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Speaker 1: This is an iHeart original.

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Speaker 2: When he was a teenager, the shock rock singer Marilyn

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Speaker 2: Manson was in a war with Christianity. Raised in evangelical

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Speaker 2: religious schools in Florida, the teachings of Jesus didn't take root. Instead,

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Speaker 2: they seeded a desire to mock and lampoon Christianity. This

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Speaker 2: helps explain his whole deal, and it's also why Marilyn

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Speaker 2: Manson and his friends once went on a rampage one

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Speaker 2: holiday season and stole various icons of Baby Jesus from

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Speaker 2: nativity scenes. But apparently, not only did they steal the

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Speaker 2: infant Savior, they exchanged Baby Jesus for a ham, not

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Speaker 2: like a spiral cut honeybagged beauty, but a ham. Nonetheless,

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Speaker 2: the next day, the prankster teens sent a communicate to

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Speaker 2: the local newspaper. They wish to claim credit for their

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Speaker 2: Baby Jesus stealing crime spree. But here's where it gets

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Speaker 2: extra Marilyn Manson. The Florida teens claim they're a group

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Speaker 2: of black radicals. Their communicate says their crime spree is

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Speaker 2: meant as a protest of the quote plasticization of the

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Speaker 2: black man's wisdom with the so called White Christmas. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he's whack. And obviously Marilyn Manson was already playing with

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Speaker 2: the electrified third rails of American culture, but he was

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Speaker 2: far from the first person to think it was a

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Speaker 2: good idea to steal baby Jesus. Welcome to very special

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Speaker 2: episodes an iHeart original podcast. I'm your host, Zarren Burnett,

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Speaker 2: and this is Stealing Baby Jesus. The act of stealing

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Speaker 2: a baby Jesus was so not new when Marilyn Manson

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Speaker 2: ran a muck in Florida, lifting a few baby Jesus

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Speaker 2: from the mangers, that, in fact, it was already a

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Speaker 2: TV trope back in the early days of television, back

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Speaker 2: when there were no reruns because all the shows were new.

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Speaker 2: In a nineteen fifty three episode of the cop show Dragnet,

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Speaker 2: detectives Joe Friday and Frank Smith get a call about

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Speaker 2: a stolen baby Jesus. Only, unlike most episodes, the detectives

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Speaker 2: can't solve the mystery of the missing figurine. They have

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Speaker 2: to tell the parish priest there's not gonna be any

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Speaker 2: baby Jesus this year. The episode ends on a sweet note, though,

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Speaker 2: when a little boy rolls up with the missing Baby Jesus.

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Speaker 2: He's pulling the Holy Infant in his wagon. But don't worry.

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Speaker 2: The kid didn't steal Baby Jesus. Nor maybe he did

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Speaker 2: and his guilt made him return it. The point is

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Speaker 2: stealing Baby Jesus is a holiday tradition. It's almost as

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Speaker 2: old a holiday tradition as the red and white Coca

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Speaker 2: Cola Santa Claus. In the decade just before the Dragnet episode,

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Speaker 2: stealing Baby Jesus was already a thing. If you check

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Speaker 2: old newspapers, you'll find that's. Starting in the nineteen forties,

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Speaker 2: headlines about a stolen Baby Jesus start popping up. For instance,

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Speaker 2: in the Opealaikah Auburn News December nineteenth, nineteen forty nine edition,

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Speaker 2: there are reports on a baby Jesus theft. The people

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Speaker 2: of Opelika, Alabama, collectively wonder quote who took Baby Jesus

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Speaker 2: from his crib and the outdoor Nativity scene at Saint

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Speaker 2: Mary's Catholic Church. As the paper reports, their baby Jesus statue,

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Speaker 2: which is the size of a large doll, gets stolen

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Speaker 2: on a Saturday night, and come Sunday morning, the padre

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Speaker 2: at Saint Mary's father Francis hey Big discovers the church's

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Speaker 2: missing Baby Jesus. That's when the local authorities get involved.

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Speaker 2: The cops have a short list of suspects. As a

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Speaker 2: local paper reports.

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Speaker 3: One church source said, the culprit could have been one

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Speaker 3: of three type persons, a drunk one who didn't like religion, or.

