“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.
~~~
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.”
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.”
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!”
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”:
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. Trafficked children. Exposed children.
“These children are vulnerable; they’re actually the ones who need the help,” Rivera said. “They’re brought against their will, and they have no say in where they’re going, whether it’s mom or dad, aunt or uncle, or some stranger getting something out of it.”
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.
“ 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.
Otherwise, our land becomes increasingly violent and chaotic, where traditional values and the moral compass of older generations are no longer effective or relevant. We will be confronted by senseless violence and lawlessness that we are ill-equipped to handle . . .
“I’ll kill your whole f–king family. Your whole f–king family is dead. Your children, your wife, all dead."
This obviously crosses a line, but thanks to the stupidity of this protestor, his own words will convict & jail him for 10 years.
— Pete Santilli 🇺🇸 🇮🇹 🎙️ (@petersantilli) May 29, 2026
~~~
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.
“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.”
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.
~~~
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.)
American Citizenship and Its Decline: Illegal Immigration and the Loss of National Sovereignty
“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.
~~~
Christian leaders shouldn’t be more concerned about protecting illegal aliens from ICE than protecting the religious freedom of their congregants.
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.”
~~~
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.”
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.)
[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.
“ . . . the “West’s elitist progressive political class is infected by a mind parasite that causes its empathy module to misfire in every conceivable manner. Many of the policy decisions that are wreaking havoc in the West stem from this poor calibration of empathy, resulting in a society that is galloping toward the abyss of infinite lunacy.”
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.)
This doesn’t even look like it’s in America, but it’s Canal Street in New York City
Here illegal foreigners sell stolen and counterfeit goods
If you’re an American citizen and try to do the same thing, they get very territorial and make you leave
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
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.)
That’s what I said to my parents as a teenager back in the 60s. I don’t remember what occasioned me to say this, but I can still hear myself saying it.
No doubt adolescent idealism played a part in the negative perception of my inherited church. And no doubt the countercultural 60s played a part in me speaking up about it. For the 60s were a time of social unrest and revolt against norms, materialism, and war. People organized and worked for change in the social order and in government. Raised in the church and on plenty of scripture, I saw the church operating as just another establishment enterprise and as one that was evocative of the nearby country club.
Wasn’t the church a social venue, a private club where members came together for banquets and weddings and as something to belong to? Wasn’t the member-run church I attended flush with country-club type politics? Weren’t there were bitter disputes over issues during church business meetings? Wasn’t there a membership cost for upkeep and to have a say on what was what?
With that familiar system in place, one could play a round on Sundays on a familiar course and be reminded of green pastures, still waters, and hazards. A bit cynical? Perhaps. But that is how teenage me saw things. And I wasn’t alone in my opinion that the church I inherited resembled something other than what is described in the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles.
The Jesus People Movement, begun on the west coast in the late 60s, was a spiritual awakening that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, took place outside the established church and on the street. The JPM sought a reset and a return to the life of the early church, a life that included the gifts of the spirit, miracles, signs and wonders, healing, prayer, and simple living.
What first alerted me and several in our church youth group about the Jesus People Movement, I don’t recall. There was no internet back then. Some of what was going on in Haight-Ashbury San Francisco was covered in the secular media. But Chicago media had no local Jesus People reports.
May 5, 1973: Hundreds of Calvary Chapel members line Corona del Mar beach for baptism ceremony.
I do remember Jesus People music showing up at a local Chrisitan book store and seeing event flyers posted there. That’s how I came to hear long-haired Larry Norman sing I Wish We’d All Been Ready at the DuPage County fairgrounds one night. And that’s how I learned of street preachers and their meetings at local high schools. And some preached in farmer’s fields and baptized in a pond.
While parents and church leaders tuned into the evening news and read the newspapers trying to see where things were headed and, perhaps, wondering if their established ways were under attack, us ‘radical’ youth met in homes and read scripture, specifically the Acts of the Apostles, from our “One Way” New Testaments. And that was when we saw what the church was to be and what it wasn’t. And that was when our church, in typical establishment practice, decided to hire a youth leader to “oversee” and manage the youth.
I write these things not as the judge of the church. Read the book of Revelation and the letter to the seven churches in Asia for the One who does judge the church. Rather, I write as am a member of the body of Christ. My concern: has the body transitioned into something akin to the bride of the world?
My 60s assessment signaled this. The Jesus People Movement signaled this. What about the Church of 2024 – is it the Bride of Christ? Why are people leaving the church? Does ensuring that everything is done “decently and in order” mean the Holy Spirit is restricted to only work within a corporate power structure and hierarchy? Wasn’t the body of Christ given one spirit to drink? (1 Cor. 12:13)
~~~~~
Why is church after church succumbing to corruption and false doctrine? Yes, it’s the result of greed, immorality, and a lust for power. But we’ve had those vices forever. So, why is there an epidemic of corruption in the church now?
Author, pastor, and church planter, Lance Ford, who’s worked inside pastor training networks for decades, answers that question with a line reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign motto: “It’s the system, stupid.” Lance explains more in this enlightening edition of The Roys Report, featuring his session from our recent Restore Conference.
I sat down with a close friend the other day. I asked him about his early church experience, as I am interested in church dynamics.
Here’s what Dan (not his real name) said during the interview:
“My parents attended a Baptist church in Chicago before moving to the suburbs. I was a kid and just remember old buildings with a fusty smell and pictures to color. After the move, we started attending a Bible church. I was eight years old.
“I don’t remember a single sermon. But I do remember the church sanctuary. I sat there Sunday mornings and evenings for maybe twenty years.
“There was a plaque on the back wall above the choir loft. It said “God is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent. Hab. 2:20.
“Front and center was a large wing pulpit. Three large minister chairs were behind it along the choir loft. A piano on the left and an organ on the right flanked the platform.
“On the main floor in front of the pulpit was the oak communion table. “This Do In Remembrance of Me” was carved on the front. The table held the offering plates and a flower arrangement.
