The manger scene these days really is the face of Christmas for most people and, perhaps not surprisingly, it is one of the aspects of the season that keeps causing trouble.

Shoup’s actions during Christmastime 1955 offer an un-planned, un-staged snapshot of a political system and world view strikingly different from that of Lenin, Stalin, and Xi—a system founded on the freedom to believe in God or Santa or not, to believe in the meaning of Christmas or not, to believe in Immanuel or not.