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Speaker 2: Obviously the police suspect may be super general. The cops

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Speaker 2: feel it covers all the bases. But of those three

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Speaker 2: types of person, none of them are master criminals. And yet,

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Speaker 2: in terms of recovering stolen Baby Jesus is the police

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Speaker 2: still often find they're outmatched. Try as the cops might.

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Speaker 2: Far too often, no Baby Jesus is ever recovered. In

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Speaker 2: case you didn't know it, Jesus returning is like one

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Speaker 2: of his superpowers. Now considered this case of the missing

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Speaker 2: Baby Jesus of Keensburg. In nineteen eighty one, Miss Keelan,

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Speaker 2: an elderly resident of Keensburg, New Jersey, wakes up to

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Speaker 2: find her Baby Jesus statue is missing. In fact, it's

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Speaker 2: been stolen and a ransom note has been left behind.

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Speaker 2: As Detective Dennis Rudd later tells reporters, the ransom note reads,

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Speaker 2: we have stolen baby Jesus. If you ever want to

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Speaker 2: see him again, leave fifteen dollars in a paper bag

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Speaker 2: in the manger. This is no joke, have no fear.

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Speaker 2: Detective Dennis Rudd has a plan to get back miss

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Speaker 2: Keelan's baby Jesus. As the detective tells it, he and

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Speaker 2: Patrolman Michael Kennedy were already quote full of the holiday spirit,

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Speaker 2: as in the pair of officers had been sipping on eggnog,

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Speaker 2: likely spiked with the good Irish whiskey. Now with their

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Speaker 2: bellies warmed, the two cops come up with a plan

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Speaker 2: to recover this nice old lady's stolen baby Jesus. The

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Speaker 2: cops tell the kindly elderly woman they're gonna run a

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Speaker 2: sting operation get back her baby Jesus. This pair of

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Speaker 2: cops plans to conduct a stakeout. They'll catch the thieves

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Speaker 2: when they come back for their ransom. Detective Rudd and

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Speaker 2: Patrolman Kennedy instruct missus Keelan to find a paper bag,

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Speaker 2: phill it with shredded paper, then put the bag in

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Speaker 2: the manger right where the stolen baby Jesus was taken. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: the two officers stake out the scene, They wait for

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Speaker 2: the purse and stay warm with some more spiked eggnog.

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Speaker 2: That's how I imagine the scene. Now, Old missus Keelan

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Speaker 2: does as instructed. She filled a bag with shredded paper

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Speaker 2: and left it in the manger for the baby Jesus thieves.

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Speaker 2: Cops watched the spot, and eventually someone indeed walks up

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Speaker 2: to the nativity scene. Suspicious, the cops leap out from

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Speaker 2: where they're hiding. They seize the would be Baby Jesus thief.

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Speaker 2: Only the man is missus Keelan's nephew. He hasn't heard

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Speaker 2: about the stakeout. He's only heard about the missing Baby Jesus,

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Speaker 2: and he came to check the scene of the crime.

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Speaker 2: The cops do not have their man. The nephew is

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Speaker 2: clearly not the kidnapper. After they failed to find the

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Speaker 2: stolen infant Savior, the pair of officers promised the kindly

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Speaker 2: utterly woman that quote police would help find a replacement

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Speaker 2: for the statue in time for next Christmas. But those

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Speaker 2: two officers who were quote so full of holiday cheer,

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Speaker 2: they don't have to follow through on their promise, because

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Speaker 2: there is a Christmas miracle acording to the local reporting,

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Speaker 2: which was syndicated.

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Speaker 4: The statue was found in a bag lying in a

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Speaker 4: manger from which it had been stolen earlier last week.

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Speaker 2: This poor, unfortunate Baby Jesus had seen rough times, back

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Speaker 2: to the syndicated news story, Although both.

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Speaker 4: The hands and the arms of the statue were bound

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Speaker 4: with plastic rope, the infant was not harmed.

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Speaker 2: After Baby Jesus makes his surprise return, Detective Rudd doesn't

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Speaker 2: hesitate to take credit. He's happy to report to the

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Speaker 2: press that police pressure must have scared the Baby Jesus thieves.