“To the right of the platform and behind a large rectangular hole in the wall was the baptistry. A landscape was painted on the walls surrounding the water tank.
“Opposite the platform, sixteen rows back, was the entrance to the sanctuary. A clock was centered above the double doors to let the minister know when to end the service.
“Rows of blond wood pews filled the space between the front and back with an aisle down the center and along each end.
“The side walls were painted-beige cinder block. Each wall had three windows of tinted-amber bubble glass. Forest green curtains bordered two sides of each window.
“The walls around the windows were bare except for a wooden rack near the organ. It held the numbers in attendance at the service and at Sunday school the week before. An usher counted attendance every Sunday.
“That’s a twenty-five-year snapshot. I don’t recall that room ever changing.”
I asked him about the service.
“Prelude. Hymns. Lots of choruses about leaving earth and flying away. Sermon. Calls for salvation and rededication of your life. Postlude. Every Sunday.”
I asked him about memories that stick out.
“Let’s see. There was the leader of the boy’s club. He let us run around and be crazy one night each week. One time he took us to a construction site to show us what he was working on. He was a carpenter.
“There was an adult Sunday School teacher who visited a nursing home once a month. He had me come with him on those Saturdays. I’d play a hymn with my trumpet. Afterward he would give a short devotional.
“And there was this interim minister – there were lots of them – who got me my first job as a clerk in a Camera/Photo store. One time – I was twelve or thirteen – he had me come with him downtown to Pacific Garden Mission. I played my trumpet and he spoke to those who had come off the streets of Chicago.”
I told Dan that he only mentioned certain men as memories that stick out. Then I asked if anyone had mentored him.
“No one from church. Only my trumpet teachers did.”
I asked him to explain.
“I started playing the trumpet in third grade. My uncle gave me a beat-up Conn trumpet that he longer wanted to play. In the Junior High School, the band director wasn’t crazy about the look or the sound of my horn. So, he switched me to French horn for two years. But my heart was with the trumpet. I asked my parents for private lessons.
“Before I started lessons – this was during eighth grade – my father and I went to an instrument store. He bought me a brand-new Bach Stradivarius b-flat trumpet. The horn was a beautiful and expensive gift. I felt affirmed.
“My first trumpet teacher was a high school principal who also played trumpet in big bands. The first question he asked me: What trumpet players did I listen to? I told him Herb Albert. He just shook his head.
“He told me who I should listen to and to what pieces of music. He began giving me exercises to practice. Major and minor scales. Tonguing exercises. I’d have to play them for him the following week.
“The summer before high school I took what he taught me and practiced like crazy. The high school concert band director had sent out the requirements for entering the band. Those included playing major and minor scales and site reading.
“A month before my freshman year began, I was called in to audition for the band director. I played all the scales and sight read what he put in front of me. He was pleased. I was in the concert band – first trumpet section right behind the first chair trumpet, a sophomore.
“My junior year of high school the band director Mr. Gies became my second trumpet teacher. He also played the trumpet semi-professionally.
“What happened was this: the guy who sat first chair was a stellar trumpeter but he needed to be replaced. During the summer the first chair French horn player became pregnant. Both would soon be leaving the school. So, the band director began one-on-one time with me.
“Over several months Mr. Gies and I met in the school auditorium during an open period for both of us. Playing the trumpet in that auditorium, that sanctuary, was like no other experience. With those unstifled acoustics I could open up and project a nice broad sound.
“Mr. Gies asked me how I practiced. I shared with him the Carmine Caruso method for building chops. I learned the method from my first trumpet teacher, Mr. Lichti.
“I told him that the method involves interval training, articulation, range and produces endurance. With it, I had developed an extensive range -double high C to over an octave below the treble staff. The method had formed my sound to that point.
“Sitting together offstage, Mr. Gies and I worked through the Caruso method along with the Clarks – Clark Technical Studies – which are exercises used for the development of fingering technique.
“I cherished that time alone with the band director. In between playing an exercise we talked about anything and everything. And sometimes we were silent and it felt comfortable.
“We practiced together the rest of my junior year. I was ready for the first chair trumpet position when the other guy left.
“My third trumpet teacher was at a Bible school. After high school I entered a Christian Ed/Music program. The Christian Ed program was a bust but the music program was a blessing.
“I took private lessons from the concert band director, Mr. Edmonds. Unlike the other teachers, he was an established pianist with perfect pitch. He had a different take, a different sound in mind, for my horn – a precise centered pitch. He was also a composer. He adapted classical music for our concert band to play.
“In between playing my practiced exercises and being critiqued, the director and I would talk about anything. I shared with him the challenges I was facing. My practice time was limited because of my studies and the time spent listening to classical music for music appreciation class. And I had a part time job. He prayed for me at the end of each lesson.
“Like back in high school, I sat first trumpet second seat behind a sophomore in the concert band. But at an outdoor band concert, Mr. Edmonds had me solo the opening trumpet lines of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Procession of the Nobles”. And when The Gaither Trio – Bill, Gloria, and Danny – came to town for a couple of concerts and needed some horns for the finales, Mr. Edmonds offered his two first chair trumpet players. The private lessons and my practice gave me opportunities to play.
“Looking back . . . sitting next to a trumpet teacher week after week, I learned from those who knew what to listen for and who to listen to. Mr. Lichti, for example, helped me realize that I had “deaf spots” in my listening. To develop my “ear”, I began to listen to Adolph “Bud” Herseth, principal trumpet in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I wanted to emulate his bel canto sound and his musical acumen.
“To accomplish this, I had to take a risk. You see, with one-on-one instruction you cannot hide, you can’t fake or pretend. You play your horn and the truth comes out. Sloppy practicing is immediately revealed and so is the need for discipline. You need another’s knowledgeable perspective to grow as a musician. Words or notes alone are not enough.
