasound equipment. The ultrasound allows that woman to see and hear her baby. And she sees this is not just a clump of cells. This is a human being. This is part of me. And she is so much more likely to choose life. We know that the other side wants to opt the, the skate and they want to hide what is actually going on in her womb. We're on the side of truth, we're on the side of transparency. We want her to really know what is going on inside her body and that is another life growing that God is fearfully and wonderfully knitting inside her womb. So if you want women to see the truth of life and to make that life affirming God honoring choice of protecting her baby, then you need to partner with preborn. They're the ones that are partnering with the clinics across the country to help save baby lives. Go to preborn.com ally, make your donation today. $28 covers the cost of a life saving ultrasound. But donate whatever you can. Maybe it's, maybe it's $28,000. Maybe it's $2.80. Whatever your best gift is, go ahead and give it now to preborn.com ally, that's preborn.com.
- [36:24]
All right, there's this church in Evanston, Illinois and I believe that it's called Lake Church. Is it Lake Church? Lake Street Church. Okay. There is a reverend there, Dr. Michael Wolf and he has I guess ordered the.
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This, the setup of this nativity scene in front of their church. Like what a shame. By the way, you can tell that this is such a beautiful church. We can put up the Picture Full Screen 16 and these beautiful churches which Are like mainline Protestant churches. Almost all become woke. It is time for us to retake the beautiful buildings and mainstream mainline Protestantism and to make them biblical again. Make mainline Protestantism biblical again. That's my rallying cry. Okay, that's neither here nor there. So you see this nativity scene and you have baby Jesus wrapped in. I guess it's supposed to be like one of those heated blankets. And you see his wrists and zip ties. And then you can go back to full screen 16. And then you see Mary and Joseph in gas masks. And there should be. We might not have it. We'll find it. But another picture of the up close of the Roman soldiers behind them who have. Apparently they're supposed to be like ICE vests on. It says ice. Here's the explanation that this reverend gave of their very disturbing nativity scene.
- [37:59]
C
So one Jesus was born into a context since the Roman Empire, right? I mean, people under subjugation. And he immediately has to go into exile and flee and become a refugee into Egypt.
- [38:11]
B
The display puts Mary and Joseph Jesus.
- [38:13]
C
In modern times with the Christ child.
- [38:15]
B
Wearing zip ties on its plaster hands.
- [38:17]
C
Our baby Jesus has zip ties on his hands because that's an actual incident that happened in our city. These are real world things that are happening and we're trying to depict them and bring the sacred into it to tell a story.
- [38:31]
B
Okay, well, first I just want to fact check something because I've seen a story going around and this may or may not be the story that he's referring to, but I've seen this story of zip ties of like, kids are in zip ties. And there's this, this picture of this precious child that went viral with his hands behind his back apparently being. It looks like he's being arrested and people are saying this is ICE arresting toddlers. But Bill Malusian, who is a reporter for Fox News who worked on the border for years and years, is really an expert on all of this stuff. He said this post and allegation are fake and false. That's not even an ICE agent or any kind of federal agent. It's a Screenshot from a TikTok video in July and a July compilation on juvenile crime. The Child in Cuffs was a parody.