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Speaker 2: He takes the tack that once they knew the cops

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Speaker 2: were after them, it was only a matter of time

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Speaker 2: until they return the Baby Jesus, but no suspects were

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Speaker 2: ever arrested. Three years later, in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, baby Jesus

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Speaker 2: stealing thieves strike again. Presumably it's not the same thieves,

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Speaker 2: but again there is a ransom note. A syndicated UPI

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Speaker 2: story on December thirteenth, nineteen eighty four, runs with the

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Speaker 2: headline stolen Baby Jesus statue is returned. The thieves had

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Speaker 2: stolen a three foot tall, ten pounds ceramic Baby Jesus,

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Speaker 2: and they left in its place their ransom note. So

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Speaker 2: what's the price to get baby Jesus back? Well, the

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Speaker 2: ransom note read we have Jesus, we will hang them

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Speaker 2: unless the police leave five cases of Budweiser here January first.

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Speaker 2: There you go. The price of a baby Jesus is

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Speaker 2: apparently five cases of watery American beer. But this trade

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Speaker 2: doesn't get made because an anonymous tipster contacts the police.

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Speaker 2: Whoever they are THEEF or not. They tell the police

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Speaker 2: where they can find the missing baby Jesus. He is

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Speaker 2: in a snowbank, and sure enough, there he is, right

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Speaker 2: where he's promised to be. It's another Christmas miracle. But

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Speaker 2: who who are all these pranksters and amateur ransom artists

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Speaker 2: that want to steal Baby Jesus. More importantly, what's in

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Speaker 2: it for these baby Jesus thieves? The twentieth century trend

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Speaker 2: of stealing a baby Jesus has continued right on into

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Speaker 2: the twenty first century. Even with the ever present ring

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Speaker 2: cameras and all the surveillance cameras everywhere, people will still

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Speaker 2: brave the risk of prison just to steal a baby Jesus.

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Speaker 2: There's even a whole page of Wikipedia dedicated to the crime.

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Speaker 2: In twenty thirteen, the Boston Globe reported on a local

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Speaker 2: Nativity scene that had been stolen three times over the

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Speaker 2: last nine years, and that was nothing. In twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 2: the good folks in rural North Dakota had grown so

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Speaker 2: used to people stealing their Baby Jesus that the local

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Speaker 2: hardware store had to put up a sign. As their

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Speaker 2: local paper, The Pioneer Press, reported.

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Speaker 4: At Chiel's Home and Hardware and Fargo, the Earthly Father

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Speaker 4: and Virgin Mother, a holy family set for seventy four

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Speaker 4: dollars and ninety nine cents, sit on a shelf adoringly

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Speaker 4: hovering over a small sign that says, please ask for

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Speaker 4: Baby Jesus. For several years, the store has kept its

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Speaker 4: Baby Jesus statuettes off the retail floor because of experiences

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Speaker 4: with shoplifters.

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Speaker 2: That same year, further west on the Pacific Northwest Coast,

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Speaker 2: the Baby Jesus figurine became the most stolen item in

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Speaker 2: the Seattle, Tacoma area, as local station KIRO Channel seven reported,

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Speaker 2: and we asked an actor to recite.

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Speaker 1: Seattle's Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church had a five dollars plastic

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Speaker 1: baby Jesus stolen from its Nativity scene last December.

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Speaker 3: Quote.

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Speaker 1: It was as tacky as cheap as garage sale Baby Jesus,

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Speaker 1: mom and Dad as you could get, said Pastor James Carney.

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Speaker 2: Karad sale Baby Jesus. That's one hell of a band

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Speaker 2: if you're in the market. There's also gregory music from

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Speaker 2: Kaufer's Religious Supplies, a store there in Seattle. He told

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Speaker 2: the local press from KIRO Channel seven.

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Speaker 1: Everybody likes a baby. They never steal the wise men

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Speaker 1: or camels or anything like that. It's always Baby Jesus.

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Speaker 2: Who wants a wise man or a camel. People wouldn't

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Speaker 2: necessarily even know it's a Christmas related camel. Now a

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Speaker 2: baby swaddled maybe with a halo, that's what you call

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Speaker 2: the reason for the season. Pastor James Carney from Seattle.

