Another Christmas statistic.

Another Christmas statistic. Two thousand years ago, a young homeless woman gave birth to a little baby boy who would grow up to be our Savior. Even the earliest of his followers grasped the significance of the fact that he was born, not in a palace as the scion sci��on?n.1. A descendant or heir.2. also ci��on A detached shoot or twig containing buds from a woody plant, used in grafting. of a high priest or prince, but in a stable as the child of and unwed mother who would soon be a refugee in Egypt. Few people, however, have noted how the circumstances of Christ's birth contained within them the seeds of his life's eventual end as a death row convict. In Talmudic midrash, the first and the last item of a series are often considered especially important and somehow linked. In the Decalogue, for instance, the key to obeying the tenth commandment--Thou shall not covet--is to obey the first commandment--Thou shall have no other gods beside me. The evangelists were all familiar with this way of thinking, so it is almost certainly no structural accident of the gospel narrative that we find groups of three--Jesus, Joseph, and Mary; Jesus and two thieves--at both ends of the story. If we pay attention, the evangelists are telling us, then we should see the connection between the extreme poverty of Christ's childhood and his execution alongside two other prisoners. Modern readers of the gospels may lack the literary sensibilities of early Christians, but we have our own means of uncovering the structure of the Bethlehem-to-Golgotha, Christmas-to-Easter dynamic: socio-economic statistics. Had Jesus been born today, available demographic data would have indicated a high probability that he would end up in some kind of trouble with the law. Some things, it turns out, never change. Perhaps the most obvious indicator of Christ's future involvement with the criminal justice system was his mother's age and marital status marital status,n the legal standing of a person in regard to his or her marriage state. : sons of unmarried teens like Mary (whom scholars assume to have been in her late adolescence) are 2.7 times more likely to go to prison than sons of mothers who, though unwed, at least postpone childbirth until their twenties. If the child's parents are married, the probability of incarceration Confinement in a jail or prison; imprisonment.Police officers and other law enforcement officers are authorized by federal, state, and local lawmakers to arrest and confine persons suspected of crimes. The judicial system is authorized to confine persons convicted of crimes. later in life drops even further. So Jesus already had one foot on the road to death row on that first Christmas when he came into the world. Joseph's role in Christ's life may well have been the second strike against the Son of God. While Mary's husband was still acting as head of the household when Jesus stayed behind in the Temple at age twelve, Joseph is never mentioned again thereafter, though he might have been expected to accompany his wife and the other children when the whole family went to confront their eccentric relative while he was preaching (Luke 4:42, Mark 3:31-35). Indeed, the evangelist Mark may have referred to Christ as "the son of Mary" instead of the son of Joseph precisely because the latter had died, leaving Mary as the (in those times unusual) matriarch of the clan (Mark 6:3). If these speculations have any validity, then Joseph's possible absence from Jesus' life would have further heightened our Savior's chances of eventual legal problems, since 70% of all long-term prison inmates come from fatherless homes. Children raised in single parent households are also six times more likely to be poor, and childhood poverty is another leading indicator Leading IndicatorA measurable economic factor that changes before the economy starts to follow a particular pattern or trend. Leading indicators are used to predict changes in the economy, but are not always accurate. of later incarceration. In fact, a seminal meta-analysis of 224 previous studies on social class and crime "concluded rather convincingly that members of lower social classes were indeed more prone" to end up behind bars. By conforming to this distressing pattern in his time on earth, our Messiah may have been trying to remind us that, while "the poor you will always have with you," we have a quite practical reason to "sell what you have and give to the poor": crime prevention (Matthew 26:11, 19:21). Two other factors that correlate strongly with fatherless homes, poverty and subsequent stays in the penitentiary penitentiary:see prison. are lack of education and mental illness: * 71% of all high school drop-outs and 85% of all children with behavioral disorders come from single parent families. * 40% of all prisoners are either functionally or completely illiterate, and 20% are mentally ill. From our point of view it is clear, of course, that Christ suffered from neither of these disabilities; but for many of his contemporaries, things may have looked different. The only writing that Jesus appears to have done during his earthly lifetime was doodling "on the ground with his finger" during the trial of the woman caught in adultery, and the scribes publicly accused him of "hav[ing] an unclean spirit (Script.) a wicked spirit; a demon.