Evangelicals and the Bible supports welcome for refugees and immigrants

"I'm a Christian who works with refugees."  Echo opinion published in the Houston Chronicle:

HOUSON, Texas "....people start arriving at the church parking lot in Southwest Houston. Volunteers are already pulling bikes out of the garage. A dozen Afghan women — many of whom were evacuated after the Taliban took control in August 2021 — strap on their helmets and ride off, practicing their newfound skill. The 12 women number among the thousands of refugees from all over the world who call Houston their home.

(This essay reminds me about the wonderful book "The Secret Gate- A True Story of Courage", by Mitchell Zuckoff.  Describes the frenzied final hours of the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan--and how a brave Afghan mother and a compassionate American officer engineered a daring escape.)

For years, Houston has been a top destination for displaced Afghans. Since the fall of Kabul and subsequent arrival of Afghans in the city, our community has risen to the challenge of welcoming them.

I know this firsthand. As a mobilizer and organizer, I have connected volunteers to refugee welcome for over a decade. In 2022, I founded Ride with Refugees, a community bike ride and refugee women’s empowerment program, through which I partner with community organizations, non-profits, churches, bike shops, public servants, the Houston Police and advocacy groups. All of them enthusiastically support our efforts to raise awareness about resettlement and promote mobility for refugees and others who have resettled, such as the Afghan Women’s Bike Team.

However, while our communities respond with welcome, our state and federal authorities have not. In the case of our Afghan friends, Congress has not done its part to pass legislation such as the Afghan Adjustment Act. The bill would provide legal certainty to the more than 76,000 Afghans in the country by allowing them to apply for permanent resident status after additional vetting.

In recent years, some evangelicals made a reputation for themselves by supporting an anti-refugee president and, in Texas, a governor who went so far as to remove the state from the federal refugee resettlement program. But that’s not all of us.

As coordinator of a Houston-based refugee ministry network and as a leader on the North American team of a global network of refugee ministry practitioners, I witness the support for refugees that evangelical organizations and churches are offering.

A recent survey of American evangelical Christians indicated that 71% believe our country has a moral responsibility to receive refugees, and 77% say it is important for Congress to pass significant immigration reforms this year. And 75% of those surveyed support the passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act.

What does the Bible say about "immigration"?

1. Matthew 25:31-40  Jesus says, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me". Scholars say that in the New Testament, "stranger" and "neighbor" are synonymous.
2. Leviticus 19:34 "The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt".
3. Hebrews 13:2 "Be sure to welcome strangers into your home. By doing this, some people have welcomed angels as guests, without even knowing it".

Wu recently had the privilege of preaching on immigration in her local congregation. 

"Although we have been involved with refugee ministry for two years now, someone said to me afterward, 'Immigration had been on my heart, but I have always approached it politically. Today I realized I need to think about immigration from a biblical perspective. I now have a better way to speak on immigration'”

A biblical perspective on immigration and refugee welcome recognizes the commands to love and seek justice for vulnerable foreigners. Refugees are some of the world’s most persecuted people, and besides their net positive economic contribution to our nation, they deserve compassion and care.

Our nation has prided itself on being a “city on a hill,” a beacon-of-light nation built by the immigrants we welcomed. That narrative has soured as the sheer number of people seeking refuge here has increased. But a great nation can respond humanely.

With 117 million forcibly displaced persons globally and the U.S. continuing to be a leader in resettling refugees, our welcoming attitude locally is not enough. Our state and federal governments need to offer solutions rooted not in political calculations but in true, lasting security, order, and compassion.

Congress, especially, needs to act now to provide immigration reforms that restore the United States’ leadership and moral high ground as a nation of hope and refuge — a legacy currently at risk.


Cindy M. Wu is an ordained clergywoman and native Houstonian. She co-directs Mosaic Formation and is the author of “A Better Country: Embracing the Refugees in Our Midst.”

