I skimmed the article and it involves ice and churches. Might be more accurate if I read the whole thing but I'm guessing it's about ice raiding churches.
Interesting enough, people forget that in Catholic tradition, you don't put Jesus in the manger until Christmas. So, it is an interesting way to use that fact and discuss the role of ICE and its cruelty today. Finally, as Jesus is found in all the poor who are persecuted by ICE, one can literally say, this is happening to Jesus today.
It's actually courageous for a Catholic parish to stand up to Catholics like Todd Lyons who are more aligned with the US Catholic Church. Hopefully someday Father Josoma and his congregation will realize they're too good for the RCC. The Episcopalian denomination seems like it would be a better fit for them.
The US Catholic Bishop Conference has condemned ICE's treatment of immigrants and the Pope agrees. Should all the Catholic Bishops and Pope also join the Episcopalian denomination since they're "too good" for the RCC?
I am familiar with how the bishops speak out of both sides of their mouths. I don't care for their crocodile tears when they gave tacit endorsement to the one presiding over cruel immigration policies.
Are they suggesting Herod got to Jesus? The sign doesn't make sense because Jesus's family fled as God wanted them to...not stayed in place in defiance of authority. They got out of town when ICE came and didn't come back until there was new leadership.
It’s pointing out that Mary and Joseph migrated to Bethlehem and being Brown, would’ve been considered to be criminals and treated worse than animals if their home was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Herod did though is the point...so any attempt to allude to analogy to critisize whats currently happening with the scene then fails if you've actually read the Bible.
A) Jesus wasn't an iillegal immigrant, nor an international immigrant at all in the manger scene.
B) Herod treated Jesus' family as we treat immigrants, even worse, and God told them to flee, not stay
So it's a terrible attempt at making the point you think it does.
Technically did not Jesus's family migrate to Egypt? And then they moved back. I know current nation border ideology only works because of nationalism, but i think about this a lot.
One of the Gospels says they fled to Egypt and later returned, yes.
But even that doesn’t matter. Jesus told us that whatever we do to “the least of these” we do to him. ICE is going after the least of these, the vulnerable of our society.
Masked men in unmarked cars would have taken Mary and Joseph and questioned the three Black wisemen who probably weren’t carrying their birth certificates with them.
So basically you're saying that it's worth traumatizing families and terrorizing thousands of innocent hard working people who have committed no crimes while in the US because they also got some bad people?
Detaining foreign citizens, giving them a free meal, and sending them back home via a plane ticket paid for by the hard working American people is not "trauma."
When I visit a foreign country, I leave when they tell me to leave because I respect their laws and their people. I do not cry "trauma" and "terror."
As to those bad people, guess who they are hiding amongst while foolish Americans work overtime to protect them from law enforcement?
There are still countless more of them, placed among us by the last administration. We have a lot more to go.
The way Obama spoke about and treated undocumented immigrants was 100x better than what we are seeing under Trump. Not only did he not demonize the entire group of people every chance he could, post memes about them and gloat about what they were doing, his administration also mostly targeted people apprehended close to the border and usually those that had recently arrived in the country or within a few years of being here. He also didn't target schools, hospitals, churches and immigration courts. The way Trump's administration his handling undocumented immigrants is abhorrent and nothing like what Obama did.
Also what you said about people like us wanting to protect the type of people you linked to is just a flat out lie you just simply made up.
And what's your point? I'm not talking about cages. I'm talking about the stark differences between how the Obama admin spoke about and treated immigrants compared to Trump. It's night and day. Citing a number of deportations means nothing when you just ignore everything else.
By the way guess what Obama never did with those cages? He never implemented a zero tolerance policy of separating children from their parents at the border putting them in those cages.
They're not sending them "back home". Some of these people have literally lived here for decades since childhood. America is their home.
Many of these people have spouses, children, jobs, go to school, go to church, pay taxes, contribute positively to their communities. Having their lives and their families lives torn apart is extremely traumatizing.
And let's just completely ignore the people who were sent to countries they have no connection to and never set foot in before. Let's ignore the people sent to a foreign prison notorious for torturing detainees without any oversight or due process. Let's ignore the literal American citizens detained by ICE.
