December 25, 2024 • 22 mins
While leafing through 75 years of local newspapers, Zaron Burnett uncovers an American Christmas tradition as ingrained in our culture as the red-and-white Santa: sneaking up to a nativity scene and stealing the Baby Jesus. And, in many cases, immediately regretting it.
Note: Please do not steal Baby Jesus.
*
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Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, and Jason English
Written by Zaron Burnett
Produced by Josh Fisher
Editing and Sound Design by Chris Childs
Mixing and Mastering by Chris Childs
Voice Actors: Jonathan Washington, Chris Childs, Elizabeth Dutton, Katie Mattie, Josh Fisher, and Zaron Burnett
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
When he was a teenager, the shock rock singer Marilyn
Manson was in a war with Christianity. Raised in evangelical
religious schools in Florida, the teachings of Jesus didn't take root. Instead,
they seeded a desire to mock and lampoon Christianity. This
helps explain his whole deal, and it's also why Marilyn
(00:40):
Manson and his friends once went on a rampage one
holiday season and stole various icons of Baby Jesus from
nativity scenes. But apparently, not only did they steal the
infant Savior, they exchanged Baby Jesus for a ham, not
like a spiral cut honeybagged beauty, but a ham. Nonetheless,
(01:02):
the next day, the prankster teens sent a communicate to
the local newspaper. They wish to claim credit for their
Baby Jesus stealing crime spree. But here's where it gets
extra Marilyn Manson. The Florida teens claim they're a group
of black radicals. Their communicate says their crime spree is
meant as a protest of the quote plasticization of the
(01:23):
black man's wisdom with the so called White Christmas. Yeah,
he's whack. And obviously Marilyn Manson was already playing with
the electrified third rails of American culture, but he was
far from the first person to think it was a
good idea to steal baby Jesus. Welcome to very special
(01:45):
episodes an iHeart original podcast. I'm your host, Zarren Burnett,
and this is Stealing Baby Jesus. The act of stealing
a baby Jesus was so not new when Marilyn Manson
(02:06):
ran a muck in Florida, lifting a few baby Jesus
from the mangers, that, in fact, it was already a
TV trope back in the early days of television, back
when there were no reruns because all the shows were new.
In a nineteen fifty three episode of the cop show Dragnet,
detectives Joe Friday and Frank Smith get a call about
a stolen baby Jesus. Only, unlike most episodes, the detectives
(02:31):
can't solve the mystery of the missing figurine. They have
to tell the parish priest there's not gonna be any
baby Jesus this year. The episode ends on a sweet note, though,
when a little boy rolls up with the missing Baby Jesus.
He's pulling the Holy Infant in his wagon. But don't worry.
The kid didn't steal Baby Jesus. Nor maybe he did
(02:51):
and his guilt made him return it. The point is
stealing Baby Jesus is a holiday tradition. It's almost as
old a holiday tradition as the red and white Coca
Cola Santa Claus. In the decade just before the Dragnet episode,
stealing Baby Jesus was already a thing. If you check
old newspapers, you'll find that's. Starting in the nineteen forties,
(03:14):
headlines about a stolen Baby Jesus start popping up. For instance,
in the Opealaikah Auburn News December nineteenth, nineteen forty nine edition,
there are reports on a baby Jesus theft. The people
of Opelika, Alabama, collectively wonder quote who took Baby Jesus
from his crib and the outdoor Nativity scene at Saint
Mary's Catholic Church. As the paper reports, their baby Jesus statue,
(03:38):
which is the size of a large doll, gets stolen
on a Saturday night, and come Sunday morning, the padre
at Saint Mary's father Francis hey Big discovers the church's
missing Baby Jesus. That's when the local authorities get involved.
The cops have a short list of suspects. As a
local paper reports.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
One church source said, the culprit could have been one
of three type persons, a drunk one who didn't like religion, or.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Obviously the police suspect may be super general. The cops
feel it covers all the bases. But of those three
types of person, none of them are master criminals. And yet,
in terms of recovering stolen Baby Jesus is the police
still often find they're outmatched. Try as the cops might.
Far too often, no Baby Jesus is ever recovered. In
(04:31):
case you didn't know it, Jesus returning is like one
of his superpowers. Now considered this case of the missing
Baby Jesus of Keensburg. In nineteen eighty one, Miss Keelan,
an elderly resident of Keensburg, New Jersey, wakes up to
find her Baby Jesus statue is missing. In fact, it's
been stolen and a ransom note has been left behind.
(04:54):
As Detective Dennis Rudd later tells reporters, the ransom note reads,
we have stolen baby Jesus. If you ever want to
see him again, leave fifteen dollars in a paper bag
in the manger. This is no joke, have no fear.
