CHICAGO — Vandals decapitated and smashed the statue of Mary in an Evanston church’s outdoor Nativity scene Friday, and the church responded, according to an associate minister, by replacing it with a sign saying Mary was beaten and dragged away in front of her son and is being held in immigration detention.

Lake Street Church of Evanston began sparking discussion in late November when it created the immigration-themed Nativity scene, with masked Roman centurions dressed as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Mary and Joseph wearing gas masks to protect against ICE tear gas and baby Jesus with zip-tied hands. The centurions were also destroyed in Friday’s vandalism, but the church rebuilt them.

Church leaders have said the Nativity is meant to draw a parallel between the Holy Family, who were immigrants or refugees to Egypt when they fled Bethlehem to escape King Herod’s bloodshed, in Biblical texts, and ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” this fall, in which agents pulled hundreds of immigrants and some citizens off Chicago-area streets, sometimes violently, detained them in harsh conditions and deported many.

“Having people respond negatively like this — I think (the Nativity display) is stirring people’s consciences,” said Rev. Jillian Westerfield, associate minister at the church. “We’re calling out what’s happening to God’s beloved people and they don’t like how that feels, so they respond by attacking the art.”

Friday’s vandalism of the Christmas scene was the second time the Nativity figures have been attacked. At the beginning of December, someone removed Mary and Joseph’s gas masks and the zip ties from baby Jesus’ hands. The heavy post-Thanksgiving snowfall also damaged the Joseph statue, Rev. Michael Woolf, pastor, said at the time, and the church removed it and replaced it with a memorial to victims of unjust immigration enforcement. They also put up a sign saying, “Joseph didn’t make it.”

On Dec. 12, Westerfield said vandals basically flattened the whole display, taking the ICE agents’ vests, leaving the Mary statue with its head and hair scattered on the ground and removing the baby Jesus figure’s zip ties and emergency blanket, though they left the figure in its cradle.

She and a volunteer worked to reassemble the centurions from the remains of the parts lying on the ground, she said. With the vests missing, they improvised by labeling the figures’ t-shirts with “ICE” and “BP” for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another agency which seized and detained Chicago-area immigrants this fall.

The Nativity now contains only the centurions and baby Jesus, zip ties replaced.

The spirit of the display references the Christian prayer the Magnificat, known as the prayer of Mary, Westerfield said. It includes the verses, “He (the Lord) has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.”

She added, “This is about God’s promises to the weakest and most vulnerable in the world…God is always on the side of the most vulnerable.”

The Nativity has received coverage in national news, and Westerfield said that is helping to shine a light on what has happened in the Chicago area with immigration enforcement.

“Maybe it’ll help people take more action to protect the most vulnerable, and that’s what we really hope happens,” she said.

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