“All the time you spend tryin to get back what’s been took from you there’s more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
No Country for Old Men refers to a world that has become increasingly violent and chaotic, where traditional values and the moral compass of older generations are no longer effective or relevant. The title reflects the struggles of the aging sheriff, Ed Tom Bell, as he confronts the senseless violence and lawlessness that he feels ill-equipped to handle . . .
In the past six months I’ve come across two pastoral letters imploring Christians to think kindly toward the millions of foreign invaders that crossed our borders illegally.
The first (AI generated?) letter was posted “By A Country Pastor.” (Quaint, eh?) The second, from a Hispanic Anglican bishop out of California. (Surprise, surprise!). The document below is the latest missive. Like with my response to the first letter, I do not consider the current pastoral letter authoritative.
It’s not that an Anglican bishop doesn’t have authority to speak about such things. It’s just that there is nothing in the letter that compels me to change my understanding or my actions. I seek to love my neighbor as myself, I ascribe image-of-God dignity to all humans, and I hold myself and others accountable for what is done.
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Here’s the letter’s opening and my comments:
“As bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin within the Anglican Church in North America, I write pastorally to address the subject of refugees and immigration. I recognize that immigration is a complex matter involving legal, social, and economic concerns. Yet for the Church, it is first and foremost a biblical and pastoral issue, shaped by our allegiance to Christ and our calling to make disciples of all nations (Philippians 3:20; Matthew 28:19–20).”
What brought about the need “to address the subject of refugees and immigration?”
Did narrative-edited videos on CNN and MS NOW showing ICE rounding up the bishop’s would-be disciples provoke clerical stole clutching? Was it something preachy Morning Joe Scarbourough said?
Was it some attribution of unchristian behavior onto the millions of legal citizens never wanting their neighborhoods and their country overrun with and terrorized by the worst of worst criminal aliens, international criminal gangs, drugs, and scammers?
Was it Progressivism’s predatory foray into the church? (See video below.)
“After years of global elites lecturing us about compassion, diversity, open borders, asylum, labor flows, and all the buzzwords they love to force-feed us, The Economist is suddenly admitting that voters are right to think the system has been gamed to screw us over.”
The Economist suddenly changes its immigration tune…
Is it because “The globalist machine is sputtering and losing speed. And they can hear the America First engine coming up fast right behind them”?
Was it concern that Federal grant money to NGOs was drying up?
Was it Trump derangement syndrome?
Is it because Democrats need to keep their animus toward America, its Constitution and laws, always before us, so deportation resistance has to be revved up again?
What brought about the need “to address the subject of refugees and immigration?”
After giving lip service to the complex matters immigration invokes “involving legal, social, and economic concerns” – matters established by our country’s founders for the common good that include the principle of subsidiarity, protections both physical and civil, fiscal soundness, and a legitimate process for the integration and assimilation of legal immigrants leading to citizenship – the bishop, without saying any more about the very real down-to-earth “legal, social, and economic concerns” of not dealing with the complex matters that (illegal) immigration brings down upon our families, our neighbors, our communities and our nation, goes on to place the matter of (illegal) immigration into his safe space – his otherworld jurisdiction.
The bishop, you see, has a “first and foremost” trump card: entitlement of citizenship for (illegal) immigrants – citizenship in heaven – that overrides legal citizenship status and subjugates the concerns of legal citizens to a ‘scriptural’ utility of making disciples.
I wonder. Does the bishop assume that illegal immigrants will want to assimilate and willingly accept being discipled because of compassion extended toward them? Do Islamists assimilate and become disciples of Jesus? Do gang members assimilate and become disciples of Jesus? Will the Chinese from the CCP? Will the Somalians? If a comfortable living situation is the basis for entering illegally, the immigrant will be discipled by Democrats willing to give them all kinds comfortable living on welfare in exchange for their vote.