Donald Trump needs an Evangelical reality test: Philander, racist, sexual abuser and Bible heretic

How can evangelicals like Mike Johnson tolerate Trump?
Echo opinion by LZ Granderson published in the Lost Angeles Times newspaper:

At the 2016, Republican National Convention, when I told Donald Trump’s “God whisperer” 😟Paula White that he referred to her as his pastor, she said she was his spiritual advisor — as if that were some sort of “get out of jail free” card for her.

And yet White worked hard in our conversation to convince me that the foul-mouthed person on the campaign trail was godly.
Then came her turn to speak at the convention. Most of the seats were empty when White took the stage, which says a lot about the interest attendees had in the words of Trump’s spiritual advisor.

It was as if their minds were already made up.

This was after Trump referred to a book of the Bible as “Two Corinthians” in a speech at Liberty University, the private Christian college where Jerry Falwell Jr. was president, before a sex scandal forced him to resign later that year. 

This was after Trump mocked a journalist’s disability. This was after he came down the escalator at Trump Tower and kicked off his campaign by bashing Mexico and Latinos before offering “and some, I assume, are good people.” Trump had shown what kind of person he was, and somehow still had evangelical Christians’ support.

But, he must have feared there would be some limit to their capacity for cognitive dissonance, because he did not want evangelical voters to find out about his 2006, affair with Stormy Daniels. 

In fact, Trump paid her money to stay quiet days before the election. I don’t know if that’s what White spiritually advised him to do, but she went on to serve Trump at the White House, so she must have made peace with the deceit.

The reason Trump is on trial in New York isn’t because of President Biden or Democrats. It’s because he wanted to deceive a crucial bloc of voters and in doing so is accused of falsely claiming the hush payment as legal services on business documents. And he is accused of falsifying documents in connection with other crimes.

In other words, it’s not a witch hunt. It’s repercussions.

Now, it appears, it’s House Speaker Mike Johnson’s turn to find some sort of balance between his personal faith and his professional interest. The joint news conference between Trump and Johnson at Mar-A-Lago, will most likely help Johnson keep his job — which was murky after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called his leadership into question — but it does nothing to erase the fact he’s aligned with a thrice-married adulterer who mocked Jimmy Carter the day after Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years, entered hospice.

The image of Johnson standing at the lectern — as Trump stood behind him like a jack-o’-lantern the day after Halloween — was frightening. Unnerving. It was not a show of strength; it was another sign of how far some white evangelicals are willing to drag their faith through the mud just to be next to power.

Christians believe in a thing called grace, and Lord knows I’ve benefited from a lot of it in life. But, Trump doesn’t express remorse for his affair with Daniels or the hush money spent to trick his Christian supporters. He has been found liable for sexual abuse. He’s bragged about grabbing women by their private parts and kissing them without consent.

The fact that Trump could be forgiven is irrelevant if he hasn’t changed or stopped his abuses or given any indication of regret. What we have in Trump is not a story of redemption but a clear account of who he really is and always has been.

In February during a rally, he said this about his opponent Nikki Haley: “Where’s your husband? Oh, he’s away. He’s away. What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone!”

It was no secret: Haley’s husband was deployed overseas with the South Carolina National Guard, something she discussed openly at campaign events. Trump knew “what happened to her husband.” But he just gambled that some in his audience didn’t know and that he could score cheap political points by smearing a service member.

You don’t have to act surprised. That’s the kind of person Trump has always been, regardless of whether he had a “God whisperer” on staff. This is the kind of person Johnson cozied up to  in a desperate grab at keeping his job. (Maine Writer IMO- Speaker Johnson was no guest at Mar-A-Lago.  Betcha' he paid his own way including getting an invoice for his meals. Wanna' bet?)

I’m not sure what the former president’s current spiritual advisor is whispering in his ear these days, but by now it’s clear he doesn’t need to listen to get reelected.

(P.S. Maine Writer- Hypocricy on steroids!)