Detective Dennis Rudd has a plan to get back miss
Keelan's baby Jesus. As the detective tells it, he and
(05:16):
Patrolman Michael Kennedy were already quote full of the holiday spirit,
as in the pair of officers had been sipping on eggnog,
likely spiked with the good Irish whiskey. Now with their
bellies warmed, the two cops come up with a plan
to recover this nice old lady's stolen baby Jesus. The
cops tell the kindly elderly woman they're gonna run a
(05:37):
sting operation get back her baby Jesus. This pair of
cops plans to conduct a stakeout. They'll catch the thieves
when they come back for their ransom. Detective Rudd and
Patrolman Kennedy instruct missus Keelan to find a paper bag,
phill it with shredded paper, then put the bag in
the manger right where the stolen baby Jesus was taken. Meanwhile,
(06:00):
the two officers stake out the scene, They wait for
the purse and stay warm with some more spiked eggnog.
That's how I imagine the scene. Now, Old missus Keelan
does as instructed. She filled a bag with shredded paper
and left it in the manger for the baby Jesus thieves.
Cops watched the spot, and eventually someone indeed walks up
(06:21):
to the nativity scene. Suspicious, the cops leap out from
where they're hiding. They seize the would be Baby Jesus thief.
Only the man is missus Keelan's nephew. He hasn't heard
about the stakeout. He's only heard about the missing Baby Jesus,
and he came to check the scene of the crime.
The cops do not have their man. The nephew is
(06:42):
clearly not the kidnapper. After they failed to find the
stolen infant Savior, the pair of officers promised the kindly
utterly woman that quote police would help find a replacement
for the statue in time for next Christmas. But those
two officers who were quote so full of holiday cheer,
they don't have to follow through on their promise, because
(07:04):
there is a Christmas miracle acording to the local reporting,
which was syndicated.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
The statue was found in a bag lying in a
manger from which it had been stolen earlier last week.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
This poor, unfortunate Baby Jesus had seen rough times, back
to the syndicated news story, Although both.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
The hands and the arms of the statue were bound
with plastic rope, the infant was not harmed.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
After Baby Jesus makes his surprise return, Detective Rudd doesn't
hesitate to take credit. He's happy to report to the
press that police pressure must have scared the Baby Jesus thieves.
He takes the tack that once they knew the cops
were after them, it was only a matter of time
until they return the Baby Jesus, but no suspects were
(07:49):
ever arrested. Three years later, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, baby Jesus
stealing thieves strike again. Presumably it's not the same thieves,
but again there is a ransom note. A syndicated UPI
story on December thirteenth, nineteen eighty four, runs with the
headline stolen Baby Jesus statue is returned. The thieves had
(08:12):
stolen a three foot tall, ten pounds ceramic Baby Jesus,
and they left in its place their ransom note. So
what's the price to get baby Jesus back? Well, the
ransom note read we have Jesus, we will hang them
unless the police leave five cases of Budweiser here January first.
(08:33):
There you go. The price of a baby Jesus is
apparently five cases of watery American beer. But this trade
doesn't get made because an anonymous tipster contacts the police.
Whoever they are THEEF or not. They tell the police
where they can find the missing baby Jesus. He is
in a snowbank, and sure enough, there he is, right
(08:54):
where he's promised to be. It's another Christmas miracle. But
who who are all these pranksters and amateur ransom artists
that want to steal Baby Jesus. More importantly, what's in
it for these baby Jesus thieves? The twentieth century trend
(09:24):
of stealing a baby Jesus has continued right on into
the twenty first century. Even with the ever present ring
cameras and all the surveillance cameras everywhere, people will still
brave the risk of prison just to steal a baby Jesus.
There's even a whole page of Wikipedia dedicated to the crime.
In twenty thirteen, the Boston Globe reported on a local
(09:47):
Nativity scene that had been stolen three times over the
last nine years, and that was nothing. In twenty fifteen,
the good folks in rural North Dakota had grown so
used to people stealing their Baby Jesus that the local
hardware store had to put up a sign. As their
local paper, The Pioneer Press, reported.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
At Chiel's Home and Hardware and Fargo, the Earthly Father
and Virgin Mother, a holy family set for seventy four
dollars and ninety nine cents, sit on a shelf adoringly
hovering over a small sign that says, please ask for
Baby Jesus. For several years, the store has kept its
Baby Jesus statuettes off the retail floor because of experiences
(10:28):
with shoplifters.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
That same year, further west on the Pacific Northwest Coast,
the Baby Jesus figurine became the most stolen item in
the Seattle, Tacoma area, as local station KIRO Channel seven reported,
and we asked an actor to recite.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Seattle's Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church had a five dollars plastic
baby Jesus stolen from its Nativity scene last December.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It was as tacky as cheap as garage sale Baby Jesus,
mom and Dad as you could get, said Pastor James Carney.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Karad sale Baby Jesus. That's one hell of a band
if you're in the market. There's also gregory music from
Kaufer's Religious Supplies, a store there in Seattle. He told
the local press from KIRO Channel seven.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Everybody likes a baby. They never steal the wise men
or camels or anything like that. It's always Baby Jesus.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Who wants a wise man or a camel. People wouldn't
necessarily even know it's a Christmas related camel. Now a
baby swaddled maybe with a halo, that's what you call
the reason for the season. Pastor James Carney from Seattle.