How convenient that the San Joaquin valley is inundated with Hispanic illegal immigrants! Now they can easily be colonized as citizens of heaven and as low-cost farm workers!
You tell me. Have you read anywhere in the gospels that before Jesus ascended into heaven, he said “Go. Open your borders. Let everyone in, even your enemies. This will facilitate making disciples.”?
The two letters are the same in their “pastoral” plea to be welcoming and hospitable to the invaders, the opportunists violating the law for access to another’s property and wealth. (See The Dark Side of the Immigration Debate and The Ungrateful Immigrant below.)
The letter goes on . . .
“Holy Scripture teaches that every human being is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). Therefore, all people—regardless of legal status, nationality, or ethnicity—possess inherent dignity. The Bible repeatedly calls God’s people to welcome the stranger, care for the vulnerable, and extend hospitality to those in need (Leviticus 19:33–34; Matthew 25:35; Hebrews 13:2). Our Lord Himself knew the life of a refugee when the Holy Family fled to Egypt (Matthew 2:13–23).”
Here, the bishop pulls out all the “social justice” stops. His words are coded in Biblical jargon to supply the naïve reader justification for open borders. We are to trade the real-world deleterious effects of illegal immigration for a high-minded other-world compassion that unleashes chaos with the senseless violence and lawlessness that we are ill-equipped to handle.
My understanding of image-of-God “inherent dignity” involves personal accountability and responsibility for one’s human agency. It’s not a badge we put on someone to give them a ‘social justice’ pass.
Tell me. When Jesus said “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10) did he point out the inherent dignity of the thief so that we would take a compassionate view of him and his ways? Did he do this with the Pharisees or the woman caught in adultery? No. Jesus spoke of what they did against their image-of-God “inherent dignity.”
The application of “dignity,” like with applying “love,” can be used to Ok of all kinds of inordinate things, such as same-sex marriages: [IN Senator Todd} Young Op-Ed: Marriage Bill Ensures Dignity and Respect for All Hoosiers. S.J. James Martin uses “inherent dignity” to justify all kinds of unholy things
Both pastoral letters imply that foreign invaders should be treated as possessing human dignity. But do the illegal immigrants respect the inherent dignity of the ICE officers and their lawful task?
ICE has its hands full with those who resist – you know, the “strangers” who crossed the border illegally and are now putting up a fight with law enforcement. And with those “strangers” financed and deployed by Democrat NGOs to put up violent resistance. Where’s the dignity in that?
Why doesn’t the bishop publicly denounce and admonish the ICE protestors and the chaos they bring? His higher law says to speak the truth in love. Maybe he agrees with the NYT’s op-ed columnist David Brooks who says “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising.”
“I’ll kill your whole f-cking family! Your whole f-cking family is dead!” the agitator yawped. “Your children, your wife—all dead!”
Acting AG Blanche: Anti-ICE Agitator Will Be Arrested for Threatening Agent During NJ Riot
At some point, ordinary, law-abiding people are going to get sick of the disorder protected and excused by their degenerate liberal governing elites. I will continue to ask the question “Where are the adults?”
Saying that Jesus was a refugee – is that said to invoke empathy for the refugee? How so? Mary, Joseph, and the baby traveled to Egypt under God’s protection and direction. They also remigrated home under God’s protection and direction. The Illegal immigrants can do the same.
The letter goes on . . .
“At the same time, Scripture affirms the legitimacy of nations and civil authority (Romans 13:1). A faithful Christian response must therefore hold together two truths: the responsibility of governments to uphold the rule of law and protect their borders, and the obligation to treat immigrants and refugees with justice, mercy, and compassion, in accordance with God’s law (Matthew 22:21).”
Let’s be clear. U.S. immigration laws are not unwelcoming or imposing hate. They are not anti-human anti-dignity. They, in fact, affirm human dignity by holding the people who placed themselves in the lawless positions accountable.