Donald Trump is P.T. Barnum's "sucker born every minute" con man

Echo editorial published in the Seattle Times: P.T. Barnum, the great 19th century showman, circus owner and hoax promoter, is quoted as saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

David Horsey political cartoon

Trump sells Bibles; evangelicals sell their souls

Donald J. Trump, the great 21st century con man, political phenomenon and hoax promoter, would heartily agree. Trump has built a weirdly successful career in business, entertainment and politics based on his uncanny ability to convince legions of suckers to buy into his self-aggrandizing schemes, from Trump University, the Trump charity and the Big Lie, to his latest scam tricking thousands of poor chumps into chipping in to pay his millions of dollars in legal bills.

False and cynical "big lie" claims of voter fraud threaten our democracy as much as Trump himself. January 6 Committee.

And, now, Trump is selling Bibles. These aren’t just any Bibles, these are “God Bless the USA” Bibles featuring some of the lyrics from country singer Lee Greenwood’s patriotic song of that name — a textual addition that King James might find curious were he still around to promote his own translation of the holy book. 

Of course, the king is long dead, which made it easy for Trump to expropriate the old monarch’s version of the scriptures for his own money-making scheme.

Trump solemnly stipulates that money raised from Bible sales will not be used for his presidential campaign. What he makes less clear is the fact that he is getting paid for every book sold by the publisher — a publishing operation that he happens to own.

But dare we doubt that Trump is sincere in his mission to spread the gospel?

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump assured his potential customers in the video promoting Bible sales on Truth Social. “I’m proud to endorse and encourage you to get this Bible📖.  We must make America pray again.”  Yeah❓ Pray  — and pay💲 again, that is.

Forgive me for being a skeptic, but I would bet $59.99 (the price of Trump’s Bibles) that he does not have “many” Bibles in his home and I am pretty darn sure it is not his favorite book. That would have to be his own ghost-written book, “The Art of the Deal.”

Trump is clearly not a religious man. He has spent his life enthusiastically engaging in each of the Seven Deadly Sins. Nevertheless, evangelical Christians are his most ardent supporters and are likely to be his best customers for the new Bible. Trump exploiting the Word of God for his own financial gain may be a form of desecration, if not blasphemy, but, sadly, some conservative Christians will not be bothered. They have already sold their political souls to the huckster from Mar-a-Lago.

Thank you from reasonable Wyoming Republicans and Democrats

Echo opinion letter published in the Wyoming newspaper the Rocket Miner, reporting the state news since 1881.

Imagining yourself standing in the shoes of another is a good way to understand that person’s point of view, and the motives and rationales for the decisions they make. Try picturing yourself as a U.S. congressperson in the Capitol on January 6th. 

You’re doing the things that you were elected to do. 

Rep. Cheney: What Trump did 'is a line that cannot be crossed'

Guiding your actions and decisions are the upbringing you have had, your years of education, an understanding of your constituents, The Constitution and U.S. history, also the travel, relationships, financial dealings, fighting and loving, reading, and the spiritual experiences you’ve had. This is a lot, but it never seems to be enough for any of us.

At first it was just a minor distraction, perhaps another text message. There seemed to be some commotion and movement coming from Trump’s rally up at the Lincoln Memorial. There’s some word about a throng of people carrying flags and banners and chanting various things. They’re heading right for the Capitol. Some vague news comes in of other groups encircling the building. 

Of course, there was nothing to worry about, because there are metal barriers, and lots of Capitol policemen protecting the building.

But wait, what’s this? Another message, a rumor goes through the House Chamber that some protestors have shoved the barriers aside and overpowered the guards. Weirdly, the rumor, now a bit of a panic, has it that loud and angry protestors have actually entered the building. What? This can’t be. How could they? Why would they? Who could they be, and what or who might have set them in motion to act this way?

