Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Note: Thed headline doesn't say "the" biblical response. It says "a" response. There is not such thing as "the" biblical anything on anything.
 

Here's an interestingly perturbing opinion piece that slaps liberal Christians around some for doing what liberal Christians slap conservative Christians around for: "prooftexting." That's exactly what I did to start this post: I used specific Scripture to back my position.

I usually don't cite chapter-and-verse in making a point. Finding this article today was a reminder of why I shouldn't.

Here's the link, and I'm sorry, but I do not know how to make hypertext links in comments so you'll have to copy and past:

http://www.time.com/time/
world/article/0,8599,1645646,00.html
 

I'm into the gist of the Gospel. What is the gist of how we should, individually, respond to "illegal immigration"?

I say it's:

1. Learn Spanish.

2. Give to help those who need help.

3. Decide whether to support people politically who aim to do the rignt thing with the country's resources, which is different than the expedient thing. Then vote accordingly.

4. If anyone shows up at the door, let them in and help them.

5. Advocate mothballing the Staue of Liberty, especially the "poor huddled masses" plaque, until we get this thing figured out.


And now, I'm off to clean this pigsty of a house and attempt to redeem myself for loafing all day yesterday.
 

During the Great Depression, my grandmother got up early and made two huge kettles of soup. During her day, the homeless, the idle, those bereft of hope, would find their way through a network of information and hidden signs, to her house. They would stand on the back porch and drink the soup she offered, without question and without cost. Her only rules were they couldn't enter the house, and had to stand by the back door. Not because she was ashamed of them; she didn't want the police running them off, or siting her for running a soup kitchen without a permit.

Along with that particular bit of work, for years my grandparents ran a bread table and milk station. They got bakeries to give them day-old and two-day old bread, and got creameries to give them milk cans of unpurchased milk and cream that would be thrown away. At no cost, they would give away the bread and milk to whoever came by. For a time, my grandfather managed to repair an old mill with some friends of his, and they gave milled flour away, but a tornado destroyed the mill, so they went back to bread and milk.

This is the Kingdom of God for me. This is also how we should be for "illegal immigrants". No questions, just doing for them without question or comment or precondition. Maybe this makes sense, maybe it doesn't. But, there you are.
 

What a heritage!

My own Daddy ER was no pious man. He hid bottles around the farm to keep peace with teetotaling Mama ER; we found some of them, Brudder ER and I, when we went looking after he died!

I have a 1960s-looking pint bottle in The Sack That Must Not Be Opened but Every 10-year Anniversary of His Death, a sack of mementos. :-)

But ...

I recall that Daddy ER let an actual band of gypsies live on our place, an actual caravan of 'em, if you will, swarthy types, greasy even, with small trailers and junky cars and many bediapered toddelrs, and a professed willingness, but inability, apparently, to work.

But he hired 'em anyway; they did poor work, as I recall. And Daddy ER, I seem to recall, took a little grief for letting "those people" congregate on our place and "gyp" people by doing poorly, or not doing, the work they were hired to do.

And there you have that. I don't know what Daddy was thinking. I suspect that he was doing what he thought was the right thing to do. {retty Jesusy, in any case.

I also seem to remember Mama ER telling me once that they left food out in the milkbarn for transients to have -- and I freely admit that I may have dreamt that, or confused it with something else.

I do know that Mama ER once told me of finding cigarette butts and other evidence of nighttime visitors in said milkbarn -- and I can't help but think that if they had really not wanted people to be able to stay there, Mama and Daddy ER could have locked the thing up tight.

Siblings ER who know more: feel free to fill me in.
 

I don't see that these verses have anything to do with immigration as we define it today. Immigration is more in "Caesar's" realm than the churches. More to the point the "love thy nieghbor" commandment is in the churches realm. If the illegal immigrant needs help, food, clothes, medical help, or what ever, to give that is helping thy nieghbor. To help them superceed the law of the land. That is criminal.
There is a line between the two.
Only when the law threatens the life of the one involved does it come under the churche's purview.
No easy calls.
 

Slavery was within Casear's realm. The Underground Railroad was criminal.

Jim Crow was within Caesar's realm. Lunch-counter sit-ins and refusing to give up a bus seat were criminal.

Apartheid ... wives seen as property under the law ... etc.
 

Yes, exactly.
And when Beecher's Bible's turned into Spencer's rifles. The line was crossed.
When John Brown righteously hack up those Ruffian supporters in Kansas the line was crossed.
It isn't a bright line, but it is there.
The Kingdom of God is here. What is it? A Righteous State or a State of Righteousness?
What about the lower income Citizens that suffer from depressed wages because corporate interest import illegal workers. What about tax bases that are depressed by low wages and can't support social services.
Every thing has two sides.
The final answer is always a balance between the two. So where do we place that fulcrum of public policy?
 

Could it be that I actually agree with Drlobojo? Incredible! To that I would add, that we, as a nation, already welcome the alien, as do most conservatives that I've ever known or heard of. But as the good Doc says, there are lines. For example, there's a line that starts somewhere beyond the border that some feel they don't need to stand in. Instead, they sneak in. So, they aren't immigrants, but invaders. No. Not like an armed battalion, but invaders nonetheless because of their sneaking in. Now if they are political refugees, and can prove it, they may be cut some slack. It is for the likes of these that "Sanctuary" groups should be concerned, and not the sneaks who wouldn't wait in line. If these groups are set up for the sneaks, then they are aiding and abetting and thus are also criminals.

Should we treat the Biblical verses in the manner intended by ER by posting them, we then would not be rendering unto Caesar very well since we'd be aiding and abetting those who would break his laws.

People come here for a better life. Even the illegals do (so we're told). This does not mean that they had an ultimately crappy life whence they came. Certainly, to seek better means one is not content with what one has. But it doesn't mean one can't deal with what one has. Merely wanting better does not make one a person in need, or a person of unimaginable hardship. If this were so, then how could they leave any of their family behind, as they often do? What of those left behind? Are they forever on the brink of death simply because they are not here? So I wonder that of all those 12-20 million illegals that some think we have a Christian duty to absorb without question, how many are actually in dire need and not simply "in want"? Worse, how can it be proved?

We have screwed ourselves nationally by letting this situation get to this point. Of those things we should do, sealing the border is priority. I think we can eventually cause the "emptying" of illegals at some point, but since there is little stomach for that, we should probably cease immigration for a year or two until we have it straight how we're to deal with those who've snuck in. Then, we talk about how to improve the immigration system and determine if we can raise the number of immigrants we can handle. May God guide us.
 

May God guide us, indeed. For those who insist that the USA is a "Christian nation," here is a biblical example to follow.

I readily admit that it's a trick -- because the USA is not a "Christian nation." Obviously.

Obviously! If such clear admonitions to dealing with the poor and the stranger can so easily be dismissed with politics and economic concerns!