THE UNBIBLICAL ANSWER:
POPE ENCOURAGES MIGRANT HORDE TO
"PILE UP" AT AMERICAN BORDER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
[Daily Wire] As the midterm elections loom several days away, Pope
Francis has expressed his support for the 14,000 people in the migrant
caravan headed for the United States southern border.
According to
Vatican documents,
Pope Francis expressed his support for the caravan on Monday while
addressing the participants of the XV General Chapter of the
Congregation of the Missionaries of San Carlo.
Much of the [Pope’s] speech focused on the virtue of welcoming the
stranger and how nations need to foster this virtue or risk their own
demise.
“It’s easier to welcome a stranger than to be welcomed, and you have
to do both,” said Pope Francis. “You must teach, help welcome the
stranger, and give all the possibilities to the nations that have
everything or enough to use these four words that you have said. How to
welcome a foreigner.”
Pope Francis noted how he was such a stranger with his family in
Argentina, which he held up as an example. “Argentina has this
experience of welcoming because there was work and it was also needed.
And Argentina — for my experience — is a cocktail of migratory waves,”
he said.
Such a policy, Pope Francis says, is a social good because migrants “build a country.”
“Migrants build a country; how they built Europe,” Pope Francis said.
“Because Europe was not born this way, Europe has been made by many
waves of migration over the centuries.”
Should a nation reject migrants out of its own “well-being,” Pope
Francis said that would be “suicidal,” noting Europe’s demographic
winter which is the result of a secularized continent that largely
rejects Church teaching on sexuality.
He later held up the “caravan traveling from Honduras to the United
States’ as an example of migrants moving together in a “community.” He
does not acknowledge that such a migratory wave reduces individuals into
a crowd, making it difficult for government agencies to properly vet
the people flowing into the country. It’s as if the sight of a person
moving as just another member in a faceless crowd rather than a divine
individual is something beautiful to behold.
Another phenomenon of migrants – let’s think of the caravan that goes from Honduras to the United States – is to pile up .
The migrant usually tries to go in groups. Sometimes it has to go
alone, but it is normal to pile up, because we feel stronger in
migration. And there is the community. In football there is the
possibility of a ‘free agent,’ that can move according to the
opportunities, but from you there is no possibility, the ‘free agent’
from you fail. Always the community. Always in the community, because
your vocation is precisely for migrants who pile up. Feel migrants.
Feel, yes, migrants facing needs, migrants before the Lord, migrants
among you. And for this the need to pile up.
Continue reading at
the Daily Wire…
[Editor’s Note: This was written by Paul Bois and first posted at Daily Wire. The title was changed by Pupit & Pen
]
_____________________________________________________
The Biblical Answer to Migrant Caravan
is Bombs and Bullets
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
The Biblical solution to the migrant caravan preparing to invade the United States includes bombs and bullets.
As a pastor and theologian, the answer is clear to me. A nation has a
right to sovereign borders. The invasion of sovereign borders by those
who are not permitted therein should be met with judicial force. To use
violent force upon foreign invaders is Biblical, ethical, and godly.
This thesis shall be laid out in detail.
EVANGELICALS HAVE LOST THEIR WAY
Preemptively, let me say that American evangelicals have lost their
way. The discussion on immigration among evangelicals has been just one
part of an overarching internal conflict that has flared up in recent
years thanks to the propagation and popularization of secular
philosophies which have invaded our academies ever as much as the
impending migrant horde threatens to overtake our southern border. Led
by mainstream denominational liberals in rainbow-colored clerical garb
and New Calvinist social justice warriors on the theoretical
right, both groups have coalesced to teach young seminarians and
religious activists the tenets of Critical Race Theory, Cultural
Marxism, Multiculturalism, Intersectionality, and Victimology. In this
bizarre union between the religious left and those ostensibly on the
religious right, a potpourri of Arminians, Pelagians, practical
agnostics and Calvinists are all seemingly in agreement that the Bible
condones lawlessness done in the name of kindness to the sojourner.