“The three trumpet teachers I mentioned invited me into their musical realm, which was both affirming and daunting, as I was made me accountable to them. In the role of apprentice, they imparted to me trumpet knowledge, technical ability, and a love for the craft.
“And now that I think about it, I take it back. The man who took me and others to his construction site and the man who took me with him to the rest home and the man who took me with to the Chicago mission and got me my first job were mentors. They influenced me just like the trumpet teachers advanced the formation of my horn playing.
“You asked about my early church experience. I’d say that there was lots of scaffolding but no formation. For me, there was really nothing life changing about going to church and sitting in silence listening to someone standing behind a pulpit. But there was with people I spent time with.”
End of interview.
~~~~~
Church culture: “Tragically, in recent years, Christians have gotten used to revelations of abuses of many kinds in our most respected churches–from Willow Creek to Harvest, from Southern Baptist pastors to Sovereign Grace churches. Respected author and theologian Scot McKnight and former Willow Creek member Laura Barringer wrote this book to paint a pathway forward for the church.”
In this podcast, theologian Scot McKnight and his daughter, Laura Barringer, join Julie Roys to discuss their latest book, A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing.
While their first book explained the characteristics of a “tov,” or good, culture, their latest book tackles the next challenge—transforming ingrained toxic cultures into tov ones.
Pivoting Your Church from Toxic to Healthy | The Roys Report
“Regrettable errors” is a deplorable defense in the mishandling of sexual abuse in a church. But that was the response of a Bishop who failed to act quickly on allegations against a lay minister.
As reported by Kathryn Post on Sept. 30, 2022, “A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.”
As you’ll learn, Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Upper Midwest Diocese had made a “secret appeal “to ACNA’s seven-member Provincial Tribunal to call off the investigation. This deliberate act began a power struggle with Foley Beach, primate and archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America.
The following reports by Kathryn Post and the abuse survivor’s accounts that include grooming are disturbing to read and more so for me. I knew the leaders – the “shepherds” – involved in the “regrettable errors”.
I attended the Church of the Resurrection for many years. Stewart Ruch became pastor of “Rez” while the church gathered in the auditorium of Glenbard West High School before moving to Wheaton. I lived around the corner from Stewart and Kathryn. I was in small group with Eirik Olsen and Randy York, now priests in Bishop’s Ruch’s close-knit diocese. My thoughts follow the reports.
How would you assess the handling of the sexual abuse situation, the attempted cover up, and the ensuing power struggle from the following reports? Is Bishop Ruch’s paltry mea culpa and a claim of spiritual attack a CYA defense designed to protect himself from discredit and from being discharged from a coveted position? What Say You?
“(RNS) — In July 2021 Stewart Ruch III, bishop of the Anglican Church in North America’s Upper Midwest Diocese, went on leave after making what he called “regrettable errors” in handling cases of abuse in the diocese.
By that time, many who attended the roughly 30 churches in Ruch’s diocese knew that the missteps Ruch was referring to had to do with his delay in informing them of the accusations against Mark Rivera, a volunteer leader at Christ Our Light Anglican, an Upper Midwest Diocese church in Big Rock, Illinois.”
~~~~
What had happened was this, according to Bishop Stewart’s Letter Regarding Devastating Situation in Diocese of May 4, 2021.
“Two years ago, on May 20, 2019, Mark Rivera, a volunteer lay leader (with the title of Catechist) at Christ Our Light in Big Rock, Illinois, was accused of a sexual offense against a minor. Christ Our Light was part of the Greenhouse Missionary Society, which is within our diocese. When Greenhouse leadership learned of this accusation, Mark was immediately removed from his position as Catechist. On June 10, 2019, Mark was arrested and jailed in Kane County.”
“(RNS) — Mark Rivera, a former lay pastor in a conservative Anglican denomination who was convicted in December of felony child sexual abuse and assault, was sentenced on Monday afternoon (March 6) to 15 years in the department of corrections.
Judge John Barsanti of Illinois’ 16th Judicial Circuit Court in Kane County granted Rivera the minimum sentences for his crimes. The judge earlier found Rivera guilty of two counts of predatory sexual assault of a victim under 13 years old (a Class X felony) and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 13 (a Class 2 felony). Rivera will get credit for time already served in jail and spent under electronic monitoring and will be eligible for parole before completing his full sentence.”
The mother says leaders in the Anglican Church in North America pressured her not to report her daughter’s abuse allegations
“In May 2019, Cherin’s 9-year-old daughter told her that she had been abused by [Mark] Rivera. She reported the alleged abuse to [Rev. Rand] York, believing that her great uncle and the others in church leadership would protect her daughter.
According to Cherin, who asked that her last name not be used in order to protect her daughter’s identity, church leaders not only failed to report the allegations to the police or to the Department of Children and Family Services, but some also pressured her not to go to the police.
Despite this pressure, Cherin reported the alleged abuse to the police. In June 2019 Rivera was arrested and later charged with felony child sexual assault and abuse. He is currently out on bond.
In November 2020, Rivera’s neighbor, Joanna Rudenborg, reported to the Kane County Sheriff’s office that Rivera had raped her twice between 2018 and 2020. The Kane County Sheriff’s office would not comment beyond saying there is an ongoing investigation. Rivera’s lawyer did not respond for comment. (Emphasis mine.)
Ten people in all have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against a volunteer leader in the Anglican Church in North America.
“Church leaders and members in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, of the Anglican Church in North America, trusted Rivera’s spiritual authority. According to reports from former Christ Our Light Anglican Church parishioners, they dismissed his frequent physical affection — his habit of kissing young girls on the cheek or inviting teenagers to sit on his lap — as “just Mark being Mark.””
After 9-year-old child told her mother that Rivera had abused her, “nine additional people have made allegations of abuse by Rivera, including child sexual abuse, grooming, rape, and assault, and Rivera has been charged with felony child sexual assault and abuse of the 9-year-old. To date, the diocese has publicly acknowledged only some of the allegations, and according to abuse prevention advocates, has downplayed the access he had to children and others while in church leadership.”(Emphasis mine.)