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Speaker 2: He refused to let any stolen Baby Jesus become a

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Speaker 2: bummer for his parishioners. Under his lead, the Capitol Hill

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Speaker 2: Presbyterian Church decided to go songs Jesus for their Christmas

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Speaker 2: decorations because, as he, or rather the actor reading his

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Speaker 2: words will point out, it's just a symbol.

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Speaker 3: There'll be no Baby Jesus. You'll have to come into

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Speaker 3: the church and find the real Jesus. But in terms

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Speaker 3: of the tacky, lit up plastic baby Jesus that we

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Speaker 3: got from our garage sale, there will not be any

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Speaker 3: baby Jesus, and we cannot put out Mary and Joseph

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Speaker 3: Casette just looks kind of sad.

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Speaker 2: And that's what the real sting is, not the loss,

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Speaker 2: but rather how it feels to lose your Jesus. Stealing

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Speaker 2: from a church is a holy violation, but when someone

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Speaker 2: steals your baby Jesus, that's a far more personal, spiritual violation.

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Speaker 2: It can hit extra hard for the truly faithful. Just

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Speaker 2: ask Gloria Herrera of Richland Hills, Texas. She once found

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Speaker 2: her family's baby Jesus had been stolen. As Gloria said,

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Speaker 2: they took the family Jesus. How can anybody do that?

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Speaker 2: In the case of her stolen baby Jesus, the thief

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Speaker 2: was a teenage girl. There's no gender bias when it

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Speaker 2: comes to stealing a baby Jesus, but we don't really

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Speaker 2: know what the exact gender ratio is because if you

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Speaker 2: check the decades of news stories, you'll see the baby

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Speaker 2: Jesus thieves often aren't caught. In fact, they mostly get

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Speaker 2: away with. In the rare instances when the thieves do

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Speaker 2: get caught, it turns out that the purp is almost

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Speaker 2: always one of three usual suspects teenagers on a spree,

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Speaker 2: be it girls or boys. Or it might be older,

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Speaker 2: angry anti religious types making a point. Or there's the

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Speaker 2: last group, drunks acting on a wicked impulse. This is

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Speaker 2: all based on newspaper stories. You could also go with

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Speaker 2: the opinion of Mike Johnson. He's from Alliance Defense Fund.

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Speaker 2: It's a conservative Christian legal group.

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Speaker 3: I suspect most of it is childish pranks. Clearly they

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Speaker 3: are adults with an agenda to remove Christ from Christmas,

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Speaker 3: but they tend to occupy themselves with the courts in

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Speaker 3: courtroom of public opinion.

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Speaker 2: Now, if and when it is kids who steal Baby Jesus,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily mean they're bad kids. But don't listen

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Speaker 2: to me on that. Listen to Stephen Nissenbaum, former history

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Speaker 2: professor from UMass and and author of the book The

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Speaker 2: Battle for Christmas. He argues that the act of stealing

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Speaker 2: Baby Jesus is harmless by definition, at least for the purpse.

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Speaker 2: As Stephen Nissenbaum put it, and we had an actor recite.

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Speaker 3: What it means is that it's okay to go around

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Speaker 3: violating even pretty important norms as long as real human

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Speaker 3: harm isn't being done. It's not exactly devalue in Christianity,

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Speaker 3: but it is sort of a ritualized challenge to it.

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Speaker 3: It could be Christian kids doing it, and on January second,

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Speaker 3: they become good Christian kids.

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Speaker 2: Again, that's an interesting question to consider. Can one steal

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Speaker 2: Baby Jesus and still be a good person or even

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Speaker 2: a good Christian. They call it Christmas City, but that's

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Speaker 2: only a nickname. The town's government name is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 2: It's a dream destination for those who love Christmas and

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Speaker 2: for those who loved to steal a baby Jesus. In

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, thieves struck in Christmas City, or in this

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Speaker 2: case the singular. It was a woman working alone. The

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Speaker 2: baby Jesus was in a nativity scene in the Bethlehem

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Speaker 2: public Square. The woman walked up, she appreciated the scene,

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Speaker 2: She looked around and was just her in Baby Jesus.