He refused to let any stolen Baby Jesus become a
bummer for his parishioners. Under his lead, the Capitol Hill
(11:50):
Presbyterian Church decided to go songs Jesus for their Christmas
decorations because, as he, or rather the actor reading his
words will point out, it's just a symbol.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
There'll be no Baby Jesus. You'll have to come into
the church and find the real Jesus. But in terms
of the tacky, lit up plastic baby Jesus that we
got from our garage sale, there will not be any
baby Jesus, and we cannot put out Mary and Joseph
Casette just looks kind of sad.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And that's what the real sting is, not the loss,
but rather how it feels to lose your Jesus. Stealing
from a church is a holy violation, but when someone
steals your baby Jesus, that's a far more personal, spiritual violation.
It can hit extra hard for the truly faithful. Just
ask Gloria Herrera of Richland Hills, Texas. She once found
(12:44):
her family's baby Jesus had been stolen. As Gloria said,
they took the family Jesus. How can anybody do that?
In the case of her stolen baby Jesus, the thief
was a teenage girl. There's no gender bias when it
comes to stealing a baby Jesus, but we don't really
know what the exact gender ratio is because if you
(13:04):
check the decades of news stories, you'll see the baby
Jesus thieves often aren't caught. In fact, they mostly get
away with. In the rare instances when the thieves do
get caught, it turns out that the purp is almost
always one of three usual suspects teenagers on a spree,
be it girls or boys. Or it might be older,
(13:26):
angry anti religious types making a point. Or there's the
last group, drunks acting on a wicked impulse. This is
all based on newspaper stories. You could also go with
the opinion of Mike Johnson. He's from Alliance Defense Fund.
It's a conservative Christian legal group.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I suspect most of it is childish pranks. Clearly they
are adults with an agenda to remove Christ from Christmas,
but they tend to occupy themselves with the courts in
courtroom of public opinion.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Now, if and when it is kids who steal Baby Jesus,
it doesn't necessarily mean they're bad kids. But don't listen
to me on that. Listen to Stephen Nissenbaum, former history
professor from UMass and and author of the book The
Battle for Christmas. He argues that the act of stealing
Baby Jesus is harmless by definition, at least for the purpse.
(14:17):
As Stephen Nissenbaum put it, and we had an actor recite.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
What it means is that it's okay to go around
violating even pretty important norms as long as real human
harm isn't being done. It's not exactly devalue in Christianity,
but it is sort of a ritualized challenge to it.
It could be Christian kids doing it, and on January second,
they become good Christian kids.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Again, that's an interesting question to consider. Can one steal
Baby Jesus and still be a good person or even
a good Christian. They call it Christmas City, but that's
(14:58):
only a nickname. The town's government name is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
It's a dream destination for those who love Christmas and
for those who loved to steal a baby Jesus. In
twenty sixteen, thieves struck in Christmas City, or in this
case the singular. It was a woman working alone. The
baby Jesus was in a nativity scene in the Bethlehem
(15:19):
public Square. The woman walked up, she appreciated the scene,
She looked around and was just her in Baby Jesus.
The temptation was too great, so yoiit. She walked off
with that holy infant. She was likely drunk, very drunk. Now,
the good folks of Christmas City couldn't, or rather wouldn't,
(15:41):
let some drunk cooke just come into Bethlehem steal their
baby Jesus and walk away. Except that's exactly what happened. However,
in this case, she doesn't get away with the crime
for very long. Tiny Baby Jesus of Christmas City is
eventually recovered. Sadly, though Baby Jesus isn't returned unharmed, he's
(16:02):
most definitely harmed. In fact, local police have to glue
the legs back on to Baby Jesus, which sounds like
a scene from a Scorsese film, like if he made
a Christmas movie. To make sure their baby Jesus is
never again stolen from Christmas City, the local authorities install
a surveillance camera trained on the Bethlehem Public Square. Locals
(16:23):
nickname it the Jesus Camp because if you want to
keep your baby Jesus safe, this seems to be the
most common response increased security instead of say prayer. Now,
some towns will try to chain their baby Jesus to
like a pedestal. That can work. Other folks often try
to nail their baby Jesus down to the manger. Now,
(16:45):
when it comes to nailing Jesus, as any good Christian
can tell you, Christmas is the wrong holiday for Jesus
and nails. That's Easter, which leaves the Christmas City solution
as the best and the most common option to safeguard
a baby Jesus from thieves. Surveillance cameras aka Jesus cams
got to keep an eye on that holy infant. There's
(17:09):
a company in New York called brick House Security. They
offer a rare service they call it GPS Jesus. You
can chip your baby Jesus statue just like a pet poodle.