- Mark i. 27.See also: Unclean " or mental illness (John 8:6, Mark 3:30). If our federal Bureau of Criminal Justice Statistics had examined the Son of God on the way to his execution, it would have classified him as a fairly typical fatherless, uneducated and crazy convict. And it surely is the whole point of God taking on flesh at that first Christmas so long ago: "he had to become like his brothers in every way," just another statistic in his era's war on crime (Hebrews 2:17). Of course, with a little "compassionate conservatism The of this article or section may be compromised by "weasel words".You can help Wikipedia by removing weasel words. " and a school voucher A school voucher, also called an education voucher, is a certificate by which parents are given the ability to pay for the education of their children at a school of their choice, rather than the public school (UK state school) to which they were assigned. pilot program, he might have escaped the socio-economic conditions of his birth and perhaps ended up running his own money-changing table in the Temple. But the truth is that, when you start life with as many strikes against you as Jesus, you are more likely to end up where he did: in jail, on death row. Two thousand years ago or today, some things never change. On Christmas eve this year, 38,400 homeless people will be sleeping in the shelters of New York City New York City:see New York, city. New York CityCity (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. alone. That number includes 16,700 children, each of which is a son or daughter of God, a beloved child of the uncreated un��cre��at��ed?adj.1. Not having been created; not yet in existence.2. Existing of itself; uncaused. light that made the universe. Like Mary and Jesus, their unwed mothers will love them dearly, and if you pass one the street, you may give them some loose change. It is Christmas, after all! To stop them from traveling down the road that Jesus took--the road from the homeless shelter Homeless shelters are temporary residences for homeless people. Usually located in urban neighborhoods, they are similar to emergency shelters. The primary difference is that homeless shelters are usually open to anyone, without regard to the reason for need. to a prisoner's death--will take more than a few dimes and quarters, however. It will require love and action and commitment and, sad to say, quite a few of your dollars. An impossible task? Perhaps. But if we love one another as that first Christmas child loved us, we can save at least some of today's homeless children from becoming another Christmas statistic. This essay was originally published in a slightly altered form as "Another Easter Statistic" in America Magazine, Vol. 190, No. 13, April 2004. Notes 1. Rebecca A. Maynard and Eileen M. Garry, Adolescent Motherhood: Implications for the Criminal Justice System (Washington DC: Office of Juvenile Delinquency juvenile delinquency,legal term for behavior of children and adolescents that in adults would be judged criminal under law. In the United States, definitions and age limits of juveniles vary, the maximum age being set at 14 years in some states and as high as 21 and Prevention, January 1997). 2. Charles W. Colson, Justice that Restores (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Not to be confused with Tyndale House (Cambridge) of Cambridge, England, a library and centre for scholarly biblical research.[1]Tyndale House is a publisher founded in 1962 by Kenneth N. Publ., 2001), p. 101. 3. Barbara D. Whithead, "Dan Qualye Was Right," Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 271, No. 4 (April 1993), p. 47. 4. John Braithwaite, "The Myth of Social Class and Criminality Reconsidered," American Sociological Review The American Sociological Review is the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association (ASA). The ASA founded this journal (often referred to simply as ASR) in 1936 with the mission to publish original works of interest to the sociology discipline in general, new , Vol. 46, No. 1 (1981), p. 36-57; see also more recent studies by D.S D.S Drainage Structure (flood protection). Elliott, N.H. Rafter, M. Farnworth. 5. ____, This Rock (El Cajon, CA), October 1987, p. 15. 6. ____, "Education as Crime Prevention," OSI (1) (Open System Interconnection) An ISO standard for worldwide communications that defines a framework for implementing protocols in seven layers. Control is passed from one layer to the next, starting at the application layer in one station, proceeding to the Criminal Justice Initiative, September 1997; Etienne Benson, "Rehabilitate or punish?", Monitor on Psychology (American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is a professional organization representing psychology in the US. Description and historyThe association has around 150,000 members and an annual budget of around $70m. ), Vol. 34, No. 7., July/August 2003, p. 47, quoting Bureau of Criminal Justice Statistics. 7. Jim Reagan, "Beneath the Smoke of War," The Catholic Worker, June/July 2003, quoting the February 2003 report of the Coalition for the Homeless This article is about the original New York based organization. For the national organization, see National Coalition for the HomelessCoalition for the Homeless is the oldest not-for-profit advocacy group focused on homelessness in the United States. .