““Both my diocese and the ACNA got hit this summer by a vicious spiritual attack of the enemy,” Ruch wrote to the denomination’s top official, Archbishop Foley Beach, on Jan. 14. “I believe this is the case because both entities are doing robust Gospel work, and Satan hates us.”
“I have decided to come off of my voluntary and temporary leave of absence effective March 7, 2022,” Ruch announced to Beach. “I believe my calling as a bishop who is responsible for leading and pastoring my diocese requires me to return to my work of service, preaching and oversight.”
The ongoing investigative process, he further said, was neither “canonical or, more importantly, biblical.”
Despite an advising chancellor and others expressing solidarity with Ruch through some ecclesiastical mumbo-jumbo, “others say that Ruch and other leaders have made the situation worse by defending the church instead of attending to Rivera’s alleged victims.” (Emphasis mine.)
~~~~
“A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.
The probe into events in the Upper Midwest Diocese, conducted by the investigative firm Husch Blackwell, also found that an ACNA priest did not report abuse by a lay pastor to the Department of Child and Family Services, claiming a church lawyer told him he was exempt from mandatory reporting laws. It also found that Bishop Stewart Ruch III and others allowed a church volunteer to have contact with teenagers after he had lost his teaching job for inappropriate behavior with students.” (Emphasis mine.)
Returning from self-imposed hiatus, ACNA Bishop Stewart Ruch works to regain trust
“After 16 months of a self-imposed hiatus after admitting to mishandling sexual abuse allegations in his diocese in Wheaton, Illinois, Bishop Stewart Ruch — a charismatic, controversial figure in the Anglican Church in North America — is taking steps to revive trust in his leadership. But a meeting last week held to soothe concerns of members of Church of the Resurrection showed he has work to do to restore trust.”
At a staged meeting where “Ruch and other leaders at Resurrection sat in armchairs in front of a packed church, according to church members who attended . . . Ruch read several statements, answered questions chosen from those submitted by congregants and read by church leaders. Ruch answered by reading from a script.”
“It gave me hope that the church realized that they needed to make some institutional programmatic changes or implementation and policies that would make it clear to everybody what their roles were when and if these kinds of crises hit,” one Resurrection member told RNS.
“But Ruch and other church leaders also appeared to want to manage the narrative about the bishop’s handling of the case and his return. Attendees were asked not to record the meeting, and clergy, accompanied by two police officers, were stationed at the sanctuary entrance. Audrey Luhmann, who stopped attending Resurrection in person over her concerns about church culture and who has been an outspoken member of ACNAtoo, an anti-abuse advocacy group, was barred from entering the meeting. ACNAtoo also reported that another clergy staffer tried to compel an alleged abuse victim’s mother to leave the meeting.” (Emphasis mine.)
“Archbishop Foley Beach, the primate of the Anglican Church in North America, accused his denomination’s highest court of attempting to stop an investigation into an Illinois bishop’s alleged misconduct.
“According to a statement Beach issued Wednesday (June 7), Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Upper Midwest Diocese made a “secret appeal” earlier this year to ACNA’s seven-member Provincial Tribunal to call off the investigation. After the tribunal issued a stay order, Beach and other denominational leaders questioned the impartiality of four tribunal members. He also asserted that the denomination’s bylaws don’t give the tribunal authority to issue a stay order.
“This power struggle, which had been conducted behind closed doors for months, broke into the open Wednesday with Beach’s Sept. 7, 2022 “Update on the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.””
A 10-person board of inquiry found there was probable cause to present Ruch for trial for violating denominational bylaws.
“Bishop Stewart Ruch, a controversial figure in the Anglican Church in North America, will be brought to a church court trial, according to an announcement published to the denomination’s website on Tuesday afternoon
On July 10, a 10-person board of inquiry selected by the denomination’s leader, Archbishop Foley Beach, received a presentment (or list of charges) against Ruch. The board submitted a public declaration on Friday that said at least two-thirds of the board found there was probable cause to present Ruch for trial. Specifically, per the denomination’s bylaws, they found grounds to try Ruch for violation of his ordination vows, for “conduct giving just cause for scandal or offense, including the abuse of ecclesiastical power” and for “disobedience, or willful contravention” of the denominational or diocesan bylaws.” (Emphasis mine.)
Per Wikipedia: “ACNAtoo formed in June 2021 when Joanna Rudenborg took to Twitter and alleged that she had been raped twice by ACNA catechist Mark Rivera and decried the subsequent mishandling of multiple survivors’ allegations by leadership in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.”
“Ursa” alleges that Christopher Lapeyre abused his power as a teacher and mentor to groom her while she was a minor and enter a manipulative sexual relationship with her when she was a very young adult.
As mentioned above, I had personal connections with Stewart and Kathryn Ruch, Eirik Olsen, and Randy York while attending Church of the Resurrection during its GWHS days. I was in a small group with Eirik and Randy and their wives. Wheaton College grads, Stewart and Eirik and Randy and their wives, Jeannie and Kaye respectively, are especially close.
I’ll start by saying that I knew each of them to be decent people who expressed love for the Lord.
-It is said that after a spiritual crisis, Ruch returned fully to the Christian faith in September 1991.
-Stewart had been the rector of the Church of the Resurrection since 1999 and later consecrated as the first bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest on 28 September 2013.
I knew Stewart to be a high-spirited guy whose heart, as he said from the platform, was for evangelism. He came across to me as someone who could spur excited devotion but also as someone all over the place. So, I was surprised that a young inexperienced guy who was known to have panic attacks was made rector of “Rez” and doubly surprised when he was made a bishop.
Though a decent guy who loves the Lord, Stewart was in no wise of the caliber needed for those positions. Stewart, in my estimation, was not a spiritually mature candidate for either position. His becoming pastor was one of the main reasons I left “Rez”. Another was that there was a “Leanne Payne” contingent that concertedly wanted Stewart in those positions. (More about my Leanne Payne experience in a future post.)