That way, if someone comes and steals it, no matter
where they take them, you can go and save Jesus,
which is a fun little switch up. According to the
CEO of brick House Security, the real genius of their
(17:32):
GPS based system is that it's a CoP's best friend
as far as saving your stolen baby Jesus, a CEO
Todd Morris puts.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
It, Normally, police have a difficult time dealing with property theft,
and some people think it's because police don't care about
theft of small objects, even if they're religious nature. But
it's not that police don't care, it's that they rarely
have the ability to act.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
That's where GPS Jesus comes in. But that's not CEO
Todd Morris, that's an actor portraying him. Back to our
actor portrayal of CEO Todd Morris.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
If somebody moves Baby Jesus, emails and text messages go
out and several people from our server and we can
check with him to see if there's a problem, if
he should be moving, if he shouldn't be moving. If
they call us and we say we can't find them,
we will log on while on the phone and interface
with local law enforcement to help them track down Baby Jesus.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Basically, the company tells the cops what GPS Jesus is
telling them, and then the cops go and save them.
But what happens when the cops actually catch the criminals
and the Purps don't just return Baby Jesus. Well, there
was a group of friends, three nineteen year olds who
stole a baby Jesus from a Methodist church in Forest, Virginia.
(18:45):
But then these brain geniuses posted a photo on Facebook
of them at the Nativity scene.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Nice, oh yeah, br They.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Literally posted evidence of their crime, which means it wasn't
hard to catch them. When they got busted, they caught
real charges. They were tried, convicted, and sentenced. The ringleader
got one year in jail, his two buddies sentenced to
sixty days behind bars, and all three had to pay
the church five hundred dollars in restitution. These larcenist nineteen
(19:15):
year olds did try to explain to the cops and
later to the court and the judge what they did
was just meant to be a prank, a joke, a
harmless bit of fun. It's not like baby Jesus got
hurt this time. But whether or not baby Jesus got hurt,
totally loses sight of what makes stealing a baby Jesus
so much damn fun. It's partly the fact that it's
(19:39):
a doll baby of Jesus. In the Christian tradition, God
became human and was born of a virgin named Mary.
Their holy son is Jesus, born in a manger, hunted
by the King of the land, survivor of a baby genocide.
It's a wild story, whether you believe it or not.
I was raised a Catholic, so try as I might,
(20:00):
I can't help but believe in the story even old
baby doll Jesus. However, you're not supposed to act like
the ba baby doll Jesus that you see in the
Nativity scenes is a baby doll. It's meant to be
a representation of God as a human being. Thus the
baby doll becomes sacred. And this is where we run
headlong into mass consumerism and the various plastic and ceramic Jesuses.
(20:23):
The fact you can buy a cheap plastic baby Jesus
that's supposed to be this revered holy icon makes it
funny to steal a statue of God as a doll baby.
Yet frankly, at the most soulful level, for some believers,
stealing a baby Jesus can even be a way to
restore Jesus to a more sacred place in your life.
If you don't know this. These days fewer folks attend church,
(20:45):
yet it seems people still take part in the holiday season,
all of its decorations and its festivities. This is how
Kurt Busiek, pastor of a manual Baptist in Parkersburg, West Virginia,
came to the conclusion that a stolen baby Jesus may
actually be a secret blessing. In twenty eighteen, Pastor Boussiek
told The New York Times quote, my thought is, hey,
(21:09):
if they steal one, we'll keep putting it out. I
can't think of a better way to get the message
of Christmas out than for people to keep taking Jesus home. Now,
there's a man who believes God truly works in mysterious ways,
and that's how. By stealing a baby Jesus, you're celebrating
the reason for the season. So maybe this holiday season,
go steal a baby Jesus, then return it and enjoy
(21:33):
a merry Christmas.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Sarah Burnett, and
Jason English. Today's episode was written by Zaren Burnett. Our
producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound designed by Chris Childs,
Mixing and mastering by Chris Childs. Original music by Alice McCoy.
(22:02):
Show logo by Lucy Kntonia Let me thank our virtual
troop of voice actors Jonathan Washington, Chris Childs, Elizabeth Dutton,
Katie Maddie, Josh Fisher, and Zaron Burnett. Our Executive producer
is Jason English and on behalf of the entire Very
Special Episodes Family. I wish you a married Christmas, haty Honicah,
(22:23):
Happy holidays, have a joyous college football Bowl season, marry everything.