“Justice, mercy, and compassion” have been extended toward illegal immigrants and “refugees”:
USCIS Supports “Project Homecoming” Self-Deportation:
If you are here illegally and you want to go home, the Department of Homeland Security now offers use of the CBP Home Mobile App so that you can voluntarily self-deport. Through the CBP Home Mobile App, you receive a complimentary plane ticket home, receive a $2,600 exit bonus upon your return, and will have any unpaid fines for failing to timely depart forgiven.
But the opposite is portrayed by left-wing media. Such have a financial and political stake in promoting open borders. The opposite is also portrayed by church leadership that has accepted the media’s lies.
I agree. We are to treat all people with “justice, mercy, and compassion” in accordance with God’s will. That would include our neighbors who are having to deal with the invasion of millions of illegal aliens. There is nothing merciful, just or compassionate about an invasion of millions of foreigners into our communities.
The letter goes on . . .
“In my episcopal ordination vows, I pledged to be “gentle and merciful for Christ’s sake, to poor and needy people and to all strangers destitute of help” (BCP 2019, p. 504). Guided by that promise, I call the Church to bear faithful witness by loving our neighbors, advocating for the vulnerable, speaking the truth in love, and offering practical care to those entrusted to us (Luke 10:25–37; Matthew 5:13–16).
Who are the vulnerable? Children.
Our children are now exposed to the flood of unvetted pedophiles entering the country during Biden’s (and the bishop’s watch). Arrested: Worst of the Worst
Our children are exposed to the flood of sickness entering the country during Biden’s (and the bishop’s) watch.
New York City’s health commissioner announced last week that the influx of migrants from the southern border — more than 50,000 to New York City alone in the past year — is delivering contagious diseases, including tuberculosis and polio, to our neighborhoods.
Per the CDC: While still abroad, immigrants, refugees, and others who apply for admission to live permanently in the United States must undergo a medical examination.
Did this happen during the Biden open borders invasion? No.
Biden’s open borders are bringing contagious diseases to your neighborhood
The letter goes on . . .
” Our Anglican tradition has long affirmed the Church’s responsibility to care for refugees and immigrants while engaging society with moral clarity and charity. Respect for civil law must always be informed and corrected by God’s higher law, which calls us to justice, dignity, and mercy.”
Again, I wonder what brought about this letter? Who is NOT engaging society with moral clarity and charity? Who is NOT “informed and corrected by God’s higher law, which calls us to justice, dignity, and mercy?” “Is it the “basket of deplorables”?
I view the deportation of the millions of foreign invaders as respect for civil law, as respect for my neighbors, as respect for “God’s higher law.”
I understand God’s higher law as that which holds people accountable with “justice, dignity, and mercy.”
The letter ends . . .
“I encourage the faithful of this diocese to live into these convictions: welcoming the stranger, discipling those within our care, and assisting immigrants and refugees to live responsibly and faithfully within our communities. I pledge to engage our diocesan leadership and civil authorities with these biblical values, and I pray for the nations of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, that we may act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Signed,
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Eric Vawter Menees, SSC”
If I see a stranger in my neighborhood, I say “Hi.” I try to connect.
I will continue to insist that all illegal “immigrants and refugees” be deported or remigrate home and then apply to come into the country legally.
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Some Thoughts
-During COVID there was a lot of Karen-like shaming going on. Not wearing a mask, not social distancing, and not vaxxing meant ridicule for not submitting to “We’re all in this together.” I get the same “get with the program” vibe from the two pastoral letters.
-There are those who think they know all about me even though they never write, call or visit. They “know” me from a distance, from what the media and church leaders present about people “like” me, as in CT’s Russel Moore (See below.) I get the same vibe from the two pastoral letters.
-That we should help the “vulnerable among us” sets up understanding illegal immigration in terms of the “oppressed” and the “oppressors.” Stay away from Marxist narratives.
-Out of context verses can be used to endorse all kinds of unscriptural church policies – from saying women should not be pastors/teachers to open borders to anything goes sexuality. Out of context, out of bounds.