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Speaker 2: The temptation was too great, so yoiit. She walked off

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Speaker 2: with that holy infant. She was likely drunk, very drunk. Now,

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Speaker 2: the good folks of Christmas City couldn't, or rather wouldn't,

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Speaker 2: let some drunk cooke just come into Bethlehem steal their

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Speaker 2: baby Jesus and walk away. Except that's exactly what happened. However,

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Speaker 2: in this case, she doesn't get away with the crime

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Speaker 2: for very long. Tiny Baby Jesus of Christmas City is

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Speaker 2: eventually recovered. Sadly, though Baby Jesus isn't returned unharmed, he's

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Speaker 2: most definitely harmed. In fact, local police have to glue

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Speaker 2: the legs back on to Baby Jesus, which sounds like

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Speaker 2: a scene from a Scorsese film, like if he made

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Speaker 2: a Christmas movie. To make sure their baby Jesus is

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Speaker 2: never again stolen from Christmas City, the local authorities install

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Speaker 2: a surveillance camera trained on the Bethlehem Public Square. Locals

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Speaker 2: nickname it the Jesus Camp because if you want to

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Speaker 2: keep your baby Jesus safe, this seems to be the

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Speaker 2: most common response increased security instead of say prayer. Now,

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Speaker 2: some towns will try to chain their baby Jesus to

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Speaker 2: like a pedestal. That can work. Other folks often try

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Speaker 2: to nail their baby Jesus down to the manger. Now,

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Speaker 2: when it comes to nailing Jesus, as any good Christian

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Speaker 2: can tell you, Christmas is the wrong holiday for Jesus

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Speaker 2: and nails. That's Easter, which leaves the Christmas City solution

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Speaker 2: as the best and the most common option to safeguard

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Speaker 2: a baby Jesus from thieves. Surveillance cameras aka Jesus cams

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Speaker 2: got to keep an eye on that holy infant. There's

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Speaker 2: a company in New York called brick House Security. They

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Speaker 2: offer a rare service they call it GPS Jesus. You

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Speaker 2: can chip your baby Jesus statue just like a pet poodle.

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Speaker 2: That way, if someone comes and steals it, no matter

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Speaker 2: where they take them, you can go and save Jesus,

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Speaker 2: which is a fun little switch up. According to the

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Speaker 2: CEO of brick House Security, the real genius of their

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Speaker 2: GPS based system is that it's a CoP's best friend

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Speaker 2: as far as saving your stolen baby Jesus, a CEO

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Speaker 2: Todd Morris puts.

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Speaker 3: It, Normally, police have a difficult time dealing with property theft,

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Speaker 3: and some people think it's because police don't care about

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Speaker 3: theft of small objects, even if they're religious nature. But

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Speaker 3: it's not that police don't care, it's that they rarely

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Speaker 3: have the ability to act.

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Speaker 2: That's where GPS Jesus comes in. But that's not CEO

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Speaker 2: Todd Morris, that's an actor portraying him. Back to our

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Speaker 2: actor portrayal of CEO Todd Morris.

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Speaker 3: If somebody moves Baby Jesus, emails and text messages go

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Speaker 3: out and several people from our server and we can

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Speaker 3: check with him to see if there's a problem, if

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Speaker 3: he should be moving, if he shouldn't be moving. If

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Speaker 3: they call us and we say we can't find them,

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Speaker 3: we will log on while on the phone and interface

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Speaker 3: with local law enforcement to help them track down Baby Jesus.

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Speaker 2: Basically, the company tells the cops what GPS Jesus is

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Speaker 2: telling them, and then the cops go and save them.

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Speaker 2: But what happens when the cops actually catch the criminals

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Speaker 2: and the Purps don't just return Baby Jesus. Well, there

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Speaker 2: was a group of friends, three nineteen year olds who

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Speaker 2: stole a baby Jesus from a Methodist church in Forest, Virginia.

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Speaker 2: But then these brain geniuses posted a photo on Facebook

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Speaker 2: of them at the Nativity scene.

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Speaker 3: Nice, oh yeah, br They.