- [39:16]
But David J. Beer, I guess he's a journalist, couldn't bother to do 20 seconds of research. It was apparently too tantalizing of an opportunity to demonize ICE when tensions are at an all time high. Democrats have brought David in to testify on Capitol Hill multiple times regarding immigration matters. That's, of course Because Democrats, I don't believe, have any moral limits whatsoever as long as they can accomplish what their goal is. And one of their goals is completely open borders. I wish I were exaggerating. I wish that were hyperbole. It's not hyperbole. No immigration limits whatsoever. Complete unconditional illegal immigration. That might not be every single one of their position, but that is by and large the current Democrat position. And so if they can accomplish that end by lying or hoisting up someone who is lying, taking a TikTok video and making it seem like immigration authorities who are already being targeted by progressive lunatics who are trying to kill them, then they will do that. But of course, as Bill Milluchin said, you can see for yourself on TikTok that that was a parody. It had nothing to do with ICE whatsoever. So this entire idea of this nativity of Jesus reflecting a real life scenario that is happening in the United States, that's not even proven true. But you might say, okay, but the principle itself is true, right? Like the principle itself is true that Jesus was born a refugee and that if he were born today, Republicans wouldn't want anything to do with him. Republicans would have deported Jesus. Conservative evangelicals would have arrested Mary and Joseph. So there are some other displays like this. Full screen 19. We've got Jesus, who I guess is depicted as some kind of immigrant. And then we've got full screen 20. And this is just all sorts of blasphemy. Not only do you have Mary and Joseph and Jesus in a cage, which by the way, those cages that liberals talk about all the time, who are they constructed by? They were constructed by the Obama administration who deported more illegal immigrants than anyone else. And did you see these kinds of displays when he was president? Do you see all of this outrage when he was president? No. Biden also deported over a million illegal immigrants. Not nearly enough, but he did. And again, did you see this kind of thing when he was president? No, it's not really about these individuals. If it were about these individuals, then you would have seen nonstop unconditional outcry against deportation in ice. ICE was also functioning when Obama was president. When Biden was president. Okay, but you didn't see these kind of protests then because it's not about the children trend. It's not even about the illegal aliens. It is about Trump. It's about being anti Republican. That's what it's really about. Okay? Oakland's lesbian senior pastor, Reverend Rachel Griffin Allison, said the Holy Family were migrants seeking safety in Dallas. Many families face the same uncertainty, she said. We even have editor in chief of Christianity Today, Russell Moore. He wrote an article in January. He says the matter right now is not just the global backlash against refugees, but with but the glee with which some anti refugee figures celebrate their rejection and revile those who would remind them that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact a refugee. So we hear that a lot. In fact that he gets us campaign, a multi million dollar ad campaign that apparently is trying to shift perceptions of Christ and Christianity. They made the same argument in their commercial satu.
- [42:58]
D
There was a mother and a father who had a son. They lived in a small village and didn't have much money, but they were happy.
- [43:10]
One day they heard the head of their country was sending soldiers to their town because he thought they were part of an insurrection. The young family decided to flee. They grabbed only what they could carry and ran.
- [43:26]
They hiked for days wondering if soldiers might still be following them.
- [43:32]
They were scared.
- [43:35]
Hungry and exhausted. But they were far away from the atrocities taking place.
- [43:43]
In Bethlehem.
- [43:46]
That's all. Mary and Joseph wanted a safe place to call home.
- [43:55]
B
So I could go on a whole rant about he gets us. That's something Charlie Kirk and I did a lot that we both just like loathed these ads. I want anyone to come to Christ by whatever means possible. And so if that accomplished someone hearing the gospel, I'm very thankful for that. But that is just despite the bad messaging of he gets us not because of the bad messaging. That's not what the Gospel is about. It's not what Jesus is about. It's not by relating to Jesus. It's not seeing ourselves like in his story through some political narrative. And it's just not true. That's what I want to get to. It's not true that Jesus was a refugee by the definition that we have refugees today. We can make a separate argument for compassion for refugees and that does exist in asylum seekers and all of that. That we can have a separate biblical defense of defending refugees and how many refugees we should accept and which refugees we should accept from what countries. That's fine, but the argument should not be based in the idea that Jesus himself was a refugee. He was not a refugee in the same sense that we are defining refugees today. So according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, the 1951 Refugee Convention defines a refugee as a person who, owing to well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationalities, blah, blah, blah, is unable or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country. So that means that a refugee is someone who is leaving one country and going to another country to take refuge. But that's not what Jesus was doing. Jesus's family traveled from one part of the Roman Empire to another. They didn't cross illegally into another country and were able to go back after Herod died, which refugees, by definition are unable or unwilling to do them. Fleeing to Egypt was an explicit divine command. It was not a breaking of the law. And in fact, they wanted to do everything that they could to follow the law and God's command. We read in Matthew 2, 13, 15. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child and destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt. I called my son. Completely different scenario. So this is to fulfill prophecy. This is to obey the command of the Lord via an angel. This is to save Jesus's life for the time being. And this is within the the same empire. Okay. This has nothing to do with them breaking the law, which you'll see. Something that the left often does is it's such a bait and switch and it's such an effective manipulation tactic, is that they will use the word refugee to describe all illegal aliens. Everyone who wants to come here from a poorer country than the United States, which is every country, by the way, is described as a refugee. And that is such.