You can do that without having Christ removed from the nativity scene. You can quote the psalms. You can quote the apostles. Saints. Christ Himself. All of that would be better than allowing ice to replace Christ in the nativity.
The only bad about it is obviously the church is being openly divisive. We’re in a culture war, so maybe it’s what churches are supposed to do. But when everyone from the president to the churches are actively taking jabs at each other, how will there ever be unity?
Again, this is why it’s a culture war. One side says it is, one side says it isn’t and the culture fights. I would the church shouldn’t take jabs, like the president shouldn’t. Purposeful division is only meant to cause anger. The goal of the church and the head of the state is to do the opposite.
This is so insanely legalistic that it loses meaning on what it means to be a Christian. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves and show mercy to the most vulnerable. When they are attacked, we’re meant to stand up. If it’s the State, so be it.
This is the problem with both sides. Both are rejecting that the other side is saying anything at all. Only their truth is valid. That’s what drives the culture war. Nothing I said was legalistic. Doing something you intentionally upset people is being divisive. The goal is to fight a culture war because only your turn is true. The unwillingness to hear anyone else but yourself is anti christian.
One side: Let's commit genocide!
A church: That's wrong!
You: That's not Christian-like!
This is exaggeration to prove a point. It terms of "sides," I grew up conservative. Until I saw the hypocrisy and the partiality. I was willing to listen to conservative criticisms of progressives, and progressive criticisms of conservatives. I've found the conservative claims to often be exaggerations and unscientific, while the progressive side is often a cry against injustice.
Children have been taken from their families. Refugees seeking freedom from persecution are being sent back to to war-torn countries, or to countries they never even came from int eh first place. Ordinary people who simply are trying to live their best lives, go to work and come home, just like the rest of us, have been arrested. People who are doing their best to follow the law have been apprehended. No one on the progressive side is saying that criminals- murders, thieves, drug dealers, rapists, and the like- no one is saying they shouldn't be arrested. All progressives want is for immigrants to have a pathway to citizenship. And for the past two decades every time they push for it, conservatives have shut their attempts down. Why? Because this right here is what they wanted.
I am angry. I am angry because the virtues I expected my family to have turned out to be lies. I am angry because I expected better of Christians, and I expected better of the political ideology I was once taught. I am angry that too few people are willing to stand up and call out injustice when they see it. You can preach both sides; I am going to turn over the tables of the money changers.
Your exaggeration doesn’t prove your point. It strawmans mine. Which is why this conversation is so frustrating. It’s literally a church going, “haha you’re not christians, you would persecute Jesus,” because they want to create strife.
And even in your rant, you present your side in the best light and ignore the reality of the situation. Very rarely are illegal immigrants in the united states because they’re refugees. They’re here because of financial benefits. But they have no loyalty to the united states are often sending more money back home than they even keep here. So why block pathways to citizenship? Because it doesn’t serve the nation. It’s literally a way to give the left more votes as they’ll increase entitlement to them, while they aren’t invested in the united states at all. If they were, they would become citizens the right way.
You’re angry because you don’t know the virtues of your family or you don’t care. This concept of I got mine so screw you, isn’t conservative. It has never been conservative. Conservatives like helping people. But the concept of fairness is extremely conservative. And the left just ignores what’s fair constantly. It doesn’t matter to them, they don’t care, and then call the right fascists because they want things to be fair.
If following Jesus and reading the Bible does not inform and reform how you relate to the culture of the world around you, and particularly the way religious leaders and state officials use violence and population control, I don't know what to tell you
The lives and sufferings of St. Peter and St. Paul demonstrate that extrajudicially breaking into people's houses with armed guards, abducting them, beating the hell out of them, and arresting them on a whim so that their friends and family have no idea where they are or if they're safe or when or if they're coming home is not okay. Christians should know that. (Acts 8:1-4, 9:1-2, 12, 16:19-40)
This is such a one dimensional viewpoint. Do you what else is not christian? Illegally being in a foreign country. If you follow Jesus, it should absolutely burden you if you are illegally in a foreign country. But practically zero religious leaders are actively conveying that message.
