On Christmas Eve, popular television outdoorsman and reality star, Bear Grylls, got on his X account and attempted to use the Lord Jesus Christ as a means to push a radical leftist agenda by making the claim that His mother, Mary, was “Palestinian” and that both she and her earthly husband, Joseph, were “refugees” when the came to Bethlehem, the city where the Lord was born. This is a fairly common liberal talking point that tries to hijack the birth of Christ and turn it into a story that backs up their pro illegal immigration stance.
“One common method is to distort the story by saying Christ’s earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, were either homeless, refugees, or immigrants. Some, like Grylls, make the incorrect claim that the couple were “Palestinian.” Grylls started his fallacious statement by saying that Christians were celebrating the ‘birth of a Middle Eastern refugee’ who ‘changed the course of the world forever,'” The Christian Tribune explained.
He then went on to say, “This is just a short extract from near the beginning of the adventure. When Maryam, a young, poor, and no doubt terrified Palestinian girl, gives birth in a run-down animal pen, to a baby who was foretold for hundreds of years.” However neither of these claims are true. Marry was neither a “refugee” or a “Palestinian girl.”
We continued “Yet she was not alone. And she never would be. Because this was the moment that God Almighty broke into our fallen world in person… To many of us, it is undoubtedly: The Greatest Story Ever Told. This line is commonly trotted out to push a modern-day policy of immigration amnesty. The argument is that: If Jesus Christ’s parents were immigrants, how can today’s American Christians be against open borders?
The biggest problem here is that Mary and Joseph weren’t immigrants at all. They were in the city for tax purposes, which was the reason Caesar Augustus called for the census in the first place, which is contained in Luke chapter 2, the first seven verses.
The Bible says, So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.”
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No statement contained in this well read passage of the Bible makes the claim or inference that the Holy Family was going to “immigrate” to Bethlehem. Again, the reason they were in the city was to be counted and registered by the government in order to pay their taxes to the government. Also, they couldn’t possibly be immigrants, even if they did intend to move to Bethlehem. Both Nazareth and Bethlehem are located in the same country.
Check out this community note that obliterates Grylls post:
Brutal. pic.twitter.com/beHqPdcCSt
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 24, 2024
“But Grylls’ mischaracterization of the birth of Christ is the same lie passed around by leftists for decades. Christ’s family was not ‘homeless’ or ‘poor.’ They owned a home and Joseph worked as a carpenter for a living and had a middle-class lifestyle for his day. All of these claims are cynical efforts to use Jesus for their own political goals. However even after being shut down Grylls still seems proud of his false representation of the birth of Christ, and his post remains live,” the article concluded.