- [47:11]
An effective form of toxic empathy. Because if you are on the side against refugees, then you are on the side against Christians and you are on the side against Jesus himself, since Jesus was a refugee. And so there you in your mind, you might feel like you have lost all moral credibility to be for the enforcement of sovereignty and borders. I guess the Christian answer is really just to open up the borders and let anyone in who wants to come in, because America is a safer and richer place than other places. But that of course, is stupid when you take it to its logical conclusion. That would mean there are no just limitations on immigration. Like there should be no vetting process whatsoever. Anyone who says that they want to come here because the country that they left from is slightly dangerous or economically disadvantaged, they have a right to come here. Well, then of course we're not a country because we essentially don't have borders. And if we're not a country who doesn't have borders, then we're not a sovereign country. That means we don't really have citizenship. That means we don't really have rights and protections that are afforded to citizens only. That means that we don't really have a government who can guarantee those rights and protections. Citizenship and borders and sovereignty and laws that are exclusive to and for the protection of rather citizens is protection for the most vulnerable citizens in the country. You understand that that God created laws and governments and borders and sovereignty for our good, for our protection. It's not our government's responsibility to take charge of the well being of every single person from every single country on earth just because they want to come here. And that certainly is not what we are learning from the Christmas story. So back to Jesus. The prophecy that his his fleeing to Egypt fulfills is from Hosea11.1. And then he was commanded by God, their family was commanded by God to go back home. Matthew 2:19 through 23 but when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying, rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead. And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelius was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. Melissa Doherty for cross examine says it like this. As a child, Scripture records him and his family. Jesus and his family fleeing from one part of the Roman Empire to another. He returned home. Refugees find refuge in another country because they can't or don't return home. People conflate this story in Jesus's childhood with our understanding of refugees today. It's like nobody seeks to understand really Jesus's story. They exaggerate this to make him culturally relevant. Today we make it about us instead of about Him. That is my big problem with the he gets us campaign in an article for Stand to reason. It does not make historical sense to take a modern definition, apply it to a situation within antiquity using a modern lens of both situation and geographical borders, of both situation and geographical borders and then try to apply it to make a political point. This is Wes Huff saying this. The political situation in question is a pressing and serious issue. I think people on both sides of the partisan divide can agree on that. But this type of argumentation that is based on misunderstanding and ignorance at best and misrepresentation at worst is not the way to go about it. It is far too full of holes and far too susceptible to critique simply because it is anachronistic and untrue. So that is a very eloquent way of saying this is historically inaccurate and also just not a good practice. Like it's not productive. We're not getting more into the heart of Jesus was and more into the reason for Christmas. We are instead trying to extract meaning out of the Christmas story in order to accomplish our political ends and in so doing are very distracted from what it really means. All right, a little bit more on this. Let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day. It's Fellowship Home Loans. If you are trying to buy a home or if you are trying to refinance your home, then you need to call my friends at Fellowship Home Loans. Mike and Brian have been doing this for a long time. They are the real deal. 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- [52:38]
What I also find funny is that the people who say this, who stretch the definition of refugee to say that Jesus was a refugee so that what will open all of our borders, they do not see the sacredness or the importance of Jesus actually coming to the earth as an unborn child. Like that really happened, that we don't have to stretch the definition of what human is or stretch the definition of what embryo is, or stretch the definition of the biblical text. Like he really did come as an unborn child. He was even heralded by the cakes of an unborn child, John the Baptist. And so I'm not saying that we should look for like an anti abortion story in the, in the Christmas story. I'm not saying that that's the point of Christmas. I just find it ironic that if you're looking for politics and the nativity scene, then you certainly would see an anti abortion position there. But the very people who are trying so hard to manipulate this story for their political ends, they don't see the contradiction there. And it really, every bit of moral credibility that the left has is completely destroyed by the fact that they believe it's okay to poison and dismember babies inside the womb. Like, let's start there. Let's start there with the morality conversation, then we can talk about everything else, because that's black and white. There's no wiggle room there. There's no nuance for the Christian when it comes to abortion. Is it okay to purposely kill an innocent person? And if not, then abortion is always wrong. Should it be illegal to kill an innocent person? Most progressives would say, well, yeah, murder should be illegal. Okay, then that should apply to abortion too. Just because that person is in a different location or has a different age or a different size doesn't mean that they shouldn't have the right not to be murdered just like any other person. In fact, they're the most voiceless and the most defenseless. Of course Christians are called to care for them, but every other category