As revelations of the mishandling of sexual abuse under Ruch’s oversight became known to me, I was confirmed in my assessment of Stewart.
Eirik Olsen and Randy York are working priests and leaders in Ruch’s diocese. I know them as very capable in the business world. They both operate in a corporate milieu that does not tolerate sexual misconduct. HR depts rush in to handle allegations. So, I was surprised to find that they were slow to act in these matters.
I understand the scriptural criteria for accusations in a church setting. I also understand that sexual abuse and the grooming that precedes it happen in private. Allegations of abuse turn into “he said she said” scenarios. Two or three witnesses are not around to corroborate allegations. In matters of alleged abuse, a wait-and-see-what happens attitude, as reported above, leads to more abuse.
If there is any question, you separate out the alleged perpetrator immediately and provide counseling for the alleged victim. You don’t make excuses for the alleged perpetrator. Blind allowance is not an act of grace. You work to uncover, not coverup, what is taking place. In general, when someone is reluctant to press an issue, are they compromised by similar issues?
Do the proper work of a shepherd as you look after God’s flock which has been entrusted to you.
From the accounts presented above – remember Mark Rivera was found guilty of sexual abuse and sentenced to 15 years – one does not let more chips fall where they may before acting. Act to sort out what is true from the posturing obfuscations.
And one does not hide behind a subjective defense of “spiritual attack” to fend off accountability. If Bishop Stewart can sense a “spiritual attack on himself and the church, why didn’t he (and Leanne Payne-discipled others) sense it around Mark Rivera and the abused in Big Rock?
Incompetence by all three men is my finding. And a lack of spiritual discernment on the part of all three men and the church that put them in those positions. Stewart must be removed from his position.
Putting well-liked good-natured people into positions of oversight is deceptively easy. If you want to test someone’s maturity before placing them upwards, place them under the direct oversight of someone spiritually mature and give them a responsibility for several years. If you don’t know what spiritual maturity is then learn, not from books, but from obedience to Christ in all things.
Do the proper work of a shepherd as you look after God’s flock which has been entrusted to you, not under compulsion, but gladly, as in God’s presence; not for shameful profit, but eagerly. 1 Peter 5: 2
If one member of the body suffers, all members suffer with it. 1 Cor. 12: 26
What Say You?
~~~~~
Added 5-22-2024:
“On Monday, a group of ACNA clergy published an open letter expressing concern that there have not been public updates about a promised church trial for Ruch since November 2023. The letter pushes for regular updates on the trial’s progress and for information about why Ruch has not been inhibited, or limited in his duties, because of his alleged laxity in the past.”
An ACNA bishop, Todd Atkinson, tapped to assist during Bp. Stewart Ruch’s (short term) absence, was removed from ordained ministry after a church trial found he had engaged in inappropriate relationships with women and interactions with minors.
My job is to make clear to everyone just what the secret plan is, the purpose that’s been hidden from the very beginning of the world in God who created all things. This is it: that God’s wisdom, in all its rich variety, was to be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places – through the church.” The Apostle Paul, Ephesian 3: 9 & 10
This weekend is our church’s 150th anniversary of the chapel. The church: St. Mark’s, named after the Evangelist.
St. Mark, the Evangelist
The Anniversary booklet states,
St. Mark’s origins go back to the earliest days of Geneva, around 1830, when Episcopal services were held in a log house belonging to Mrs. Charity Herrirngton, which stood at what is now State Street near River Lane. These were the first religious services held in Geneva [IL].
And this,
Early in 1868 plans were drawn and a contractor selected to erect a church in the Gothic style, built of local riverstone with limestone sills and hood moldings, to seat 250….
There is much more of St. Mark’s history to recount. But here, I’ll share my St. Mark’s experience and the photos I shot today after the 8:00 service.
I came to St. Mark’s after moving into the area. At the same time, I was moving away from attending Bible churches. Raised in Evangelical churches and then attending them for years as an adult, I became desirous of a higher church setting, one that honored the beauty of words, of music, of architecture and the sacred. The Bible churches and many others, it seemed to me, were becoming more and more like the surrounding culture in their desire to be relevant.
I like Anglicanism’s emphasis on the Word and Sacrament along with the informing elements of tradition (the practices of the historical church) and reason (involving the intellectual). I like how the liturgy (worship hymns, reading of Scripture, offering, sermon, confession, the Creed, the Peace) points to the apex of the service – the Eucharist. In the churches I attended previously the service is centered around Scripturally illiterate sermons.
The words of The Book of Common Prayer have a stately beauty and sacredness to them. The wording should be so. We are petitioning royalty. Who in turn, points me to the Eucharist — the REAL Presence of Jesus Christ offered to me each week. It is the main reason I attend St. Mark’s.
The church has been a tremendous blessing to me over the almost eleven years I have attended. And, that is why I also must mention the many good people of St. Marks. They have been generous with their grace towards me. What they have received they have passed on to me.
One last word. I have spent many a time alone in St. Mark’s Chapel. This occurs during the Good Friday night vigil. I sign up for an hour alone before the cross, keeping watch. As such, it is a sacred time at 4:00 am. It is my time to come away and meditate on the cross. I come away from the chapel with a gift of grace, given to me “according to the measure the king used when he was distributing gifts. That’s why it says…
When he went up on high
He led bondage itself into bondage
And he gave gifts to people.
(Ephesians 4:7 & 8)
St. Marks’ is a gift of grace to me. Rulers and authorities would be wise to take note.
Pentecost mural by Louis Frederick Grell (1919)
Burning Bush
~~~
Imagine 150 years of marriages and baptisms and confirmations and funerals and friendships and giving, and the Eucharist, and witness for Christ to the community. Imagine the Kingdom Continuum.