-Much of what comes out of the church today about Jesus, comes from the TV. That is how some came to see Jesus as the docile, friendly, welcoming, and unwaveringly accepting Mr. Rogers. Being nice his emotional landscape and children’s. Do these same people think that ICE should take off their LE gear, put on a sweater, and say “Won’t you be my neighbor?” I will continue to ask the question “Where are the adults?”
-I once knew a female assistant rector. She saw herself as the PBS version of a female rector in an Anglican church in England – as the Vicar of Dibley. It came across in her PBS-like sermons.
-One cannot read the gospels and come away with Jesus being docile or unwaveringly accepting. Jesus didn’t accept whatever people did with their “inherent dignity” or “love.” He held people accountable. The gospel according to Progressivism doesn’t hold people accountable except for those who don’t go along with their narratives. See letter above.
Very reliable social media sources tell me that Jesus was a Progressive: he helped the vulnerable, the oppressed, and the foreigner. Why, they say that Jesus was down with socialism, abortion, LGBT-ism, social justice, DEI. Jesus was down with anything man came up with in the last five minutes to make the world a fairer and more equitable place, i.e. to make the world less God-saturated and more man-saturated.
Higher Law Bigotry
Two Judean religious leaders see a half-dead man lying on the side of the road as they walk along. A Judean had been beaten and robbed. But the two principled men stay away from “lesser” concerns to stay true to a higher law.
Someone the two religious leaders consider of low estate, as without their higher-law pedigree, comes along and helps their assaulted neighbor.
Turns out that the neighbor in Jesus’ parable is the one who sees what is going on around him and helps his neighbor. It is not the high-minded principled. And so it is with Christian leaders who ignore broken boundaries and their broken neighbors so as to observe a higher law.
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https://www.dioceseofsanjoaquin.net/news–events
The Order of Love_ Why Nations Must Prioritize Their Own
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“I live on a farm beside a rural avenue in central California, the fifth generation to reside in the same house. And after years of thefts, home break-ins, and dangerous encounters, I have concluded that it is no longer safe to live where I was born. I stay because I am sixty-five years old and either too old to move or too worried about selling the final family parcel of what was homesteaded in the 1870s.”
The Diversity of Illegal Immigration
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From my post Two Visions Three Questions:
What hard evidence do you have that an open borders policy is a good decision? Your feelings? Your empathy? Any talk about “welcoming the stranger” in the abstract is not hard evidence in support of an open borders policy. Is the evidence your need for cheap labor? Democrats Once Again Concerned About Who Will Pick Their Crops
And . . .
Lest anyone think that I am an “ignorant hillbilly” and can be known by my smell (Peter Strzok), lest anyone think that I am a rube and an uncaring Christian xenophobe nativist, and lest anyone think that I haven’t traveled outside my shire and am not cosmopolitan, know that I have traveled to many parts of the world and have met and worked with many different people during my 70+ years. I am not a misanthrope.
My travel, mostly for engineering work, included a trip to Seoul South Korea and within five miles of the DMZ, to Dhahran and Jubail Saudi Arabia and the oil fields worked by Saudi Aramco, to Warsaw and Bialystok Poland, to England during the Queen’s silver jubilee, to Rio De Janeiro, to Mexico – Tuxpan and Tampico, Mexico City, and Sonora state, to many of the provinces of Canada, including Saskatchewan when it was 40 degrees below zero, and to most of the U.S.
I did love coming home to the U.S. after each trip to some distant place.
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Podcasts:
“American Citizenship and Its Decline: Illegal Immigration and the Loss of National Sovereignty” from The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast by The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast.
Citizenship is rare in human history but essential to free government. Today, the constitutional rule of citizens in America is threatened by a new form of government, unaccountable to the people, in which power is held by a ruling class that seeks to transform our society. In this eight-lecture course, students will examine the origins and history of citizenship in the West and the grave challenges American citizenship faces today.