The real problem is that the left doesn’t want this solution. When the mafia was at its peak power in the US, the fbi responded by doing several extrajudicial actions. They had to. Playing by the rules wasn’t possible. The mafia had too much power and affecting change wasn’t going to happen without extrajudicial justice. But as a country, we understand that. The mafia were clearly bad. They hurt people. Ran drugs. Made unstable communities and we’re all around bad.
Today, we’re faced with a problem that is so extreme it can’t be resolved by simply trying to use the system. The problem grows faster than the system can respond. So the current government has created an extrajudicial force to take action and try to resolve the problem. But the left doesn’t want the solution. It’s not like the mafia. Illegal immigrants aren’t a problem in the eyes of the left. The system is the problem. The rules are the problem. Fairness in the problem. So the conversation can’t ever get anywhere.
This church is not being divisive. This church is shining a light on the people and groups who are doing the dividing. Is this church fomenting fear among immigrants and encouraging people to inform on them? Did this church bloviate about "enemies within" and people who are "poisoning the blood of our country"? Did this church spread loathsome lies about immigrants eating dogs and cats?
There is indeed deliberate division where there should be none. Make sure you keep sight of who is doing it.
This church is not being divisive. There are people from the ruling authority who are attacking other people. It's quite similar to the way Rome oppressed the Jews, and how Herod slaughtered the infants. Pointing out the dividing aggression of the ruling authorities is not divisive.
Now, are you going to ask me to make the argument without using any prepositions or letters from the second half of the alphabet?
So there are people from the ruling authority who are attacking other people. You would argue unjustly. They would not. And what was the church’s response. To say that it isn’t just, in their opinion? Or to actively try to upset them by attacking their fundamental beliefs?
‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Levitius 19:33-34
Is the Bible itself divisive to you now? This verse speaks directly to the culture war, do you think it should not be taught from the pulpit?
No it doesn’t. The verse says (if there’s a person living in your lands that you’ve invited and they’ve adopted your customs treat them like you would treat other jews). We know this for certain because of when the bible discusses the year of jubilee. It goes into great detail about the foreigner. And makes this very important distinction between foreigners that are welcome and everyone else. You see in the year of jubilee, everyone’s debts are forgiven, all the slaves are set free, everyone is forgiven. Do you know who isn’t set free? Do you know whose debts aren’t forgiven? The foreigners who weren’t invited. The ones who were captured or bought from other countries. Only the foreigners who are welcome get treated like everyone else.
Where in the Bible specifically does it say it applies only to invited foreigners? I don’t actually recall the phrase “invited foreigners” anywhere in the Bible and I’ve read it cover to cover.
Where are you getting this doctrine from? The concept of “illegal immigrant” doesn’t even exist in the Old Testament.
Ok setting that aside for a second. If a foreigner enters the country legally, with a valid visa, then do you agree the verse applies? Because if it doesn’t apply to someone who came here legally then you’re basically directly contradicting the Bible right? You’d be saying the command pretty much doesn’t apply to anyone ever.
Where did you see me quote the bible and say “invited foreigners”? I didn’t. This is called a red herring. I gave you my argument in significant detail. Where does the bible make a distinction between types of foreigners? I told you that. How does it treat them differently? I told you that. What are the specific names that it uses to refer to the different types of foreigners? I didn’t say that because it doesn’t say that.
Do you know what happened to “illegal immigrants” in ancient Israel? They were murdered. If you wanted to live in Israel you needed to be a jew/welcomed by a jew. And you had to practice their customs. Literally, the book of joshua is about genociding everyone who lived in Israel that wasn’t a jew. The story jericho? Rahab? They murdered all the non jews.
This is straight out of the bible. It’s not doctrine, it’s just what happened. You’re the one trying to imply doctrine.
I am simply going by the plain reading of scripture.
I’m not adding any interpretation. The Bible is clear on its own.
I don’t think your view is compatible with the doctrine of grace in Jesus Christ. The entire principle is simple : Treat foreigners with compassion and as equals. How is that hard to get? If you’re trying to twist the plain reading of the text to match some political purpose, you are missing the mark and I think you know that.