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Speaker 2: Literally posted evidence of their crime, which means it wasn't

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Speaker 2: hard to catch them. When they got busted, they caught

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Speaker 2: real charges. They were tried, convicted, and sentenced. The ringleader

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Speaker 2: got one year in jail, his two buddies sentenced to

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Speaker 2: sixty days behind bars, and all three had to pay

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Speaker 2: the church five hundred dollars in restitution. These larcenist nineteen

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Speaker 2: year olds did try to explain to the cops and

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Speaker 2: later to the court and the judge what they did

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Speaker 2: was just meant to be a prank, a joke, a

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Speaker 2: harmless bit of fun. It's not like baby Jesus got

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Speaker 2: hurt this time. But whether or not baby Jesus got hurt,

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Speaker 2: totally loses sight of what makes stealing a baby Jesus

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Speaker 2: so much damn fun. It's partly the fact that it's

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Speaker 2: a doll baby of Jesus. In the Christian tradition, God

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Speaker 2: became human and was born of a virgin named Mary.

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Speaker 2: Their holy son is Jesus, born in a manger, hunted

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Speaker 2: by the King of the land, survivor of a baby genocide.

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Speaker 2: It's a wild story, whether you believe it or not.

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Speaker 2: I was raised a Catholic, so try as I might,

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Speaker 2: I can't help but believe in the story even old

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Speaker 2: baby doll Jesus. However, you're not supposed to act like

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Speaker 2: the ba baby doll Jesus that you see in the

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Speaker 2: Nativity scenes is a baby doll. It's meant to be

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Speaker 2: a representation of God as a human being. Thus the

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Speaker 2: baby doll becomes sacred. And this is where we run

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Speaker 2: headlong into mass consumerism and the various plastic and ceramic Jesuses.

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Speaker 2: The fact you can buy a cheap plastic baby Jesus

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Speaker 2: that's supposed to be this revered holy icon makes it

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Speaker 2: funny to steal a statue of God as a doll baby.

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Speaker 2: Yet frankly, at the most soulful level, for some believers,

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Speaker 2: stealing a baby Jesus can even be a way to

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Speaker 2: restore Jesus to a more sacred place in your life.

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Speaker 2: If you don't know this. These days fewer folks attend church,

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Speaker 2: yet it seems people still take part in the holiday season,

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Speaker 2: all of its decorations and its festivities. This is how

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Speaker 2: Kurt Busiek, pastor of a manual Baptist in Parkersburg, West Virginia,

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Speaker 2: came to the conclusion that a stolen baby Jesus may

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Speaker 2: actually be a secret blessing. In twenty eighteen, Pastor Boussiek

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Speaker 2: told The New York Times quote, my thought is, hey,

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Speaker 2: if they steal one, we'll keep putting it out. I

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Speaker 2: can't think of a better way to get the message

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Speaker 2: of Christmas out than for people to keep taking Jesus home. Now,

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Speaker 2: there's a man who believes God truly works in mysterious ways,

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Speaker 2: and that's how. By stealing a baby Jesus, you're celebrating

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Speaker 2: the reason for the season. So maybe this holiday season,

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Speaker 2: go steal a baby Jesus, then return it and enjoy

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Speaker 2: a merry Christmas.

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Speaker 5: Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.

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Speaker 5: This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Sarah Burnett, and

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Speaker 5: Jason English. Today's episode was written by Zaren Burnett. Our

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Speaker 5: producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound designed by Chris Childs,

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Speaker 5: Mixing and mastering by Chris Childs. Original music by Alice McCoy.

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Speaker 5: Show logo by Lucy Kntonia Let me thank our virtual

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Speaker 5: troop of voice actors Jonathan Washington, Chris Childs, Elizabeth Dutton,

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Speaker 5: Katie Maddie, Josh Fisher, and Zaron Burnett. Our Executive producer

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Speaker 5: is Jason English and on behalf of the entire Very

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Speaker 5: Special Episodes Family. I wish you a married Christmas, haty Honicah,

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Speaker 5: Happy holidays, have a joyous college football Bowl season, marry everything.

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Speaker 5: We'll be back next week, probably next Monday, with one

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Speaker 5: last episode of twenty twenty four. Very Special Episodes is

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Speaker 5: a production of iHeart Podcasts. Please do not go steal

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Speaker 5: Baby Jesus.