We'll be back next week, probably next Monday, with one
last episode of twenty twenty four. Very Special Episodes is
a production of iHeart Podcasts. Please do not go steal
Baby Jesus.
This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
When he was a teenager, the shock rock singer Marilyn
Manson was in a war with Christianity. Raised in evangelical
religious schools in Florida, the teachings of Jesus didn't take root. Instead,
they seeded a desire to mock and lampoon Christianity. This
helps explain his whole deal, and it's also why Marilyn
(00:40):
Manson and his friends once went on a rampage one
holiday season and stole various icons of Baby Jesus from
nativity scenes. But apparently, not only did they steal the
infant Savior, they exchanged Baby Jesus for a ham, not
like a spiral cut honeybagged beauty, but a ham. Nonetheless,
(01:02):
the next day, the prankster teens sent a communicate to
the local newspaper. They wish to claim credit for their
Baby Jesus stealing crime spree. But here's where it gets
extra Marilyn Manson. The Florida teens claim they're a group
of black radicals. Their communicate says their crime spree is
meant as a protest of the quote plasticization of the
(01:23):
black man's wisdom with the so called White Christmas. Yeah,
he's whack. And obviously Marilyn Manson was already playing with
the electrified third rails of American culture, but he was
far from the first person to think it was a
good idea to steal baby Jesus. Welcome to very special
(01:45):
episodes an iHeart original podcast. I'm your host, Zarren Burnett,
and this is Stealing Baby Jesus. The act of stealing
a baby Jesus was so not new when Marilyn Manson
(02:06):
ran a muck in Florida, lifting a few baby Jesus
from the mangers, that, in fact, it was already a
TV trope back in the early days of television, back
when there were no reruns because all the shows were new.
In a nineteen fifty three episode of the cop show Dragnet,
detectives Joe Friday and Frank Smith get a call about
a stolen baby Jesus. Only, unlike most episodes, the detectives
(02:31):
can't solve the mystery of the missing figurine. They have
to tell the parish priest there's not gonna be any
baby Jesus this year. The episode ends on a sweet note, though,
when a little boy rolls up with the missing Baby Jesus.
He's pulling the Holy Infant in his wagon. But don't worry.
The kid didn't steal Baby Jesus. Nor maybe he did
(02:51):
and his guilt made him return it. The point is
stealing Baby Jesus is a holiday tradition. It's almost as
old a holiday tradition as the red and white Coca
Cola Santa Claus. In the decade just before the Dragnet episode,
stealing Baby Jesus was already a thing. If you check
old newspapers, you'll find that's. Starting in the nineteen forties,
(03:14):
headlines about a stolen Baby Jesus start popping up. For instance,
in the Opealaikah Auburn News December nineteenth, nineteen forty nine edition,
there are reports on a baby Jesus theft. The people
of Opelika, Alabama, collectively wonder quote who took Baby Jesus
from his crib and the outdoor Nativity scene at Saint
Mary's Catholic Church. As the paper reports, their baby Jesus statue,
(03:38):
which is the size of a large doll, gets stolen
on a Saturday night, and come Sunday morning, the padre
at Saint Mary's father Francis hey Big discovers the church's
missing Baby Jesus. That's when the local authorities get involved.
The cops have a short list of suspects. As a
local paper reports.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
One church source said, the culprit could have been one
of three type persons, a drunk one who didn't like religion, or.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Obviously the police suspect may be super general. The cops
feel it covers all the bases. But of those three
types of person, none of them are master criminals. And yet,
in terms of recovering stolen Baby Jesus is the police
still often find they're outmatched. Try as the cops might.
Far too often, no Baby Jesus is ever recovered. In
(04:31):
case you didn't know it, Jesus returning is like one
of his superpowers. Now considered this case of the missing
Baby Jesus of Keensburg. In nineteen eighty one, Miss Keelan,
an elderly resident of Keensburg, New Jersey, wakes up to
find her Baby Jesus statue is missing. In fact, it's
been stolen and a ransom note has been left behind.
(04:54):
As Detective Dennis Rudd later tells reporters, the ransom note reads,
we have stolen baby Jesus. If you ever want to
see him again, leave fifteen dollars in a paper bag
in the manger. This is no joke, have no fear.