Jesus said to them, “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you. If you were from this world, the world would be fond of its own. But the world hates you for this reason: that you’re not from the world. No: I chose you out of the world.” John’s gospel account 15: 18-19
~~~
From the many conversations I have had on Twitter, the word on the street is that “God is love and is all about love. We love, so we are doing what God accepts.” So, where does the world’s hate come in?
The hate spoken of in John’s gospel is generated by a protection of one’s place in the world against “outsiders”. Over and over again I have had that hatred and vitriol directed at me on Twitter. I cannot show you the Tweet replies. They are vulgar and pernicious. The replies come from a place beneath this world.
The hate-filled replies occur when I say something other than what is considered loving by those protecting their place in the world. Replies are derived from a worldview. And, one’s worldview depends on whether you accept being called out of this world knowing that that those in the world will hate you or if you are in this world for its approbation:
Called-Out Ones worldview: “For God so loved the world, that He gave…”
Social Justice Warrior (SJW) worldview: “For the world so loved me, when I…”
In order to make the world-accepted SJW worldview sustainable, mainstream churches create a Jesus who is palatable, marketable, consumable and renewable. The ministers do this by parsing Scripture into love notes. Their resultant Scripture messages, whether in a sermon or in a blog or on Twitter, remind me of a bag Valentine Sweethearts – candy hearts.
These churches promote “inclusion” because in a consumer-driven society, choice of how you live, choice of what you accept and who you accept, choice of right and wrong-choice becomes the ultimate approbation in this world.
~~~
Coming to a church near you: a populist theology which promotes the acceptance of the gay lifestyle, universal health care and illegal immigration all as works of Christian charity from the pulpits of body-of-Christ-divisive politics (race, gender, class, sexuality, etc.). This populist theology uses the high-sounding term “social justice” so as to neutralize detractor’s objections and to force a consensus, a groupthink around the premise of political correctness redefined as God’s love.
I encounter this populist theology every day now. If you are on Twitter “fighting the good fight”, you may receive the same replies from Catholics that I did. They go something like this:
1. “God is love. I know many committed gay couples who love each other.”
2.“Jesus never talked about sexuality or homosexuality, therefore it is a non-issue. If Jesus was concerned about homosexuality he would have said something.”
3.“Jesus is about loving your neighbor. Jesus is not judgmental. Jesus is fully accepting, inclusive. He’s about loving the homosexual. Who are we to judge?” (from Pope Francis’, “Who am I to judge?”).
4.“Loving your neighbor means universal healthcare. You are not charitable if you are against universal healthcare. You must be a Conservative who hates people.”
5.“Jesus and Paul are not the same. Jesus is love and Paul is rules. Jesus is universal love. Paul, on the other hand, is a picayune fundamentalist and fundamentalists are authoritarians. Jesus would say “Live, love, eat, pray and let live.”
6.“Jesus is social justice. He talked about helping the poor. Dorothy Day is a hero. Many of our heroes are beatified saints, saints who did good deeds while alive. Jesus demands good works from us. “Faith without works is dead”.”
7.“Women are talking in church. Women are being ordained. Scripture is being updated and should be inclusive of homosexuality, as well.”
My first thought when I encountered these replies: “The Catholic church has done great harm to its charges by not teaching the whole of Scripture, the whole council of God.” Scripture has been defined down to a constructed abstraction of Jesus’ words.
One of the main reasons the populist theology has taken root in the Catholic and all (yes, all) of the mainline churches, I believe, is the lack of Scripture knowledge coupled with a deficit of personal faith-history. Deism is pervasive in the church: “God and His Word are far away from reality and not relevant to what I am experiencing”; “You don’t understand same-sex attraction. You can’t change me so, accept me for what I am.”
Post-modernist pop-theologians rightly question history and what has been passed down through millennia but without a sufficient regard for and knowledge of the discipline of the study of history – factual non-repeatable events. Their pick-and-choose history approach leads to utter confusion about who Jesus is, what happened the first century and to whether or not Jesus even existed. I have witnessed such dissociative history making on Twitter. Such groping at history and at Scripture reminds me of the Indian parable of the blind men and the elephant: each of the blind men encounter a different part of the elephant (trunk, tail, etc.) and then return home and proceed to project their ‘understanding’ of the elephant as the elephant while claiming the other five blind men must be mistaken.
Populist theology also has historical Leftist ties (“Unconstrained vision” is the term used by Economist Thomas Sowell to define the philosophy of the Left). Political philosopher Jean-Jacque Rousseau wrote, “man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.” Another philosopher, Marquis de Condorcet, believed that men in their natural state with a “natural inclination” would seek out the social good. For them, man’s nature was not the problem. Rather, institutions needed to be reformed so that man’s better nature would come out. Hence, pop-theology presses for reforms: the church must be reformed to help men to realize their better nature. “We are so much smarter now,” is the inference.
Enter the church’s “social justice” moment. And the “social justice” proffered is done under the guise of the common good but it is in reality a narrowing of focus down to subjective individual rights and individual happiness, in parallel with what is happening politically in Europe and the U.S. currently. The “common” part of their “common good” are those who share the same self-directed interests. Others must conform to their self-interests for the common good.
My second thought after reading the above replies: “It is time for another reformation – putting the Bible (again) into people’s hands and teaching them how to read it for themselves.”
It would seem that many of the above respondents view Scripture through the lens of a post-modern Epicurean Catholic world view, a worldview which replaces historical narrative (in this case, derived from the “faith once delivered”) with a relevant “social gospel” or populist theology promulgated as authentic Christianity. And with little knowledge of Scripture many Catholics are ‘falling’ for what they have been taught by the top-down government and media of the Catholic church and its social justice-primed priesthood.
When they do (see replies above) they end up with a Jesus who is fantasy blend of Dorothy Day, Ghandi, Mr. Rogers and a Democrat with a Jesus bleeding heart – an ends-justifies-the-means person. In other words, they end up not with a literal historical Jesus, but rather a figurative Jesus and one disposed to making you and your world feel good about doting on yourself. And, if you can get other people to dish out love and charity and “understanding” and, most importantly, cash, then you have done right by pseudo-Jesus.
