Wednesday, June 06, 2007

The Illegal Alien Is My Neighbor!




The biblical illiteracy of many who claim the Bible as their inerrant, infallible guide is often astonding. Nowhere is this more true than in the issue of Christian response to immigration reform. There are very few issues in the Bible where God's expectations are more clearly spelled out for us. I encourage you to read the article by David Gushee, on Christians and Immigration Reform.

I have extracted some of the key statements:

"As American Christians, are we more Christian or more American? I think that we should be Christians first."

"Biblically, the five most relevant moral principles on this issue are love, justice, hospitality, family and humility."

"Every person is my neighbor, whom I am called to love. The “undocumented worker” or “illegal alien” is my neighbor."

Jeremiah 22: “Do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed violence in this place.”

"Matthew 25, the king says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Illegal immigrants are strangers."

"As Christians, we cannot rest comfortably with raids that leave children in schools and daycare while their parents are deported."

". . . our true “citizenship” is in the church, and we are there as “resident aliens” hospitably welcomed by our gracious God. In this sense, we too are aliens, immigrants and strangers, and we should identify compassionately with this world’s versions of the same."

Referring specifically to the immigration reform bill, "This is hardly the kingdom of God in action. But it is far better than any alternative, and Christians should support it."

Monday, June 04, 2007

Paige has done it again!

I don't know how I missed this because I try to keep up with the really stupid things Paige Patterson says and does. I guess I was distracted by the end of school activities. According to PP educated women are a serious threat to the family, the country and the world.

At the fourth World Congress of Families in Warsaw, he said, "families need to be concerned that in America, 60% of college students are female." He predicts that in a few years, men will be increasingly underrepresented among "the intelligentsia" and will gradually cede leadership in many areas to women."

As a result women will increasingly forsake their God-ordained place of being barefoot and pregnant, and usurp the authority that God gave to men. (Not his words but definitely his thoughts.)

(What can I say? I know she's not barefoot, but it is Natalie Portman)


I am grateful that after reading the story on a "Christian" news source, several Southern Baptist women responded showing just how myopic this view of the place of women in society is. I have quoted one of the best of the responses.

As a life-long Southern Baptist who is also a single mother and an attorney who has to work in order to support myself and my young daughter, I wish the Southern Baptist Convention would find alternative ways to convey the need to strengthen the family unit without denigrating women who work outside the home or dare to educate themselves. The fact that 60% of college enrollees are women is not a tragedy. Why not focus on the failings of men as the primary cause of the disintegration of the family instead of villifying women (the old Adam and Eve story, with a modern twist). As a Christian and, specifically a Southern Baptist, I often combat negative stereotypes about my religious affiliation. The Southern Baptists lose credibility when they staunchly oppose abortion (as do I) but then saddle single mothers who bravely raise their children alone with guilt because they have to work. If we want to stem the tide of broken families, the Southern Baptists would do well to employ methods other than decrying the education of women and resorting to 1950s imagery about "mom and apple pie."