Controversial Nativity Play Sparks Outrage – See What They Did!

A house decorated with colorful Christmas lights and festive figures

The real scandal in Evanston is not plastic zip ties around a plaster baby, but how a single Nativity scene exposed a widening rift over what Christians think justice, borders, and the Christmas story are supposed to mean.

Story Snapshot

An Illinois church turned its outdoor Nativity into a protest tableau with baby Jesus restrained and watched by figures labeled as immigration officers.
The display draws directly on imagery from real‑world raids where children were reportedly zip‑tied during enforcement actions.
Supporters call it faithful, prophetic art; critics call it blasphemous activism that hijacks Scripture for partisan messaging.
The fight reveals a deeper struggle over whether Christianity should confront immigration policy or stay out of it.

A Nativity Scene That Refused To Behave

On a busy Evanston corner, Lake Street Church chose not to show a glowing manger but a foil‑wrapped baby Jesus with plastic restraints on his wrists, flanked by green‑vested “ICE” figures in place of gentle shepherds. Mary and Joseph were first shown wearing masks, reinforcing the link to modern detention and raids rather than a calm Bethlehem stable. The church presented the scene as a meditation on forced family separation and migrant suffering rather than a nostalgic Christmas card.

Church leaders tied the imagery to a Chicago‑area enforcement raid earlier in the year, where accounts described children being zip‑tied and most residents turning out to be U.S. citizens. That detail matters for the church’s message, because it argues that immigration power used carelessly can entangle citizens and non‑citizens alike, not just cartel smugglers slipping across the border. The Nativity becomes less about a sentimental baby and more about state power hovering over families who may have done little wrong.

When Theology Collides With Law And Order

Reverend Michael Woolf and his congregation did not stumble into this controversy by accident; they have a track record of activist displays, including a prior Nativity set among imagery evoking civilians in Gaza. The pastor’s arrest during a protest at an immigration processing facility underscored that the church wants its theology to walk straight into policy debates, not hover politely at the edge. For supporters, portraying ICE as modern “centurions” fits a theological tradition that sees Christ siding with the oppressed.

Conservative critics look at the same tableau and see something very different: a church replacing centuries of biblical art with a partisan billboard that equates legitimate enforcement with brutal persecution. From a law‑and‑order, sovereignty‑minded perspective, the Holy Family obeying a Roman census hardly resembles adults sneaking children through trafficking routes. That gap between historical text and modern analogy makes the accusation of “blasphemy” more understandable, even if one ultimately disagrees with the label.

Illinois church faces criticism for Nativity scene showing baby Jesus zip-tied by ICE agents https://t.co/ZkGV2gIW8V pic.twitter.com/D1kW2vZ3fh

— New York Post (@nypost) December 5, 2025

A Community Argument In Public View

Once national outlets spotlighted the “zip‑tied baby Jesus” frame, the display stopped belonging only to Evanston and started serving as a Rorschach test for the country. Supporters praised it as powerful, necessary art that refuses to let comfortable worshippers ignore kids in detention centers, while opponents saw mockery of both Christ and agents who risk their safety patrolling a porous system. The same props—foil blanket, masks, ICE vests—became symbols of either courage or contempt depending on who was looking.

Under the glare, the church trimmed some of the harshest elements, removing Mary’s respirator‑style mask and cutting the baby’s restraints, but left the ICE figures and underlying message intact. That adjustment suggests leaders want to keep the moral punch without dehumanizing the Holy Family or pushing already offended neighbors completely away. Yet the core question the display poses—whether a Christian congregation should dramatize suffering children through its central sacred story—remains unresolved.

What This Says About Faith, Borders, And Responsibility

Activist Nativities are no longer one‑off stunts; churches across the country have experimented with cages, foil blankets, and border imagery to protest family separation, and Lake Street Church now sits near the front of that trend. Over time, such scenes may normalize the idea that Christmas is not just about private devotion but public policy, especially on immigration and war. For conservatives who see national borders and orderly enforcement as moral goods, that shift feels like a theological assault on basic civic responsibility.

Yet the installation also forces a question every side needs to answer: how far should a government go to secure a border before it betrays the very human dignity many Christians claim God embodied in a child? A conservative, common‑sense answer does not dismiss enforcement but insists on lines that protect both sovereignty and children, with facts—not theatrics—drawing where those lines fall. In that light, the Evanston Nativity succeeds at one important task: it makes citizens argue, in December light, about what justice should actually look like.