In The Pink Texas finds the true meaning of Christmas
badly misspins the story behind the Lukan nativity myth to present an
interesting, and politically supportable story about the Trump
administration and religions right wingnuts, and an interesting sidebar,
with no follow-up, about American Catholic political issues.
I am referring in specific to the second half of the piece.
First, of course, it never happened.
This cannot be stressed enough. There's not a shred of historicity in the Lukan narrative, starting with the fact that Quirinius was not governor of Syria until 6 CE, long after Herod's 4 BCE death. From there, it's noted that his census applied to Judea because it was under direct Roman control, so even if Jesus was born then, if Mary and Joseph lived in the Galilee still ruled by Antipas, it wouldn't apply to them anyway. And, Roman censuses didn't require you to move to your family's ancestral home town anyway.
Second, within the story AS STORY, Jesus and Mary weren't refugees; they were following a lawful political order.
I should add that this is far from the first time I've seen this claim, so let's look at the appropriate verses from Luke 2 (vv 1-3):
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered.
See? Not refugees.
Third, it (natch) goes on to blend Matthew's story (which also, of course, didn't happen) with Luke's.
And, they're not refugees in Matthew, either, because Mary and Joseph are living in Bethlehem the whole time up to this point. Now, AFTER Jesus' birth, they have to flee Herod in Matthew's story, and so are refugees — fleeing from a Roman client kingdom into direct Roman control. The best modern analogy would be fleeing Puerto Rico for the United States itself.
Above all, though, beyond the conflation, the Matthean birth narrative didn't happen either. The real Josephus, not a Eusebian interpolator, surely would have mentioned a cavalcade of Persian astronomers looking for the Messiah.
Beyond THAT? Misinterpretations of Micah 5:2 aside, we don't even know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Look at Nathaniel's sneer in John 1:46. Look at the polemics Jesus has with Jewish leaders (which hint that John knew of the illegitimacy claim, just like Matthew and Luke may have) in John 8, while we're here.
As for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops condemnation of ICE earlier this year?
Yes, that happened. But, it didn't invoke the Lukan nativity.
It also ruled on a bunch of other things that librulz and leftists don't like, and that also illustrated issues of religious-political matters in US Catholicism.
The big issue for this secularist is that he doesn't like misappropriation of religious traditions for political reasons at all.
A second issue is that this seems to promote Christian exceptionalism. And yes, just like there are both liberal and conservative Cafeteria Catholics, you can have liberal (political, theological or both) Christian exceptionalists.
There are plenty of texts in the Tanakh that also talk about refugees or similar. There's also passages in the Quran. Outside the three Abrahamistic religions, Buddhism has a long history of talking about compassion for refugees. (I'm not sure what Hinduism might say.)
And, of course, so does secular humanism.
In an era where a certain percentage of refugees in/to the United States are not Christian, it might be good to avoid Christian exceptionalism of the liberal brand as well as the conservative brand.
Old polling by Pew, Gallup, etc., about how atheists (to use the A-word!) are mistrusted more than gays broke out people by political stance and found this tilts right. That said, “atheist” is used by centrists and even some librulz to mean “spiritual but non-religious,” and I have personal experience on this. Early in the dating process, many years ago, when a woman I had met found out that, no, it really meant that, she dropped me like a hot potato. This academic research piece about Gnu Atheism gets exactly at that:
First, by focusing directly on the issue of decline, it addresses an aspect of new atheism that has thus far been overlooked in scholarly research, most of which has focused on longer-term patterns and trends. Second, in accounting for this decline, the study makes a conceptual contribution by highlighting the role of ‘atheism’ as an empty signifier—a term or phrase that can be filled with varying meanings by different individuals or groups, but which ultimately lacks a fixed or stable signification. ... Thirdly, the paper adds to our conceptual understanding of new atheism by drawing on insights from social movement theory, focusing in particular on the idea of a social movement lifecycle. ... The fourth principal contribution of this study is that it seeks to link the internal dynamics of the atheist movement to the wider sociopolitical and cultural context, in particular to the rise of identity politics and an intensification of the culture wars in the United States. Within the existing literature, these factors have been relatively disconnected.
Emphasis mine in the above. Give the whole thing a read. This is part of why I'm not a Gnu Atheist, but it's also part of why I don't use the "A-word" in general. It's an empty signifier. Secularist indicates more of what I do believe in, as far as sociology of religion, rather than what others say I don't believe in, as far as metaphysics. It's that I have a methodologically and philosophically naturalist focus on the world as is.
It should also be noted there are conservative — generally libertarian conservative — secularists, as well as liberals, and leftists (of some sort) like me.