Detective Dennis Rudd has a plan to get back miss
Keelan's baby Jesus. As the detective tells it, he and
(05:16):
Patrolman Michael Kennedy were already quote full of the holiday spirit,
as in the pair of officers had been sipping on eggnog,
likely spiked with the good Irish whiskey. Now with their
bellies warmed, the two cops come up with a plan
to recover this nice old lady's stolen baby Jesus. The
cops tell the kindly elderly woman they're gonna run a
(05:37):
sting operation get back her baby Jesus. This pair of
cops plans to conduct a stakeout. They'll catch the thieves
when they come back for their ransom. Detective Rudd and
Patrolman Kennedy instruct missus Keelan to find a paper bag,
phill it with shredded paper, then put the bag in
the manger right where the stolen baby Jesus was taken. Meanwhile,
(06:00):
the two officers stake out the scene, They wait for
the purse and stay warm with some more spiked eggnog.
That's how I imagine the scene. Now, Old missus Keelan
does as instructed. She filled a bag with shredded paper
and left it in the manger for the baby Jesus thieves.
Cops watched the spot, and eventually someone indeed walks up
(06:21):
to the nativity scene. Suspicious, the cops leap out from
where they're hiding. They seize the would be Baby Jesus thief.
Only the man is missus Keelan's nephew. He hasn't heard
about the stakeout. He's only heard about the missing Baby Jesus,
and he came to check the scene of the crime.
The cops do not have their man. The nephew is
(06:42):
clearly not the kidnapper. After they failed to find the
stolen infant Savior, the pair of officers promised the kindly
utterly woman that quote police would help find a replacement
for the statue in time for next Christmas. But those
two officers who were quote so full of holiday cheer,
they don't have to follow through on their promise, because
(07:04):
there is a Christmas miracle acording to the local reporting,
which was syndicated.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
The statue was found in a bag lying in a
manger from which it had been stolen earlier last week.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
This poor, unfortunate Baby Jesus had seen rough times, back
to the syndicated news story, Although both.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
The hands and the arms of the statue were bound
with plastic rope, the infant was not harmed.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
After Baby Jesus makes his surprise return, Detective Rudd doesn't
hesitate to take credit. He's happy to report to the
press that police pressure must have scared the Baby Jesus thieves.
He takes the tack that once they knew the cops
were after them, it was only a matter of time
until they return the Baby Jesus, but no suspects were
(07:49):
ever arrested. Three years later, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, baby Jesus
stealing thieves strike again. Presumably it's not the same thieves,
but again there is a ransom note. A syndicated UPI
story on December thirteenth, nineteen eighty four, runs with the
headline stolen Baby Jesus statue is returned. The thieves had
(08:12):
stolen a three foot tall, ten pounds ceramic Baby Jesus,
and they left in its place their ransom note. So
what's the price to get baby Jesus back? Well, the
ransom note read we have Jesus, we will hang them
unless the police leave five cases of Budweiser here January first.
(08:33):
There you go. The price of a baby Jesus is
apparently five cases of watery American beer. But this trade
doesn't get made because an anonymous tipster contacts the police.
Whoever they are THEEF or not. They tell the police
where they can find the missing baby Jesus. He is
in a snowbank, and sure enough, there he is, right
(08:54):
where he's promised to be. It's another Christmas miracle. But
who who are all these pranksters and amateur ransom artists
that want to steal Baby Jesus. More importantly, what's in
it for these baby Jesus thieves? The twentieth century trend
(09:24):
of stealing a baby Jesus has continued right on into
the twenty first century. Even with the ever present ring
cameras and all the surveillance cameras everywhere, people will still
brave the risk of prison just to steal a baby Jesus.
There's even a whole page of Wikipedia dedicated to the crime.
In twenty thirteen, the Boston Globe reported on a local
(09:47):
Nativity scene that had been stolen three times over the
last nine years, and that was nothing. In twenty fifteen,
the good folks in rural North Dakota had grown so
used to people stealing their Baby Jesus that the local
hardware store had to put up a sign. As their
local paper, The Pioneer Press, reported.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
At Chiel's Home and Hardware and Fargo, the Earthly Father
and Virgin Mother, a holy family set for seventy four
dollars and ninety nine cents, sit on a shelf adoringly
hovering over a small sign that says, please ask for
Baby Jesus. For several years, the store has kept its
Baby Jesus statuettes off the retail floor because of experiences
(10:28):
with shoplifters.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
That same year, further west on the Pacific Northwest Coast,
the Baby Jesus figurine became the most stolen item in
the Seattle, Tacoma area, as local station KIRO Channel seven reported,
and we asked an actor to recite.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Seattle's Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church had a five dollars plastic
baby Jesus stolen from its Nativity scene last December.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It was as tacky as cheap as garage sale Baby Jesus,
mom and Dad as you could get, said Pastor James Carney.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Karad sale Baby Jesus. That's one hell of a band
if you're in the market. There's also gregory music from
Kaufer's Religious Supplies, a store there in Seattle. He told
the local press from KIRO Channel seven.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Everybody likes a baby. They never steal the wise men
or camels or anything like that. It's always Baby Jesus.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Who wants a wise man or a camel. People wouldn't
necessarily even know it's a Christmas related camel. Now a
baby swaddled maybe with a halo, that's what you call
the reason for the season. Pastor James Carney from Seattle.