So let’s look at a plain a reading of scripture. There are foreigners in Israel. They are slaves. There are another group of foreigners in Israel who are also slaves. There’s a year of jubilee. The first set are freed. The second set aren’t. This is exactly what the bible says. No twisting. Almost word for word.
What is the difference between foreigners A and foreigners B? Keep in mind the other people freed during the year of jubilee were jews. So just a straight forward answer, according to the bible, what’s the difference between foreigner A and foreigner B?
I’m not changing the subject. We disagree about what the word foreigner means in leviticus. You are apply a doctrinal definition. You’re saying, “this is my doctrine, so this is how I interpret the text.”
I’m saying that is a bad interpretation because it isn’t a doctrinal issue. It’s an issue of fact. We can factually look at how ancient Israel interpreted the word foreigner. We know for certain that they had classes of foreigners. There was the foreigner who that verse applies to. We this because we can look at the year of jubilee. And that foreigner was treated exactly like all the other jews during the year of jubilee. This foreigner followed jewish customs. We know this because they also followed the year of jubilee and forgave debts and freed slaves.
Then there was a second class of foreigner. One who was not invited. One who did not follow jewish customs. One who wasn’t freed on the year of jubilee. And who this verse didn’t apply to.
This isn’t a matter of doctrine. It’s not a matter of how I interpret scripture. How I think grace should relate or not. These are factual statements. These are factual readings of scripture. This is simply how the jews treated people, whether or not we think it was right or wrong. And it’s usually why we don’t try to use the old testament to justify things. Cause I think having two classes of people is wrong, personally.
That being said, gun to my head, leviticus clearly would see illegal immigrants as that second class and tell us to treat them how we want, not like our neighbor.
Truth hurts. MAGA is anti-Christian.
Jesus was a refugee and an imagrant during his life. Being an enemy of the state due to his status at birth is kinda the whole point of the nativity.
MAGA is outraged again? What else is new
Don’t forget abhorrent.
MAGA is absolutely abhorrent, yes.
Yet put a little dude with a drum and a long eared donkey and no one bats an eye.
What does this have to do with Christianity?
Edit: Sometimes my mind spaces out when reading things. The Nativity scene has everything to do with Christianity 👍
I have coffee on if you need one. LOL
Cheers mate 🙏
I guess you dont know what a nativity scene is..
Oh right my bad
I skimmed the article and it involves ice and churches. Might be more accurate if I read the whole thing but I'm guessing it's about ice raiding churches.
Just like Jesus [never] did !
You're right.
The nativity scene has nothing to do with Christianity.
I already realized my mistake. And I know it does only because it is about the Birth of Jesus Christ
Interesting enough, people forget that in Catholic tradition, you don't put Jesus in the manger until Christmas. So, it is an interesting way to use that fact and discuss the role of ICE and its cruelty today. Finally, as Jesus is found in all the poor who are persecuted by ICE, one can literally say, this is happening to Jesus today.
It's actually courageous for a Catholic parish to stand up to Catholics like Todd Lyons who are more aligned with the US Catholic Church. Hopefully someday Father Josoma and his congregation will realize they're too good for the RCC. The Episcopalian denomination seems like it would be a better fit for them.
The US Catholic Bishop Conference has condemned ICE's treatment of immigrants and the Pope agrees. Should all the Catholic Bishops and Pope also join the Episcopalian denomination since they're "too good" for the RCC?
I am familiar with how the bishops speak out of both sides of their mouths. I don't care for their crocodile tears when they gave tacit endorsement to the one presiding over cruel immigration policies.
I get the 'why didn't they do it sooner sentiment', but in this case, it really is better later than never.
This is exactly what they voted for. They're outraged over getting what they wanted.
I mean I don't like MAGA either but how about we keep politics outside of religion?
How about your religion stop trying to force itself into politics?
Are they suggesting Herod got to Jesus? The sign doesn't make sense because Jesus's family fled as God wanted them to...not stayed in place in defiance of authority. They got out of town when ICE came and didn't come back until there was new leadership.
Sometimes the point of art isn't to make a one to one factual argument, but to recontextualize something in a way that might affect how you view it.
The point isn't to argue that Jesus would have been taken, but rather to ask if you would care, had it happened to him.