America’s founding principle of equality created an opportunity for people from all over the world—regardless of race or birth—to immigrate to the United States and become full citizens. This led to a system of immigration that proceeded according to established laws and required a willingness and ability to assimilate into American society. These criteria have been abandoned in favor of a system of widespread illegal immigration that erodes the rights of citizens. (Emphasis mine.)
https://podcast.hillsdale.edu/american-citizenship-and-its-decline-introduction
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Influence Campaigns Inside Evangelical Institutions Podcast:
https://cis.org/Parsing-Immigration-Policy/Influence-Campaigns-Inside-Evangelical-Institutions
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Eric Metaxas: Christianity Today Had an Easter Message: We’re Just … Better Than You
“Lord, I Thank Thee That I Am Not Like These Deplorables”
[CT’s Russel] Moore quotes the evangelical sociologist James Davison Hunter, who in a previous patronizing essay made the case that it is the begrudging resentment of groups who once had power that fuels our societal woes. Hunter doesn’t actually say “working-class white Christians” so much as dog-whistle it. Everything such knuckle-dragging relics do is actually only so that they might cling to what power they still have — or mebbe to yank it back from them’s what took it. . .
Cheap Amateur Psychoanalysis
Moore explains, for example, the real reason that some people want secure borders:
“In Hunter’s view, a ressentiment posture is heightened when the group holds a sense of entitlement — to greater respect, to greater power, to a place of majority status. This posture, he warned, is a political psychology that expresses itself with “’the condemnation and denigration of enemies in the effort to subjugate and dominate those who are culpable.’”
Here Moore might very well die in the irony mines, as he condemns and denigrates his own cultural enemies for … condemning and denigrating their cultural enemies. Because the rules are apparently different for the right sort of people. . .
Damn the Kulaks, Full Speed Ahead!
But buckle thy seatbelts, pilgrims, for the condescension will soar yet higher. Moore continues:
“Often, the most contentious aspects of American life center on the question ‘Who is trying to take America away from us?’— whether that be immigrant caravans overwhelming the border, the concept of American elites developing a global pandemic to control the population with vaccines, or the rhetoric of Satan-worshiping pedophile rings at the highest levels of government.”
Moore confidently assures that his critics are driven by sheer resentment — pardon me, ressentiment — and are clinging to some America in which they were top-dogs. But the positively Himalayan irony is that it is Moore and his friends in subsidized, institutional Christianity who are losing cultural power. So they’re lashing out, in essays such as this.
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Christian leaders shouldn’t be more concerned about protecting illegal aliens from ICE than protecting the religious freedom of their congregants.
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Here’s what the media does to people: James Woods: On Memorial Day, a veteran dies from being beaten to death for the way he voted – in America… – Revolver News
Where are the pastoral statements about this murder? None I suspect. This is a lesser concern and not the business of following the “higher law.”
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We are to be the Welcome Mat:
Texas state representative James Talarico compared the nation’s southern border to a “front porch,” saying it should function like a “giant welcome mat.”
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J.B. Shurk, writing at American Thinker:
Globalism Seeks to Kill the Nation-State: International government threatens the whole planet.
People are beginning to understand that those who rule in their name have long been working to eliminate the nation-state….
. . .That’s another part of internationalism’s linguistic magic trick: The same global corporate news machine that has spent the last eighty-plus years conditioning people to understand the word “nationalism” as something evil, militant, and barbaric has simultaneously conditioned the world to see anything “international” as inherently good, peaceful, and progressive. The “national / international” dichotomy didn’t happen by accident; it’s been shoved down our throats all our lives. But once again, if a rational person takes a moment to consider the semantic manipulation, it is quite absurd.