Every self-designated Catholic I have encountered on Twitter appears to know little or nothing of Scripture. For them, it seems, raw Scripture, ‘unrefined’ by the Catholic priesthood, seems to be tied to evangelicals who are considered fundamentalists and therefore, presumptively, not connected with their Jesus’ all-assuming love. What they know and repeat is what a priest or Jesuit tells them, and their reply is usually about social justice, a catch-all for not being judged but for being loved.
Without making this post too long, here are some of my quick replies to the above points. Feel welcome to add yours in the comment section below.
1.The plea bargaining “God is Love” defense is foiled when you define love, not in terms of codependence and sexuality, but as desiring the ultimate good for another. This of course leads to a definition of what is good. I reply with Jesus’s request of the Father, “Set them apart for yourself in the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17)
2. When someone says that Jesus never talked about homosexuality I remind them that Jesus’s mission was to the lost sheep of Israel, the ones who were supposed to be “a light to the Gentiles”. The Israelites knew the law, the Torah. The law forbids homosexuality. This was common knowledge in the first century. Jesus did not need to repeat it. Paul, on the other hand, an apostle to the Gentiles did need to speak about the matter (e.g., Rome, Ephesus, etc. had temples to pagan gods which involved all manner of sexual immorality.)
3. Here we have justification by plea bargain. Jesus prays for his own that they will be sanctified, separate – taken “out of the world” worldview.
4.If you know Scripture then you know that Jesus did not heal everyone in the world during his earthly time. He told us that we can do the same and greater things than he has done when filled with the spirit. Beyond the fact of outright healing, there is the matter of personal healthcare. Universal healthcare replaces a person’s personal responsibility for their health with a non-caring impersonal government bureaucracy. This costly tax-payer bureaucracy will need to control your behavior, your paycheck and the doctor’s practice to control costs. As such, it is loving to not desire socialized coverage.
5.When I hear someone say that Jesus is Gospel and Paul is not relevant I remind them that Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus. In the fullness of time Jesus encountered Paul. I remind them that Paul right then and there became an eyewitness of Jesus and therefore an apostle. I remind them that Jesus sent Paul to be Jesus to the Gentiles – the heathen, the pagans, the unclean. I tell them that Paul wrote the theology of the newly established Kingdom of God on earth in his letters to the infant churches.
6.I remind them that the gospel is “Jesus is Lord”. All else falls in line and in order under this proviso: salvation, sanctification (called out of the world) and then social gospel (to affect the world under the direction of the Kingdom’s Lord.)
When Jesus tells the rich man “Sell all you have and give it to the poor” we understand the means to the rich man’s salvation: renunciation of his coveting relationship of wealth- a relationship which came between Jesus and the rich man, sanctification (separation from the love of his money and the hold it had on him) and then faith with works – a complete detachment from self-preservation- giving his wealth to the poor, a product of the new Kingdom focus.
7.Women vs. gay acceptance and Scripture: I remind them that there is a difference between culturally defined and morally defined. There is a difference between cultural practice and culturally-imposed taboos and doctrinal principles and God-directed temperantia-God’s ordered structure for the being of man. Paul wrote about the former in his letters to the church at Corinth. Anything perceived as ambiguous was directed back to a person’s Holy-Spirit directed conscious.
It is no secret that the Evil One’s mission from the very beginning is to ask, “Did God really say you couldn’t…?”
Pop-theology proposes to modernize and conform the church to be a welcoming inclusive place for whatever the prevailing winds of PC doctrine bring to the church’s door step. Be it known: the called-out ones – the ecclesia – will remain faithful under the Lordship of Jesus. The churches that wallow in the world will have their candlestick taken away. In the dark their mutual admiration society will be left grappling with elephant parts.
This is how the body of Christ becomes leprous>>Anglican bishops prep for tough talks on same-sex marriage https://t.co/O7OVRVBWYV via @RNS
Viewed from the six lane highway, the structure appears to be a brick fortress surrounded by acres of treeless grass and a vast moonscape of parking lot. The function without form building inspires no awe, no upward glance and no transcendent thought. The surrounding barren landscape contains no greenhouse, no food or flower gardens, no observatory and no animal shelter. There is nothing of nature’s bounty in my view, only the requisite shrubs to offset the stark landscape. Behold, another mega-church built to feed the souls of six thousand; another unadorned mega-church in a far western suburb of architecturally savvy Chicago.
Every other Saturday I visit someone several towns away. As I do I pass this mega-church going and coming, typically between 10 and 11:30 am. This Saturday, like all the other times before, I saw, again to my astonishment, that there were no cars in the parking lot. There was no activity whatsoever. I wondered at a stewardship that builds a Scripture fort surrounded by acres of asphalt parking that is to be filled only periodically by the six thousand. The transmutation of creation into an austere block complex hurt my soul to see. And, what about the transmutation of the six thousand?
As a child, I first attended a Baptist church and later, Bible/Free churches. Beauty was a no show at these churches. There were, of course, colorful Sunday school materials – what is considered Christian education resources – for the kids. And with a constant pamphlet diet – a three point sermon with alliteration – there was no hunger for intellectual activity. I observed, as did Mark Noll in his book “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind“: “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” I saw extreme resistance to obtaining knowledge. The pews were there to be used, but scholarly books, not so much. It would not be too far off to say that understanding was gained by and strictly limited to what the Bible ‘teachers’, self-help pablum and popular seminars say the Bible says.
Over some fifty years I have heard the same bad theology passed down from generation to generation. Not once in the Bible church did I ever hear a sermon or a class talk about the Kingdom of God being here and now – a major thrust of the four Gospels. The sermons, to an Amen, were, “You need to get saved so you can get to heaven. If you are saved then you need to come forward to rededicate your life. Then you must think seriously about becoming a missionary. Everyone must get to heaven because this world will be judged harshly.” Imagine how our world would change if we prayed for and practiced “on earth as it is in heaven”, and prepared for the return of our King? He will be bringing heaven down to earth to join them together.