[Editor’s Note: This article is longer than that
which normally appears at Pulpit & Pen, so as to be informative and
most substantive. Please have the patience to read with care
]
On this subject, mainstream religious leftists like Rachel Held Evans
and Jim Wallis are in perfect union with historically conservative
Southern Baptists, Albert Mohler and Russell Moore. The latter have been
greatly influenced by the personality of Tim Keller, a popular thought
leader among the New Calvinists who use traditional Confessions of Faith
like toilet paper. Keller, a Cultural Marxist
(by any standard definition and by his own admission) from New York
City, has had a powerful footprint among The Gospel Coalition, whose
leaders have commandeered the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC),
that in an ideal world would be providing Biblical answers to such
serious ethical questions as illegal immigration. Instead, that
organization – the ERLC – directs the Evangelical Immigration Table,
a front organization belonging to George Soros
and his National Immigration Forum. In fact, in no place is the union
between the left and right more noticeable, as the director for the
ERLC, Russell Moore, serves as on the board of directors for the
Evangelical Immigration Table along with Jim Wallis (who is famously
progressive, denies the inerrancy of Scripture, and is a liberal on
virtually every issue of ethical importance). Along with Soros’ funding
of this Southern Baptist entity, Clinton globalist billionaire
financier,
James Riady, has funded New Calvinist institutions
– like Westminster Philadelphia and Ligon Duncan’s Reformed Theological
Seminary. Riady, who was expelled from the United States for trying to
corrupt the American political system with obscene amounts of corrupt
foreign cash, is now the financial sugar daddy of the seminaries pushing
out Reformed graduates, most of whom are a part of the new Social
Justice movement.
HOW LEFTISTS WON OVER THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
Those on the supposed right who are fully “woke” and fully committed
to acts of “social justice” that diminish the rule of law and protection
of the nation-state include the aforementioned Albert Mohler, Tim
Keller, Russell Moore, Mark Dever, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ed Stetzer, Beth
Moore, D.A. Carson, Matt Chandler, and David Platt. While Russell Moore
and Chandler both serve the ERLC (Moore as its director and Chandler as a
research fellow), neither seem aware that the nation-state is the
world’s strongest bulwark for religious liberty. Likewise, Platt, now
retiring from the International Mission Board as its president, signed
an amicus brief on behalf of the IMB to get a mosque built in New Jersey
under the guise of religious liberty (
he’s since apologized), but seems blissfully unaware that it is the nation-state that protects individual liberty. Acting in tandem as a gaggle of
useful idiots
pushing the agenda of globalists like Soros and Riady, these
evangelical leaders are subversively undermining the very governmental
system that protects the religious liberties they hold so dear.
Simply put, Soros and Riady – along with other globalist elites –
seek to dismantle the nation-state as a form of governance. A nation
consists of three primary building blocks. These include sovereign
borders, a common language, and a shared culture. All three of
these have been under attack in America from the political left for
decades. It is only recently that those claiming religious conservatism
have become allies in the subversion. Without the nation-state, there is
no government by the People and for the People, which is tasked to
defend the rights of individuals (including religious liberty) in the
face of claims for the common good. Many of these subversive leaders,
like Russell Moore,
are proud communitarians,
championing utilitarianism over individual liberty. It is difficult to
maintain that these evangelical leaders are ignorant or somehow
not
culpable for their participation in the eradication of liberty when
they are knowingly taking cash from men like Soros and Riady.
This leads to the question as to
why these evangelical
leaders are on the wrong side of these important Biblical and ethical
issues, ranging from immigration to racialism (other than the cash they
receive). The partial answer to this question – in their own words – is
what they perceive demographically to be the “browning” of America. They
suggest and perhaps are right, that the WASP (white Anglo-Saxon
Protestant) will soon be the minority in the United States. If the
evangelical church should survive, and by some chance even grow in
coming years, its melanin count must rise. For that reason, the SBC has
employed Affirmative Action in various of its institutions – like the
Kingdom Diversity Department at Southeastern Seminary – and in its
appointment of denominational leaders. Doctrinal fidelity has suffered
greatly in the attempt to diversify the SBC, as heretics like Tony Evans
and Sammy Rodriguez have been scraped off the very bottom of the
theological barrel to fill speaking spots at denominational events.
Their insistence that the church must change demographically in order to
survive is not conspiratorial; it is overt and explicit.
The point in all the above is this; the rhetoric on immigration coming out of the
Evangelical Intelligentsia
is not shaped by a Biblical ethic or sound hermeneutical principles as
it relates to immigration. The rhetoric on immigration coming out of the
Evangelical Intelligentsia is singularly focused on future survival,
and not doctrinal commitment or the work of Biblical ethics.