He refused to let any stolen Baby Jesus become a
bummer for his parishioners. Under his lead, the Capitol Hill
(11:50):
Presbyterian Church decided to go songs Jesus for their Christmas
decorations because, as he, or rather the actor reading his
words will point out, it's just a symbol.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
There'll be no Baby Jesus. You'll have to come into
the church and find the real Jesus. But in terms
of the tacky, lit up plastic baby Jesus that we
got from our garage sale, there will not be any
baby Jesus, and we cannot put out Mary and Joseph
Casette just looks kind of sad.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And that's what the real sting is, not the loss,
but rather how it feels to lose your Jesus. Stealing
from a church is a holy violation, but when someone
steals your baby Jesus, that's a far more personal, spiritual violation.
It can hit extra hard for the truly faithful. Just
ask Gloria Herrera of Richland Hills, Texas. She once found
(12:44):
her family's baby Jesus had been stolen. As Gloria said,
they took the family Jesus. How can anybody do that?
In the case of her stolen baby Jesus, the thief
was a teenage girl. There's no gender bias when it
comes to stealing a baby Jesus, but we don't really
know what the exact gender ratio is because if you
(13:04):
check the decades of news stories, you'll see the baby
Jesus thieves often aren't caught. In fact, they mostly get
away with. In the rare instances when the thieves do
get caught, it turns out that the purp is almost
always one of three usual suspects teenagers on a spree,
be it girls or boys. Or it might be older,
(13:26):
angry anti religious types making a point. Or there's the
last group, drunks acting on a wicked impulse. This is
all based on newspaper stories. You could also go with
the opinion of Mike Johnson. He's from Alliance Defense Fund.
It's a conservative Christian legal group.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I suspect most of it is childish pranks. Clearly they
are adults with an agenda to remove Christ from Christmas,
but they tend to occupy themselves with the courts in
courtroom of public opinion.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Now, if and when it is kids who steal Baby Jesus,
it doesn't necessarily mean they're bad kids. But don't listen
to me on that. Listen to Stephen Nissenbaum, former history
professor from UMass and and author of the book The
Battle for Christmas. He argues that the act of stealing
Baby Jesus is harmless by definition, at least for the purpse.
(14:17):
As Stephen Nissenbaum put it, and we had an actor recite.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
What it means is that it's okay to go around
violating even pretty important norms as long as real human
harm isn't being done. It's not exactly devalue in Christianity,
but it is sort of a ritualized challenge to it.
It could be Christian kids doing it, and on January second,
they become good Christian kids.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Again, that's an interesting question to consider. Can one steal
Baby Jesus and still be a good person or even
a good Christian. They call it Christmas City, but that's
(14:58):
only a nickname. The town's government name is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
It's a dream destination for those who love Christmas and
for those who loved to steal a baby Jesus. In
twenty sixteen, thieves struck in Christmas City, or in this
case the singular. It was a woman working alone. The
baby Jesus was in a nativity scene in the Bethlehem
(15:19):
public Square. The woman walked up, she appreciated the scene,
She looked around and was just her in Baby Jesus.
The temptation was too great, so yoiit. She walked off
with that holy infant. She was likely drunk, very drunk. Now,
the good folks of Christmas City couldn't, or rather wouldn't,
(15:41):
let some drunk cooke just come into Bethlehem steal their
baby Jesus and walk away. Except that's exactly what happened. However,
in this case, she doesn't get away with the crime
for very long. Tiny Baby Jesus of Christmas City is
eventually recovered. Sadly, though Baby Jesus isn't returned unharmed, he's
(16:02):
most definitely harmed. In fact, local police have to glue
the legs back on to Baby Jesus, which sounds like
a scene from a Scorsese film, like if he made
a Christmas movie. To make sure their baby Jesus is
never again stolen from Christmas City, the local authorities install
a surveillance camera trained on the Bethlehem Public Square. Locals
(16:23):
nickname it the Jesus Camp because if you want to
keep your baby Jesus safe, this seems to be the
most common response increased security instead of say prayer. Now,
some towns will try to chain their baby Jesus to
like a pedestal. That can work. Other folks often try
to nail their baby Jesus down to the manger. Now,
(16:45):
when it comes to nailing Jesus, as any good Christian
can tell you, Christmas is the wrong holiday for Jesus
and nails. That's Easter, which leaves the Christmas City solution
as the best and the most common option to safeguard
a baby Jesus from thieves. Surveillance cameras aka Jesus cams
got to keep an eye on that holy infant. There's
(17:09):
a company in New York called brick House Security. They
offer a rare service they call it GPS Jesus. You
can chip your baby Jesus statue just like a pet poodle.