There was and is also the highly profitable Rapture fantasy series based on a mis-reading of the Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians. And, of course, there is the teaching of a literal six-day creationism. Science must be eschewed as being antagonistic toward God and His Word. I learned otherwise on my own.
And, there is the constant reiteration of the mis-understanding of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Sadly, Romans, since the Reformation and the Enlightenment, has been reduced to a quirky systematic theology – all about us. Paul’s circular letter to the Christians in and around Rome speaks of God’s plan to redeem his creation. The letter is a well thought out dissertation reminding Jewish and gentile Christians in Rome of God’s covenantal faithfulness, his righteousness. It was meant to reinforce an Old Testament understanding of God’s plan for redeeming his creation that was in place all along.
I never heard this at church. Instead, I heard the four spiritual laws imposed onto Romans. And with this I was taught that God imputes – gives – his righteousness to me, sinner that I am. But, this thinking has no basis in Romans given its Scriptural context of Genesis 15 and the Abrahamic covenant. Regarding my righteousness: I am made righteous in the law court of God by God’s exercise of His covenant faithfulness and his desire to put the world to right.
I don’t recall anyone over those years, except for a few visiting professors, who seriously studied theology, N.T. Greek or Hebrew to understand the context of what was written. Often, the visiting seminary professors would reassert the same bad theology using highfalutin terms and out-of-context proof texts.
I have heard countless sermons based on poached verses to create a ‘relevant” topic to preach on Sunday mornings. Relevance and accommodation are apparently key to mega-ness. The mega-church I’ve mentioned offers two services: traditional and contemporary worship. As such, this church divides the Body of Christ into sects for mega-accommodation.
Am I jaded about the Evangelical church? After many years of being involved with these Bible churches, in some sense I am. That is perhaps why I can see the six thousand continuing to come back to the mega-church because it looks… bigly: “There has to be something for me inside this Yuge Assembly of Bricks Church.”
If the election of Donald Trump, supported by the many Evangelicals who voted for him tells you anything, and if the existence of the mega-church tells you anything it is that the Evangelical assembly line approach to Christianity must go onward. And, Bible fortresses must be built.
~~~
A coincidence? I found this audio link on Twitter this morning:
Reflections on horrible preaching
~~~
“The day-to-day services of the Christian churches are embarrassing reminders of the fact that religion is losing its sublime godwardness, and turning instead towards the world of mass production.”
― Roger Scruton, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture
“Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it did not matter.” ―Roger Scruton, Beauty
What is revealed to me in the experience of beauty is a fundamental truth about being – the truth that being is a gift, and receiving it is a task. This is a truth of theology that demands exposition as such.” ― Roger Scruton, Face of God: the Gifford Lectures
“The point of Christian scholarship is not recognition by standards established in the wider culture. The point is to praise God with the mind. Such efforts will lead to the kind of intellectual integrity that sometimes receives recognition. But for the Christian that recognition is only a fairly inconsequential by-product. The real point is valuing what God has made, believing that the creation is as “good” as he said it was, and exploring the fullest dimensions of what it meant for the Son of God to “become flesh and dwell among us.” Ultimately, intellectual work of this sort is its own reward, because it is focused on the only One whose recognition is important, the One before whom all hearts are open.” ― Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
*****
“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
*****
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
*****
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
*****
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
*****
God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
*****
From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
*****
“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
*****
One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
*****
“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
*****
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
*****
“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
**
“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
*****
“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
*****
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
*****
“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
*****
This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
*****
“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
*****
Cindy Wity 
No Country for Old Men Without Borders
June 1, 2026 Leave a comment
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.
~~~
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. Trafficked children. Exposed children.
“These children are vulnerable; they’re actually the ones who need the help,” Rivera said. “They’re brought against their will, and they have no say in where they’re going, whether it’s mom or dad, aunt or uncle, or some stranger getting something out of it.”
Border Crisis: CBP Fights Child Exploitation: Without a choice, thousands of children are forced to make a perilous journey
Open borders have been a gateway for the exploitation and oppression of human trafficking.
Open borders have been a gateway for the child trafficking.
Biden admin failed to probe more than 7,300 reports of migrant child trafficking, startling HHS findings show
Biden-Harris admin loses track of 320,000 migrant children — with untold numbers at risk of sex trafficking and forced labor
Open borders have been a gateway to make billions:
US Govt. Paid Catholic Charities $3 Billion to Traffic People across the US/Mexico Border – Public Intelligence Blog (phibetaiota.net)
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.
Open borders import disease.
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.
Otherwise, our land becomes increasingly violent and chaotic, where traditional values and the moral compass of older generations are no longer effective or relevant. We will be confronted by senseless violence and lawlessness that we are ill-equipped to handle . . .
~~~
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.
~~~
https://www.dioceseofsanjoaquin.net/news–events
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33324911
~~~
Victor Davis Hanson:
“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
~~~
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-illegal-immigration-and-the-loss-of-national-sovereignty
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.
https://thefederalist.com/2026/01/20/if-your-pastor-values-illegal-immigration-more-than-your-right-to-worship-find-a-new-church
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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.
“ . . . the “West’s elitist progressive political class is infected by a mind parasite that causes its empathy module to misfire in every conceivable manner. Many of the policy decisions that are wreaking havoc in the West stem from this poor calibration of empathy, resulting in a society that is galloping toward the abyss of infinite lunacy.”
The Road To Hell Is Being Paved With Suicidal Empathy
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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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Filed under 2026 Current Events, Christianity, Culture, Globalism, human trafficking, Immigration, Political Commentary, Progressivism, The Church Tagged with American Values Coalition, Christianity, church, culture, Globalism, God, Immigration, J29 Coalition, Jesus, progressivism, The Anglican Church in North America