Religion
Related: About this forumIn defense of separating immigrant families Sessions cites same Bible passage used to defend slavery
Sessions has said weve got to get this message out that asylum seekers or anyone else immigrating through unofficial means is not given immunity. He appealed to church friends later in Thursdays speech in Fort Wayne, emphasizing that non-citizens who enter the United States illegally are breaking the law.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a briefing Thursday that she hadnt seen Sessionss comments, but she backed his line of thinking. I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible, she said. Its a moral policy to follow and enforce the law.
There are two dominant places in American history when Romans 13 is invoked, said John Fea, a professor of American history at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. One is during the American Revolution [when] it was invoked by loyalists, those who opposed the American Revolution. The second spike you see is in the 1840s and 1850s, when Romans 13 is invoked by defenders of the South or defenders of slavery to ward off abolitionists who believed that slavery is wrong, Fea said. I mean, this is the same argument that Southern slaveholders and the advocates of a Southern way of life made.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/06/14/jeff-sessions-points-to-the-bible-in-defense-of-separating-immigrant-families/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e1cdfaecb5e0

regnaD kciN
(26,753 posts)The exact same passage was regularly used against Christian pacifists like myself to prove that it was our religious duty to go fight in Vietnam (or Cambodia, or Laos, or whichever domino ruled by a right-wing tyrant we needed to prop up next).
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)And why the whole book is problematic. Reading the story they try to explain that quote with context and all the same stuff that gets discarded here by some theists as "literalism"
msongs
(70,595 posts)the media and congressional dems.
Now it's a theological debate instead of calling him out.
The Genealogist
(4,738 posts)One can make the Bible confirm whatever nut, hateful, ignorant thing they wish. Conversely, if you find something in it that you don't like, that doesn't fit your narrative, you just explain it away as a metaphor or just ignore it. Easy peasy!
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)And you'll learn that nothing in the Bible means what it says, try to discuss any passage and you get told to stop being a literalist. Can't even discuss characters in the Bible without getting mocked for thinking good actually exists (actually happened, told them to stay away from any discussion of Harry Potter)
Major Nikon
(36,917 posts)if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.
-- Barry Goldwater
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Sized control and pulled the conversation to the right. The story should be about a government official basing decisions on his religious beliefs instead of law, but instead we're arguing about what the passage means, and what Jesus would do.
NeoGreen
(4,033 posts)

Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Thanks!