A BIBLICAL DEFENSE OF THE NATION STATE
Jeff Sessions cited Romans 13 earlier this year in his defense of
sovereign borders and was skewered by the Social Justice warriors on the
right, many of whom were previously mentioned (above). However,
Sessions was right in his citation of Romans 13, and he used the verse properly in context. He would have been equally as justified should he have cited 1 Peter 2.
Both passages clearly explain our role in relation to the Civil
Magistrate. The government exists to punish the wicked and reward the
good. It carries the sword (of punishment) for a reason. We are to
submit to those governing authorities so long as it does not require us
to rebel against God.
Let every person be subject
to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God,
and those that exist have been instituted by God.2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. (Romans 13:1-2).
Also…
13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor (1 Peter 2:13-17).
God invented the nation-state and Citizenship. That’s
right, it was God that invented the “nation-state” as the children of
Israel came out of Egypt with a concept of social construct not tied
exclusively to kinship or geography. While it is true that the three
building blocks of a nation are (A) borders (B) culture and (C)
language, the development of Hebrew identity as a nation came about in
an interesting vacuum in which they did not have a border or a
geographical anchor. Historical anthropologists recognize that the Old
Testament Israelite nation may very well be the first people group in
the world to form a “nation” not tied directly or exclusively to kinship
and geography, but instead was a social Covenant between Yahweh and his
people. The idea of nation via compact was born. Israel was Israel even
outside the Promised Land, because Israel had a Covenant with Yahweh.
Those obeying that Covenant were seen as Israelites and those disobeying
it were seen as Gentiles, and the concept of “Citizenship” was born.
This proto-Citizenship in the historical record is demonstrated in the
clear delineation of how Israelites were to be treated under Sinaitic
civil codes given by God through Moses and how non-Israelites were to be
treated. While aliens and sojourners were to be treated well, Old
Testament laws make it very clear that Citizens of Israel were unique
and were to be treated with different privileges than those not of
Israel. This is seen even in the “Courtyard of the Gentiles” constructed
outside of the Temple. It took more to become an Israelite than to
simply sojourn in the land. Citizenship requires adherence to the
Covenant, and formal admission into the body politic by a special rite.
God invented national sovereign borders. God himself gave the boundaries for the nation of Israel in
Genesis 15:18 and in
Genesis 17:8.
In this, God ensured that the nation-state of Israel had applied to it
the first and most important aspect of its existence; borders.
Encroachments upon these boundaries were to be met with hostility. God
commanded the Israelites to protect their borders and boundaries, and
they were given total and unilateral control of those boundaries. Rather
than causing conflict with neighboring nations, the borders clearly
delineated property lines, defusing potential conflicts and better
enabling the Israelites to govern their affairs in accordance with their
Covenant with Yahweh.
God invented the border wall. There is an entire book of the Bible devoted to the building of a border wall.
Nehemiah 1:1-7:3 explains
God commanding the construction of a wall around Jerusalem to protect
its strategic interests and prevent foreign invasion. There is nothing
unethical, unbiblical, or sinful, about protecting national sovereign
borders. And by the way, that border wall was well-armed.
When the United States lets in more than one million immigrants a
year to attain Citizenship and nearly that many more to work and attend
our educational institutions, it clearly does not exhibit
institutionalized bigotry toward the foreigner. A nation that lets in
two million foreigners a year does not suffer from xenophobia. That is
not systemic racism; it is a systemic kindness. That the United States
has border crossings where anyone can seek legal asylum through an open
and forthright and generous asylum policy, it makes it all the more
criminal to instead choose to sneak across the border criminally. That
parents aren’t separated from their children by death as America
protects its sovereign borders by force (which is its right) is a
testimony of America’s shining generosity. Any other nation in virtually
any other part of the world would fire upon those invading their
sovereign borders. Instead, America applies the rule of law while
feeding them, clothing them, providing them due process, and putting
them in a detained “time-out” until they can be returned to their home
of origin.
THE BIBLE CALLS FOR BOMBS AND BULLETS
No, I’m not suggesting the Bible
mentions either bombs or bullets. The Bible mentions
swords and
spears. The General Equity of those moral principles found in the Old Testament “positive commands” (meaning s
pecific commands given to
specific
people), however, undergird and support the appropriate use of violence
to dispel invading forces from sovereign nations. And the appropriate
use of violence for invading forces into sovereign nations is,
biblically, the application of deadly weapons. In today’s terms, these
include bombs and bullets.