It’s pointing out that Mary and Joseph migrated to Bethlehem and being Brown, would’ve been considered to be criminals and treated worse than animals if their home was in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Herod did though is the point...so any attempt to allude to analogy to critisize whats currently happening with the scene then fails if you've actually read the Bible.
I think the message is about the inhumane treatment of immigrants.
I know...and the point is it doesnt make sense.
A) Jesus wasn't an iillegal immigrant, nor an international immigrant at all in the manger scene. B) Herod treated Jesus' family as we treat immigrants, even worse, and God told them to flee, not stay
So it's a terrible attempt at making the point you think it does.
It’s been years since I have seen someone work so hard to miss the point as you have here.
Technically did not Jesus's family migrate to Egypt? And then they moved back. I know current nation border ideology only works because of nationalism, but i think about this a lot.
One of the Gospels says they fled to Egypt and later returned, yes.
But even that doesn’t matter. Jesus told us that whatever we do to “the least of these” we do to him. ICE is going after the least of these, the vulnerable of our society.
Nah I think it’s you guys trying to force an agenda where one doesn’t fit.
Mary and Joseph migrated back to Bethlehem and then fled to Egypt where they were all Immigrants escaping persecution.
Yes sadly. "Herod" is getting to the least of these every day.
ICE was here:
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/04/ice-arrests-worst-worst-criminal-illegal-aliens-including-man-who-performed-dental
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/05/despite-medias-claims-ice-continues-arrest-worst-worst-criminal-illegal-aliens
https://www.ice.gov/WoW
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/03/ice-arrests-worst-worst-criminal-illegal-aliens-including-illegal-alien-miami-who
Masked men in unmarked cars would have taken Mary and Joseph and questioned the three Black wisemen who probably weren’t carrying their birth certificates with them.
Yes. We all know the men from the east were "Black."
LOL.
I always see them with darker skin. At least one of them if not all of them.
https://comment.org/the-blackening-of-balthazar/
I think the theoretical modern retelling we're casting them as Somalian or Haitian.
But if they were really magi then they were zoroastrian priests and presumably Persian.
So basically you're saying that it's worth traumatizing families and terrorizing thousands of innocent hard working people who have committed no crimes while in the US because they also got some bad people?
Detaining foreign citizens, giving them a free meal, and sending them back home via a plane ticket paid for by the hard working American people is not "trauma."
When I visit a foreign country, I leave when they tell me to leave because I respect their laws and their people. I do not cry "trauma" and "terror."
As to those bad people, guess who they are hiding amongst while foolish Americans work overtime to protect them from law enforcement?
There are still countless more of them, placed among us by the last administration. We have a lot more to go.
Every time you defend this horrifying administration, a rooster crows.
Obama has the record for the most deportations of any president in history....and folks like you defended him and sang his praises to this very day.
I understand you are all for protecting those people I posted links to.
The way Obama spoke about and treated undocumented immigrants was 100x better than what we are seeing under Trump. Not only did he not demonize the entire group of people every chance he could, post memes about them and gloat about what they were doing, his administration also mostly targeted people apprehended close to the border and usually those that had recently arrived in the country or within a few years of being here. He also didn't target schools, hospitals, churches and immigration courts. The way Trump's administration his handling undocumented immigrants is abhorrent and nothing like what Obama did.
Also what you said about people like us wanting to protect the type of people you linked to is just a flat out lie you just simply made up.
Obama built those cages.
And what's your point? I'm not talking about cages. I'm talking about the stark differences between how the Obama admin spoke about and treated immigrants compared to Trump. It's night and day. Citing a number of deportations means nothing when you just ignore everything else.
By the way guess what Obama never did with those cages? He never implemented a zero tolerance policy of separating children from their parents at the border putting them in those cages.
You recognize Obama's methods and Trump's are significantly different yes?
No one was shot by ICE, or had their leg run over during Obama's admin, for example.
LOL. Who told you no one was harmed in the process of being detained and deported during all the Obama years?
I didn't say "No one was ever harmed"
I am talking about frequency and severity
Don’t care. Forgive all of them or get thee behind.
I know.