That way, if someone comes and steals it, no matter
where they take them, you can go and save Jesus,
which is a fun little switch up. According to the
CEO of brick House Security, the real genius of their
(17:32):
GPS based system is that it's a CoP's best friend
as far as saving your stolen baby Jesus, a CEO
Todd Morris puts.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
It, Normally, police have a difficult time dealing with property theft,
and some people think it's because police don't care about
theft of small objects, even if they're religious nature. But
it's not that police don't care, it's that they rarely
have the ability to act.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
That's where GPS Jesus comes in. But that's not CEO
Todd Morris, that's an actor portraying him. Back to our
actor portrayal of CEO Todd Morris.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
If somebody moves Baby Jesus, emails and text messages go
out and several people from our server and we can
check with him to see if there's a problem, if
he should be moving, if he shouldn't be moving. If
they call us and we say we can't find them,
we will log on while on the phone and interface
with local law enforcement to help them track down Baby Jesus.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Basically, the company tells the cops what GPS Jesus is
telling them, and then the cops go and save them.
But what happens when the cops actually catch the criminals
and the Purps don't just return Baby Jesus. Well, there
was a group of friends, three nineteen year olds who
stole a baby Jesus from a Methodist church in Forest, Virginia.
(18:45):
But then these brain geniuses posted a photo on Facebook
of them at the Nativity scene.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Nice, oh yeah, br They.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Literally posted evidence of their crime, which means it wasn't
hard to catch them. When they got busted, they caught
real charges. They were tried, convicted, and sentenced. The ringleader
got one year in jail, his two buddies sentenced to
sixty days behind bars, and all three had to pay
the church five hundred dollars in restitution. These larcenist nineteen
(19:15):
year olds did try to explain to the cops and
later to the court and the judge what they did
was just meant to be a prank, a joke, a
harmless bit of fun. It's not like baby Jesus got
hurt this time. But whether or not baby Jesus got hurt,
totally loses sight of what makes stealing a baby Jesus
so much damn fun. It's partly the fact that it's
(19:39):
a doll baby of Jesus. In the Christian tradition, God
became human and was born of a virgin named Mary.
Their holy son is Jesus, born in a manger, hunted
by the King of the land, survivor of a baby genocide.
It's a wild story, whether you believe it or not.
I was raised a Catholic, so try as I might,
(20:00):
I can't help but believe in the story even old
baby doll Jesus. However, you're not supposed to act like
the ba baby doll Jesus that you see in the
Nativity scenes is a baby doll. It's meant to be
a representation of God as a human being. Thus the
baby doll becomes sacred. And this is where we run
headlong into mass consumerism and the various plastic and ceramic Jesuses.
(20:23):
The fact you can buy a cheap plastic baby Jesus
that's supposed to be this revered holy icon makes it
funny to steal a statue of God as a doll baby.
Yet frankly, at the most soulful level, for some believers,
stealing a baby Jesus can even be a way to
restore Jesus to a more sacred place in your life.
If you don't know this. These days fewer folks attend church,
(20:45):
yet it seems people still take part in the holiday season,
all of its decorations and its festivities. This is how
Kurt Busiek, pastor of a manual Baptist in Parkersburg, West Virginia,
came to the conclusion that a stolen baby Jesus may
actually be a secret blessing. In twenty eighteen, Pastor Boussiek
told The New York Times quote, my thought is, hey,
(21:09):
if they steal one, we'll keep putting it out. I
can't think of a better way to get the message
of Christmas out than for people to keep taking Jesus home. Now,
there's a man who believes God truly works in mysterious ways,
and that's how. By stealing a baby Jesus, you're celebrating
the reason for the season. So maybe this holiday season,
go steal a baby Jesus, then return it and enjoy
(21:33):
a merry Christmas.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Sarah Burnett, and
Jason English. Today's episode was written by Zaren Burnett. Our
producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound designed by Chris Childs,
Mixing and mastering by Chris Childs. Original music by Alice McCoy.
(22:02):
Show logo by Lucy Kntonia Let me thank our virtual
troop of voice actors Jonathan Washington, Chris Childs, Elizabeth Dutton,
Katie Maddie, Josh Fisher, and Zaron Burnett. Our Executive producer
is Jason English and on behalf of the entire Very
Special Episodes Family. I wish you a married Christmas, haty Honicah,
(22:23):
Happy holidays, have a joyous college football Bowl season, marry everything.
We'll be back next week, probably next Monday, with one
last episode of twenty twenty four. Very Special Episodes is
a production of iHeart Podcasts. Please do not go steal
Baby Jesus.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Dana Schwartz
Jason English
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