Just as Jerusalem’s border wall was being built in Nehemiah’s day by
laborers working with one hand and carrying a spear in another, it is
appropriate to prepare and utilize weapons for national defense.
Although some would argue that Jerusalem was not a nation-state and
therefore the comparison does not apply, it was – for all intents and
purposes – a city-state, which is a fair equivalent. It was
the state.
It had a boundary. The boundary needed a wall. And, the wall needed to
be protected by the use of deadly force. God did not only
allow for this provision, but it was commanded by the prophet of God.
From that day on, half of my servants worked on
construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of
mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah, who were
building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a
way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with
the other. – Nehemiah 4:16-17
Some might take exception with the parallel between the invading
hordes of Nehemiah’s day and those traveling to our southern border on
the grounds that the former was an army and the latter includes suckling
babes and women. I take exception with their naivety. Artaxerxes, King
of Persia, released the Jewish exiles to rebuild Jerusalem not because
it was being invaded by armies (Jerusalem had already been conquered by
the Persians), but because it was being settled by foreigners who had no
rightful claim to the homes, orchards, vineyards, and infrastructure
built by the Jews. Nehemiah’s invading hordes included the Samaritans,
Ammonites, and Philistines, all of which were neighboring nations to
Jerusalem who felt entitled to the greener grass on the other side of
where Jerusalem’s border fence once stood. Surely a comparison is
fitting to those coming from Central America and Mexico across our
borders, many of whom are (as our Social Justice Warrior friends remind
us) just “looking for better opportunities.” Families surely would
have been in tow among these people-groups as well. Furthermore, it
should be pointed out as a matter of fact that the so-called “migrant
caravan” approaching our border consists of
more than three-quarters of adult men.
There is zero doubt that the invading nations upon Nehemiah’s Jerusalem
contained considerably more women and infants than the mob approaching
Texas.
The story of Old Testament Israel and Judah after the settling of the
Hebrews in Canaan is little more than a history of its constant
invasion by foreigners (redemptively, it’s about Christ, of course). The
Book of Judges, in particular, focuses on the motif of foreign
invasion. In each of these cases, even when the invasion of their
sovereign borders was punishment dispensed by God, the Israelites were
commanded and commended for picking up arms to annihilate their enemies.
Gideon fought back the Midianites. Deborah fought Sisera of Canaan.
Samson fought the Philistines. At no point was Israel commanded to
stand-down and surrender their land or property in the name of misplaced
kindness.
The United States of America is a Republic and union of 50 states
that collectively and federally have a sovereign border. Our nation is
autonomous and autocratic, under no binding international law. There is
no ruler, power or authority over the United States other than the
Lordship of Jesus Christ, which he enjoys over all the Earth. Our nation
has a right to sovereignly declare our boundaries and borders and to
protect them. Our nation-state must protect these boundaries and borders
in order to protect the people therein and, even more importantly, the
liberty of said people. To argue that the United States doesn’t have the
right to defend our borders or that it’s somehow
not right (in other words,
immoral) to defend our borders, have taken away very little from the divinely orchestrated and infallibly preserved history of Israel.
GENERAL EQUITY, APPLIED
Here, Social Justice Warriors with a semester or two of seminary may
cry out with an obnoxious and ill-disguised arrogance, “But the United
States is not Israel!” No kidding, Sherlock. I’m a Reformed Christian,
which means (in part) that I believe Israel to have been a typology of
the Christian Church, and not typological of a future geopolitical
nation-state. Dispensationalists would likewise acknowledge that the
United States, very clearly, is not Israel. The principle at play here,
however, is a term from the Westminster Confession known as General
Equity. As the divines explained it, which they did in particular as it
functions regarding the Civil Code of Israel, the General Equity is that
which is “moral and universal” found within those positive commands. In
other words, although details change (like exchanging swords and spears
for bombs and bullets), the
moral principles undergirding those details do not change.
Others might insist that the coming of the New Covenant somehow
changes the General Equity principle of protecting a nation’s borders.