In fact, your deflection to Obama is hilarious. How do you know I’m ok with Obama? I voted for Romney 😭
It must be easy to hold a debt against someone when you can’t even commit the sin. Forgive them.
They're not sending them "back home". Some of these people have literally lived here for decades since childhood. America is their home.
Many of these people have spouses, children, jobs, go to school, go to church, pay taxes, contribute positively to their communities. Having their lives and their families lives torn apart is extremely traumatizing.
And let's just completely ignore the people who were sent to countries they have no connection to and never set foot in before. Let's ignore the people sent to a foreign prison notorious for torturing detainees without any oversight or due process. Let's ignore the literal American citizens detained by ICE.
Yes they are. They are sending them back to their home nations where they hold citizenship.
America is their home.
They are not American citizens.
That sounds great and all, but none of them have a right to live in the USA perpetually. They knew that when they came here.
I definitely do not ignore them. Some of these illegal aliens are so criminal that not even their own home countries will take them back.
Of course, the enemies of America want them here to do as much damage as possible.
I too have been detained by law enforcement undertaking an investigation. No American citizens have been deported. Thus the investigation.
The nativity is already a rebuke of ice. We don’t need to literally take away attention from its purpose to suggest ice is immoral.
Take away attention? Do you mean remind people what Jesus said about treating immigrants/“strangers”?
You can do that without having Christ removed from the nativity scene. You can quote the psalms. You can quote the apostles. Saints. Christ Himself. All of that would be better than allowing ice to replace Christ in the nativity.
Not exactly as visual a statement for people driving by.
Doesn’t matter. Ice is not more important than the birth of our Savior
The reaction of MAGA sadly indicates that indeed we do need to suggest ICE is immoral.
Didn’t say otherwise. I’m saying Ice is not more important than Christ.
The only bad about it is obviously the church is being openly divisive. We’re in a culture war, so maybe it’s what churches are supposed to do. But when everyone from the president to the churches are actively taking jabs at each other, how will there ever be unity?
Should the church not talk about the inhuman treatment of migrants?
Not according to MAGA.
Again, this is why it’s a culture war. One side says it is, one side says it isn’t and the culture fights. I would the church shouldn’t take jabs, like the president shouldn’t. Purposeful division is only meant to cause anger. The goal of the church and the head of the state is to do the opposite.
This is so insanely legalistic that it loses meaning on what it means to be a Christian. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves and show mercy to the most vulnerable. When they are attacked, we’re meant to stand up. If it’s the State, so be it.
This is the problem with both sides. Both are rejecting that the other side is saying anything at all. Only their truth is valid. That’s what drives the culture war. Nothing I said was legalistic. Doing something you intentionally upset people is being divisive. The goal is to fight a culture war because only your turn is true. The unwillingness to hear anyone else but yourself is anti christian.
Standing up for the human treatment of immigrants is taking jabs? Should Christians stay silent in the face of such atrocious behavior?
Posting a sign outside your church to try and upset people is standing up?
Shouldn’t Christians be standing up for the human rights of our neighbors?
i’ve answered this question already
To be clear, the Word of God is divisive.
The word of God is meant to create unity, not division.
That’s…not what the Word says about itself lol.
Yes it is.
One side: Let's commit genocide!
A church: That's wrong!
You: That's not Christian-like!
This is exaggeration to prove a point. It terms of "sides," I grew up conservative. Until I saw the hypocrisy and the partiality. I was willing to listen to conservative criticisms of progressives, and progressive criticisms of conservatives. I've found the conservative claims to often be exaggerations and unscientific, while the progressive side is often a cry against injustice.
Children have been taken from their families. Refugees seeking freedom from persecution are being sent back to to war-torn countries, or to countries they never even came from int eh first place. Ordinary people who simply are trying to live their best lives, go to work and come home, just like the rest of us, have been arrested. People who are doing their best to follow the law have been apprehended. No one on the progressive side is saying that criminals- murders, thieves, drug dealers, rapists, and the like- no one is saying they shouldn't be arrested. All progressives want is for immigrants to have a pathway to citizenship. And for the past two decades every time they push for it, conservatives have shut their attempts down. Why? Because this right here is what they wanted.