of vulnerability the left claims to care about except for the most vulnerable. And so if you can't even start there, like, if you can't even say with your chest that life inside the womb should not be snuffed out and that murder of babies is wrong, or murders of murder of babies should be illegal. I'm not really interested in your moral preening about borders and refugees and immigration. And if you only have the gumption to say something when Trump is president that didn't care at all about this when Biden or Obama is present, I'm not. I'm just not really interested. And if the point of Christmas to you is about immigration and not the gospel, I'm just not really interested in your theological takes. I'm just not. And by the way, like, all of the compassion for the left I find manifests itself in outsourcing that compassion to the governor government. And I've seen actually this pastor, reverend of this Lake Street Church, I've seen this clip going around of him saying, you know, Republicans or evangelical Christians, whatever. They don't want the government to intervene when it comes to feeding the poor or protecting refugees. But they do want the government to intervene when it comes to transgenderism and when it comes to. Comes to, when it comes to abortion. Well, yeah, yeah, like I do believe in the legitimate existence of a government. Like I'm not an anarchist, I'm not even a libertarian. And the God given responsibility of the government, as we read in Romans 13, is to punish the wrongdoer and to reward those who do good, to restrain evil. And we do believe that bare minimum, the right of the government is to protect the rights of the its people and to protect its people from very real harm. Now we have to define harm, but I think murder we could all say is harm. Being dismembered and poisoned as an innocent person, like that's harm. I would say your body being butchered by cross sex hormones or puberty blockers or surgery, especially as a minor, like that's, that's harm. And so yeah, I do believe it's the responsibility of the government to affirm reality and to uphold morality. And sure, we can debate on what falls in line there, but I don't think it's very debatable that a government has the responsibility to protect its people from murder by punishing murder. Right. And trying to prevent it.
- [57:27]
So yeah, of course I don't believe that the government should be a nanny state. And I do believe it's the responsibility of the church and of the individual, as we read throughout Scripture, especially in the book of Acts, to give voluntarily and as empowered by the Holy Spirit to those who need it. Now I'm not against all government help, but I am against the decent advising of work by giving people unlimited and basically unconditional welfare. There's nothing godly or biblical about that. Someone who believes that we should reduce welfare and make sure that there's no corruption in welfare is not being anti Christian. In fact, they are being good stewards of not only their own resources, but the resources of all taxpayers who work very hard for the money that we are giving these programs. Doge, it was a righteous process and a righteous pursuit. Outsourcing your compassion and your generosity to the government is not compassionate or generous. It's not godly. Okay? You giving of your own volition is what you are called to. You giving your money to the government at gunpoint, which is what taxes are or by threat of imprisonment is not generosity doesn't count as Christian charity. Okay, so you're not going to manipulate me with that every policy prescription that is put forth by progressives sounds like it has good intentions, but it has bad outcomes comes and I actually care about how people are affected, not just about feeling good about myself because I sound like I care. And if you want to take down of all of this from a logical, factual, historical, scientific and most importantly biblical perspective, I really do encourage you to get Toxic Empathy. That is my book for this. The number one question I get is what do I say when? What do I say when X what do I say to this argument about abortion? What do I say to this argument about gender? Or the definition of marriage? Very controversial one. Or justice and race? Very controversial one. Or immigration? That's what this book is for. Toxic Empathy. How progressives exploit Christian compassion. And if you read any chapter, like I really encourage you to read the immigration one. It was the one that I was most daunting to me before I wrote it, but as I wrote it, the one that I felt most passionate about because it is such an obvious and clear issue that I think too many Christians make like very muddy and very confusing for no good reason. So I really encourage you to read Toxic Empathy and learn how the truth in love approach to these issues, cultural, political, moral issues is so much better and actually much more caring than the toxic empathy approach that these progressive churches try to hoist upon well intentioned people. All right. The gift of Christmas is Jesus Christ. The word that became flesh and dwelt among us who lived a sinless life life and who died on the cross in our place. He was the ultimate sacrifice for our sins because our sins demand the shedding of blood. So he shed his blood on the cross as the only satisfactory sacrifice to a holy God that wanted to be reconciled to us. And by his grace, through our faith in that sacrifice, we can be reconciled to God. That means that we are no longer his enemies. We can be be made friends with God and we can spend eternity with God forever and ever. And the reason we have that hope is because Jesus didn't just die as a sacrifice for our sins, but he rose again. He defeated death three days later. And one day he's coming back. And he will rule in perfect peace forever and ever. And we will no longer have any sin or sadness or brokenness or deception, but he will rule in perfect victory forever. That's what we have to look forward to. So if you want hope, if you want want a real gift, if you want real excitement and anticipation this Christmas, you don't have to look in the political realm and you don't have to look to Santa Claus. You can look to Jesus Christ, the real gift giver. The real gift himself. All right. We'll be back here on Friday.