This logic does not follow. The installation of the New Covenant – as
spoken of in Jeremiah 31 – brought a Covenant of Grace into time and
space to redeem believing mankind by grace through faith in Christ. The
New Covenant does not change moral principles. Reformed believers in
particular, who should already believe that the Moral Law is immutable,
must grasp this basic concept. It has always been wrong to steal. And
while everything you currently own may in some way be the consequence of
“hook and crook” by someone from whom you received it, it does not
justify taking what belongs to another man currently. Those who seek to
invade a nation for the purpose of consuming its resources, contrary to
their national law, are thieves. Biblical principles have always upheld
the use of force to protect property.
What the New Covenant did
not change is Biblical ethics. We
(that is, Reformed believers) would strongly resist the notion that
Jesus gave new law in the Sermon on the Mount and his various
discourses. We would argue that the newness of his commands are found in
the motivation for our following them, chiefly resting in his divine
example. Loving your neighbor, for example, is a citation of Old
Testament law (
Leviticus 19:9-18)
and was not unique to the Sermon on the Mount. The defense of Israel’s
sovereign border was not antithetical to loving neighbor, and neither is
protecting America’s sovereign border. In relationship to this debate,
it should best be understood that proper love between neighbors (which
is a command given to individuals and
not nation-states) is
best preserved by the maintenance of good fences. As the old adage among
the ranch communities here in Montana goes, “Good fences make good
neighbors.”
BEING KIND TO THE ALIEN AND SOJOURNER
Of course, the various Scriptural admonitions of kindness to the
alien are brought out frequently by opponents of the rule of law, often
by those with little to no understanding of Biblical law. Nonetheless,
the frequency with which these commands are repeated and the level of
ignorance among those who often repeat them do not negate their surety
and soundness in our modern age. What are these commands, exactly?
We are commanded not to exploit the sojourner traveling through our territories (
Exodus 22:21,
Leviticus 19:33;
by the way, this would apply to using illegal aliens as a cheap labor
force, as many proponents of illegal immigration do). We should provide a
level of charity for the sojourner and destitute (
Leviticus 19:10). Even those who are not Citizens, if they are residents, should be treated with a degree of legal rights (
Ezekiel 47:22).
Various admonitions of this variety appear throughout the Old
Testament. Simply put, God does not want anyone abused or mistreated.
Does this then mean that invading caravans of illegal immigrants must
be treated as the “alien and sojourner”? Absolutely not. Invading
forces are not lawful aliens and sojourners, and should be treated as
enemies rather than as neighbors.
Ezekiel 47:22 informs us of this common sense division.
You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you and have had children among you.
They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you they
shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.
Non-Citizen permanent residents in Israel (Gentiles who lived within
its sovereign borders) were not allowed to purchase land except through a
temporary lease that would be ended or renewed at the Year of Jubilee
every seven years (
Leviticus 19:34).
This would ensure that Israelite Citizens maintained control over their
land. However, apparently a large number of non-Citizens had accrued by
Ezekiel’s day, and they had proven their faithfulness and obedience to
Israel, despite not belonging to the Covenant with Yahweh. While
foreigners could not have land-rights, their children born within
Israel’s sovereign borders
could have land-rights.
In Old Testament Israel, distinctions were made between foreign
invaders, temporary residents (sojourners), and permanent non-Citizen
residents (“foreigners” or “aliens”). Foreign invaders were to be
killed, travelers were to be treated hospitably, and resident
non-Citizens were to be given property rights. While leftist religious
leaders may make a case from
Ezekiel 47:22 that the 14th Amendment, which according to the Supreme Court (their judicial opinion and legal precedent is often
rightly
challenged on this point) gives Citizenship to the children of
immigrants and such is Biblical and ethical, it cannot be done without
making special note that Biblical law differentiates between kinds and
types of aliens. The distinction between an illegal alien (an invader), a
temporary resident, and a legal permanent resident is unnecessarily
blurred by the religious left, who have proven to have very little
regard for a thoughtful analysis of Biblical ethics.
APPLYING BIBLICAL ETHICS TO THE MIGRANT CARAVAN
Seven-thousand active-duty troops are heading to the Mexican border
to protect American lives and property from approximately seven-thousand
foreign invaders (mostly adult men) who are intent on disobeying our
laws and disrespecting our national sovereignty. A careful analysis of
Christian ethics indicates that it is the full prerogative of our
military to use deadly force after giving them every possible warning
that a step across our border will be their first step into the world to
come.
[Contributed by JD Hall
]