I am angry. I am angry because the virtues I expected my family to have turned out to be lies. I am angry because I expected better of Christians, and I expected better of the political ideology I was once taught. I am angry that too few people are willing to stand up and call out injustice when they see it. You can preach both sides; I am going to turn over the tables of the money changers.
Your exaggeration doesn’t prove your point. It strawmans mine. Which is why this conversation is so frustrating. It’s literally a church going, “haha you’re not christians, you would persecute Jesus,” because they want to create strife.
And even in your rant, you present your side in the best light and ignore the reality of the situation. Very rarely are illegal immigrants in the united states because they’re refugees. They’re here because of financial benefits. But they have no loyalty to the united states are often sending more money back home than they even keep here. So why block pathways to citizenship? Because it doesn’t serve the nation. It’s literally a way to give the left more votes as they’ll increase entitlement to them, while they aren’t invested in the united states at all. If they were, they would become citizens the right way.
You’re angry because you don’t know the virtues of your family or you don’t care. This concept of I got mine so screw you, isn’t conservative. It has never been conservative. Conservatives like helping people. But the concept of fairness is extremely conservative. And the left just ignores what’s fair constantly. It doesn’t matter to them, they don’t care, and then call the right fascists because they want things to be fair.
It ain't the church that's being divisive.
The state is the one who is abducting people.
You are choosing to see things how you want to see them. That is the culture war.
So was St. Paul rounding up the disciples for the Temple leadership with the state’s approval.
God stopped him.
This is the weirdest response…
If following Jesus and reading the Bible does not inform and reform how you relate to the culture of the world around you, and particularly the way religious leaders and state officials use violence and population control, I don't know what to tell you
The lives and sufferings of St. Peter and St. Paul demonstrate that extrajudicially breaking into people's houses with armed guards, abducting them, beating the hell out of them, and arresting them on a whim so that their friends and family have no idea where they are or if they're safe or when or if they're coming home is not okay. Christians should know that. (Acts 8:1-4, 9:1-2, 12, 16:19-40)
This is such a one dimensional viewpoint. Do you what else is not christian? Illegally being in a foreign country. If you follow Jesus, it should absolutely burden you if you are illegally in a foreign country. But practically zero religious leaders are actively conveying that message.
The real problem is that the left doesn’t want this solution. When the mafia was at its peak power in the US, the fbi responded by doing several extrajudicial actions. They had to. Playing by the rules wasn’t possible. The mafia had too much power and affecting change wasn’t going to happen without extrajudicial justice. But as a country, we understand that. The mafia were clearly bad. They hurt people. Ran drugs. Made unstable communities and we’re all around bad.
Today, we’re faced with a problem that is so extreme it can’t be resolved by simply trying to use the system. The problem grows faster than the system can respond. So the current government has created an extrajudicial force to take action and try to resolve the problem. But the left doesn’t want the solution. It’s not like the mafia. Illegal immigrants aren’t a problem in the eyes of the left. The system is the problem. The rules are the problem. Fairness in the problem. So the conversation can’t ever get anywhere.
This church is not being divisive. This church is shining a light on the people and groups who are doing the dividing. Is this church fomenting fear among immigrants and encouraging people to inform on them? Did this church bloviate about "enemies within" and people who are "poisoning the blood of our country"? Did this church spread loathsome lies about immigrants eating dogs and cats?
There is indeed deliberate division where there should be none. Make sure you keep sight of who is doing it.
Make this argument without referencing any part of the culture war.
This church is not being divisive. There are people from the ruling authority who are attacking other people. It's quite similar to the way Rome oppressed the Jews, and how Herod slaughtered the infants. Pointing out the dividing aggression of the ruling authorities is not divisive.
Now, are you going to ask me to make the argument without using any prepositions or letters from the second half of the alphabet?
So there are people from the ruling authority who are attacking other people. You would argue unjustly. They would not. And what was the church’s response. To say that it isn’t just, in their opinion? Or to actively try to upset them by attacking their fundamental beliefs?
Why should there be unity with fascists?
how can there be unity if both sides believe the other side are fascists?
Is the Bible itself divisive to you now? This verse speaks directly to the culture war, do you think it should not be taught from the pulpit?
