Photo by Greyson Joralemon

As familiar as the Christmas story of the baby born in a manger might be, it is also a cautionary tale for our age.

The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land.

Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later?

What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family were forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them?

Consider the following if you will.

Had Jesus been born in the era of the American police state, his parents would not have traveled to Bethlehem for a census. Instead, they would have been entered into a vast web of government databases—flagged, categorized, scored, and assessed by algorithms they could neither see nor challenge. What passes for a census today is no longer a simple headcount, but rather part of a data-harvesting regime that feeds artificial intelligence........

© CounterPunch