. . . internationalism’s true intent: Internationalists are building a global empire. This empire is authoritarian (because it demands global compliance at the expense of personal freedom) and totalitarian (because it requires complete subservience to a centralized and dictatorial global government). There is nothing “democratic” or “representative” about this international system of governance. It has no interest in protecting an individual’s rights and freedoms. It has no interest in respecting a nation’s sovereignty. It will permit both individuals and nations to be raped in the name of “global peace.”
Therefore, it makes perfect sense why the United Nations encourages mass illegal immigration into the United States and Europe. When you are in the business of destroying nations, you do not care if murderers and rapists destroy local families. You do not care if Islamic terrorists burn down Christian churches. You do not care if the “newcomers” to Europe and America have pledged to conquer the West. (Emphasis mine.)
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E. Jeffrey Ludwig, writing at American Thinker:
Illegal Is Legal, Immoral Is Moral – American Thinker
[American society is] also are contending with millions of foreign nationals who were admitted illegally during President Joe Biden’s administration, whom Democrats defend against being rounded up and deported. This expulsion of illegals is an affirmation of our legal system, which has set up rules for legal entry into the USA. The rules were approved by our legislative system, but now and for the four years of the previous administration, those laws are being denied and repudiated by one of our two major parties. The Democrats are doing what they can to defund the offices of government responsible for rounding up those illegals. They are encouraging illegal behavior yet do not believe that a stigma is attached to that intention.
They are sentimentalizing immigration laws as though our already generous laws were overly strict and against the pro-immigration traditions of the USA. Illegal entry by “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” is being propagandized as being more “moral” than obedience to the legitimately passed laws. (Emphasis mine.)
Suicidal Empathy is Killing the West
In the new book Suicidal Empathy, evolutionary behavioral scientist and professor Gad Saad makes the case that the West’s most celebrated virtue has been weaponized, mis calibrated, and taken to a place that is actively destroying the societies it claims to protect.
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This Is NOT what Jesus would do:
New York City shouldn’t be flooded with filthy water, garbage, or aggressive illegal foreigners.
“When you first watch the video, you’d think this was some filthy, chaotic scene from Bangladesh.
“But sadly, this isn’t Bangladesh.
“It’s Canal Street in New York City.
“Yep, the Big Apple looks downright rotten, folks. And the kicker is that this is basically a no-go zone for Americans.
“And before the “refugee welcome” crowd starts screaming about how America was a nation shaped by immigrants. We know about the olden days. But the Ellis Island era worked because there was an expectation of assimilation. People came here, brought parts of their culture with them, and still understood they were joining something that already existed.
“That’s not what this clip looks like.
“This looks like a city that has stopped enforcing any American standards whatsoever. It looks like an illegal street economy operating out in the open, and it also looks like counterfeit goods, sidewalk chaos, territorial vendor control, illegals, foreigners, and Americans citizens being chased away from streets in their own country.” (Emphasis mine.)
Look at this horrific street in a popular US city. American citizens aren’t welcome… – Revolver News
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The wolves – Globalism and Progressivism – have snuck into the church dressed in sheep’s clothing.
When Progressivism snuck into the Anglican church I was attending in Illinois via a female Wheaton college professor who became an assistant rector, I left. I knew the woke virus was already overtaking the congregation.
Progressive Christians believe “God is bigger than our borders, bigger than our language, bigger than our certainty.”
Megan Basham: How Progressivism Creeped into Evangelical Churches
Megan Basham: When Progressive Foundations Fund Evangelism
The political projects men like Christianity Today editor Russell Moore and New York Times columnist David French undertake involve a contradiction. While lamenting how partisan American Christianity has become (frequentlyaccusing other evangelicals of shilling for “Christian Nationalism”), they continue to launch and participate in programs designed, albeit covertly, to inject progressive politics into the church. (Emphasis mine.)
Progressive Powerbrokers & Corruption in the American Church | with Megan Basham
How Naivety Is Allowing Unbiblical Progressivism Into Evangelical Churches
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Kingdom Venturers 