"Christmas is About a Homeless Couple"
By Gary DeMar

With Christmas less than two weeks away, we will hear the inevitable revisionist version of the Christmas story. Jesse Jackson was the first to turn Joseph and Mary into a “homeless couple” when he claimed that Christmas “is not about Santa Claus and ‘Jingle Bells’ and fruit cake and eggnog” but about “a homeless couple.”1 He continued the fabrication in 1999.2 Barbara Reynolds, a former columnist for USA Today, following Jackson’s early lead, scolded the Christian Right for opposing government welfare programs: “They should recall,” she writes, “that Jesus Christ was born homeless to a teen who was pregnant before she was married.”3 Hillary Clinton, in comments critical of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s homeless policies, sought to remind all of us that “Christmas celebrates ‘the birth of a homeless child.’”4 Rev. William Sterrett told The Providence (RI) Journal the true Christmas story is about the poor and needy. “We have a very clear picture about the whole thing,” Sterrett said. “But the truth is Mary and Joseph were homeless. She gave birth to Jesus in a barn. This image captures the essence of a Christmas story because you cannot get any poorer than that.”5 Pat Nichols, writing for The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA), concludes, “At the core, the story of Christmas is about a homeless couple about to have a baby. It is a story about poverty that most of us never experience, people with little more than they carry on their backs and a donkey to provide transportation.”6 Have these people ever read the Bible?

• Mary did not engage in premarital sex. Her circumstances, to say the least, were unique (Luke 1:26-28). Many young girls got married as teenagers.
• Mary went to live with her cousin Elizabeth upon hearing about her pregnancy and "stayed with her about three months, and then returned to her home" (Luke 1:56). Presumably her parents owned a home and did not throw her out when they learned of her pregnancy.
• Mary and Joseph were actually married at the time she learned she was pregnant even though a formal ceremony had not taken place. Joseph is called "her husband" (Matt. 1:19).
• Joseph was a self-employed carpenter (Matt. 13:55).
• An edict from the centralized Roman government forced Joseph and Mary to spend valuable resources of money and time to return to their place of birth to register for a tax (Luke 2:1-7). Joseph’s business was shut down while he took his very pregnant wife on a wild goose chase concocted by the Roman Empire.
• Typical of governments that make laws without considering the consequences, there was not enough housing for the great influx of traveling citizens and subjects who complied with the governmental decree (Luke 2:1).
• Mary and Joseph had enough money to pay for lodging. The problem was inadequate housing. The fact that “there was no room in the inn" (Luke 2:7) did not make them homeless. If we follow liberal logic, an oxymoron if there ever was one, any family that takes a trip is by definition homeless.
• Joseph and Mary owned or rented a home. It was in their home that the wise men offered their gifts: “And they came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshipped Him; and opening their treasures they presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh” (Matt. 2:11).
• Joseph, Mary, and Jesus became a true homeless family when Herod, a government official, became a threat to them (Matt. 2:13–15).

I'm amazed how politicians and social critics are quick to quote and misquote the Bible when they believe it supports their quirky political views. When conservatives appeal to the Bible, we hear the inevitable “separation of church and state,” “you can't impose your morality on other people,” “religion and politics don't mix.” The Bible is clear on moral issues that are culture killers: homosexuality, homosexual marriage, and abortion. The Bible is also clear on the moral issue of poverty. Nowhere in the Bible is civil government given authority to help the poor by raising taxes on the rich to pay for wealth distribution schemes. In fact, as history shows, the “war on poverty” became the war on the poor.7

We would be more accurate to say, using liberal interpretive methods, the Christmas story is about how taxes hurt the poor and government decrees turn productive families into homeless couples.

1 As reported in The Atlanta Journal/Constitution (December 28, 1991), A9.

2 Jesse Jackson, “The Homeless Couple,” Los Angeles Times (December 22, 1999). The version of Jackson’s message “The Homeless Couple” can be found at www.rainbowpush.org/commentaries/1999/122299.html

3 Barbara Reynolds, “These political Christians neither religious nor right,” USA Today (Nov. 18, 1994), 13A.

4 Cited in “Washington” under Politics in USA Today (December 1, 1999), 15A.

5 www.s-t.com/daily/12-99/12-25-99/a05sr033.htm

6 Pat Nichols, “It’s time to offer a helping hand,” The Berkshire Eagle (December, 12, 2004). www.berkshireeagle.com/Stories/0,1413,101%257E28413%257E,00.html

7Thomas Sowell, “‘War on Poverty’ has left nation in poorer condition,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (August 18, 2004), A13.

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