No it doesn’t. The verse says (if there’s a person living in your lands that you’ve invited and they’ve adopted your customs treat them like you would treat other jews). We know this for certain because of when the bible discusses the year of jubilee. It goes into great detail about the foreigner. And makes this very important distinction between foreigners that are welcome and everyone else. You see in the year of jubilee, everyone’s debts are forgiven, all the slaves are set free, everyone is forgiven. Do you know who isn’t set free? Do you know whose debts aren’t forgiven? The foreigners who weren’t invited. The ones who were captured or bought from other countries. Only the foreigners who are welcome get treated like everyone else.
So, do you still think this verse is divisive?
Where in the Bible specifically does it say it applies only to invited foreigners? I don’t actually recall the phrase “invited foreigners” anywhere in the Bible and I’ve read it cover to cover.
Where are you getting this doctrine from? The concept of “illegal immigrant” doesn’t even exist in the Old Testament.
Ok setting that aside for a second. If a foreigner enters the country legally, with a valid visa, then do you agree the verse applies? Because if it doesn’t apply to someone who came here legally then you’re basically directly contradicting the Bible right? You’d be saying the command pretty much doesn’t apply to anyone ever.
Where did you see me quote the bible and say “invited foreigners”? I didn’t. This is called a red herring. I gave you my argument in significant detail. Where does the bible make a distinction between types of foreigners? I told you that. How does it treat them differently? I told you that. What are the specific names that it uses to refer to the different types of foreigners? I didn’t say that because it doesn’t say that.
Do you know what happened to “illegal immigrants” in ancient Israel? They were murdered. If you wanted to live in Israel you needed to be a jew/welcomed by a jew. And you had to practice their customs. Literally, the book of joshua is about genociding everyone who lived in Israel that wasn’t a jew. The story jericho? Rahab? They murdered all the non jews.
This is straight out of the bible. It’s not doctrine, it’s just what happened. You’re the one trying to imply doctrine.
I am simply going by the plain reading of scripture.
I’m not adding any interpretation. The Bible is clear on its own.
I don’t think your view is compatible with the doctrine of grace in Jesus Christ. The entire principle is simple : Treat foreigners with compassion and as equals. How is that hard to get? If you’re trying to twist the plain reading of the text to match some political purpose, you are missing the mark and I think you know that.
So let’s look at a plain a reading of scripture. There are foreigners in Israel. They are slaves. There are another group of foreigners in Israel who are also slaves. There’s a year of jubilee. The first set are freed. The second set aren’t. This is exactly what the bible says. No twisting. Almost word for word.
What is the difference between foreigners A and foreigners B? Keep in mind the other people freed during the year of jubilee were jews. So just a straight forward answer, according to the bible, what’s the difference between foreigner A and foreigner B?
Wait, what are we talking about? You’re changing the subject.
What is your interpretation of Leviticus 19:33-34? Who does it apply to? Does it apply to legal immigrants?
I’m not changing the subject. We disagree about what the word foreigner means in leviticus. You are apply a doctrinal definition. You’re saying, “this is my doctrine, so this is how I interpret the text.”
I’m saying that is a bad interpretation because it isn’t a doctrinal issue. It’s an issue of fact. We can factually look at how ancient Israel interpreted the word foreigner. We know for certain that they had classes of foreigners. There was the foreigner who that verse applies to. We this because we can look at the year of jubilee. And that foreigner was treated exactly like all the other jews during the year of jubilee. This foreigner followed jewish customs. We know this because they also followed the year of jubilee and forgave debts and freed slaves.
Then there was a second class of foreigner. One who was not invited. One who did not follow jewish customs. One who wasn’t freed on the year of jubilee. And who this verse didn’t apply to.
This isn’t a matter of doctrine. It’s not a matter of how I interpret scripture. How I think grace should relate or not. These are factual statements. These are factual readings of scripture. This is simply how the jews treated people, whether or not we think it was right or wrong. And it’s usually why we don’t try to use the old testament to justify things. Cause I think having two classes of people is wrong, personally.
That being said, gun to my head, leviticus clearly would see illegal immigrants as that second class and tell us to treat them how we want, not like our neighbor.