by Greg Hopkins
Clash Daily Guest Contributor
When Trump announced that he would give immigration preference to persecuted Christians last week, I rejoiced. Yet I saw little rejoicing from my fellow Christians on social media, especially from those on the liberal side of the pews. Throughout his tenure, Obama ignored the plight of Christians in the Mid-East and Africa who have been murdered, tortured, raped, kidnapped, maimed and driven from their homes in the hundreds of thousands by ISIS. Christians haven’t been persecuted for their faith in such numbers, over such a wide area since the Emperor Domitian. Finally granted asylum here, their plight may end. This is a group who, unlike Muslims, can understand the Christian roots of America’s founding and Constitution, and are willing to assimilate.
According to the AP, Trump’s immigration order is NOT a Muslim ban. The word Muslim is nowhere in the text. The order lasts for 90 days to allow evaluation of our screening/vetting methods of those from certain countries. The states named (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen) have been or are currently state sponsors of terror. Citizens of each of these states have murdered or attempted to murder our citizens in the US.
American Christians who expressed no joy or gratitude to Trump for finally allowing immigration of their foreign spiritual relatives are suddenly up in arms about his temporary halt of ingress from terrorist nations. Reading their posts, one must conclude that allowing foreign terrorists into the US is preferable to admitting suffering Christians. Those from these states claim under the law that they are fleeing religious persecution. I’m sure if I was a terrorist, I’d convince a US consulate of the same thing.
The law which empowers POTUS to do this is from 1952, passed by a Democrat Congress and signed by Harry Truman. It is US Code Sec. 1182(f). So Trump has done nothing illegal, immoral or fattening here. Neither did Obama using the same statute in 2011 when none of today’s protesting Christians howled that Christ’s commands for hospitality were being flouted.
So let me ask my fellow Christians some questions for self-evaluation and prayer. Is your plan to reject admission of your brothers and sisters in the faith for a group of people whose religion is not only antithetical and openly hostile to yours, but who are trapped in a 12th century mentality/culture by that religion? Are you going to evangelize them? Why can’t you do it in their own countries (besides the fact that many of those countries give the death penalty for both proselytizing and conversion)? Please tell us what percentage of Muslims in America convert per capita. You realize, of course, that conversion here does not negate the Quran’s command for The Faithful to murder the converts? Why is it that converted Muslims like Walid Shoebat, all warn us not to allow any more Muslim immigration? How has decades of Muslim immigration worked in Europe? We see there that a culture that believes in nothing is rapidly falling to a culture that believes in something (Even if it is medieval barbarism).
Mark Steyn, in his book, America Alone, shows European birth rates are so low that Italians will be a minority in Italy in 30 years, and Spaniards in 50 years! All the while, the Muslim birth rates exceed those of the natives by 3 or 4 to 1! The Reconquista by birth, in reverse.
Fellow Christians, don’t we have enough homeless to shelter and feed? Have we too few orphans to adopt, struggling families to help, troubled veterans to counsel and employ in America? Why aren’t the Arab oil states allowing immigration from these states, especially Syria? Especially since charity and hospitality are one of the five pillars of Islam? Have you asked yourself these questions and prayed about them before mounting your charger of political correctness?
Yes, hospitality is commanded to Christians, but on an individual basis, not as state policy (Mk. 9:41; Heb. 13; 1-3.) But let’s say it’s 1969 and Charles Manson and his “family” appear at your door at 2AM, asking for food and shelter. Do you let them in? First Timothy 5:8 says that the man who does not take care of his own household is worse than an unbeliever. We know Deut. 6:16 says “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” That means we can’t drive 100 MPH for fun and demand God protect us from our own folly. So how is letting in folks with likely hostile intent who have no wish to assimilate into our culture any different?
Jesus said, “Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves, therefore be shrewd as serpents, but innocent as doves.” Christians aren’t to be naïve or pushovers (see my book, A Time to Kill: The Myth of Christian Pacifism). “So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men but especially to those of the household of faith.” (Gal. 6:10). Let’s not prefer the hostile alien over needy brethren. Let’s be wise, not foolish. Let the Bible guide our politics, not the other way around. After all, neither the Bible nor the Constitution is a suicide pact.
Image: CC BY-ND 3.0; https://godandpoliticsuk.org/2014/07/07/its-time-for-labour-to-wake-up-and-take-freedom-of-religion-and-belief-seriously/
Greg Hopkins is a recovering lawyer, city prosecutor, police Use-of-Force law instructor, former city judge in two towns and criminal defense lawyer. He’s been teaching the Bible to teens and adults for 40 years. He now trains CCP holders and armed church security teams in self defense law. He also does expert witnessing in firearms and self defense cases. His book is A Time To Kill: The Myth of Christian Pacifism, on the Bible and self defense.