January 6th insurrection enabled by the #FormerGuy, a threat to American Democracy

Those were gun shots in the hall. Guards draw guns. Doors are locked. In a House of leaders everyone is shouting orders while taking defensive positions on the floor and under desks. “Quick!” someone shouts, “Out this way!”

It’s not a movie about zombies. UFOs have not invaded. They were not even foreigners or radical leftists. In varying degrees, the invaders were white Republicans and Christians and conservative and thought of themselves as patriotic, blessed and authorized by their beloved leader Donald Trump. On the walk down The National Mall they were 100% certain of themselves. When the cameras zoomed in on their faces there were no doubts, there was no humor, they were not kidding.

It was the eyes, though, where one could see into their very brains and beliefs, however demented, and that was the scary part. In the eyes was a determination to kill or be killed. This was completely justified because their president had ordered it. Everything was unfolding as QAnon had prophesized. The traitorous vice president would hang! The leftist speaker of the House would be shot in the head. Many would be arrested, tortured, and executed. It was a day of reckoning.

Had you been there, how could you have viewed what had happened as anything but a very scary and dangerous invasion? People died, after all, and frankly, it’s amazing that hundreds didn’t die. Certainly, if the invaders had been African-American, or “Antifa,” the defenders would have let lose fusillades. The whole world looked on and they were appalled. They must have said, “It’s nutcase’ism over there. So much for looking to them for leadership.”

On that evening, one would have thought that the craziness had reached a peak, and rational heads would prevail. Liz Cheney viewed and analyzed with a clear mind, along with other responsible law makers, and drew on all her years of upbringing, education, talking and listening and thinking, and experience in life, and called the day’s events exactly what they were: an insurrection against the government and Constitution of the United States, and it was ordered by the deranged, cult-like president, Donald Trump.

All Wyoming Democrats have had many issues with Representative Cheney, but if she were up for re-election right now, we would vote for her. Given that a primary will be involved, we would all have to at least temporarily become Republicans. 

Statewide, we are 30% of the voters. Also, all moderate and rational Republicans are in agreement. Together we vastly outnumber nutcase Republicans, who are boisterous and fist pumping, but they are cowardly bullies, and they are outnumbered. Together, Democrats and mature Republicans will reward Liz Cheney with another term in the House, or higher office, because she made the right decision to protect The Constitution, to defend free and fair elections, and to vote for Trump’s impeachment.

From Tom Gagnon, Rock Springs

Refugees and migrants: Compassion in the Old and New Testaments

Echo opinion - John Compere, in Baird, TX,  letter:  "Solutions needed at southern border", published in the Texas newspaper Abilene Reporter news. 

The author of this opinion letter calls on us to remember our Christian heritage.  It's not only about Christians. Remember the Old Testament Israelites were abandoned in the desert. 

"God performed miracles, leading the Israelites out of slavery, away from the cruel hand of the Egyptians. He set them free. Free from oppression. Free from captivity. Free from bondage."

To the editor of Abilene Reporter: 

Managing migrant surges at the southern US border requires sensible solutions - not political posturing that accomplishes nothing but more divisiveness, and exacerbates the suffering of refugees who are seeking refuge from corruption and violence.

Both political parties - Republicans and Democrats- have neglected immigration law reform for too long.

Single adults and most families stopped at the border continue to be returned under a public health order issued at the COVID19 pandemic outset. Moreover, a historically low refugee cap still is being maintained, even though President Biden pledged to increasing the numbers. Unaccompanied children are allowed to safely and temporarily remain.

The president has publicly discouraged migrants fleeing other countries from coming until longer-term solutions can be worked out.

Migration flows are surging for the third time in seven years. Immigration increases when the weather changes. Numbers include immigrants stuck at the border awaiting asylum claims the previous administration failed to process. Shelter dismantling by the previous administration has exacerbated migrant management.

US immigration laws are antiquated. There has been no major reform by Congress for decades. Politicians need to stop faulting others and fulfill their public responsibility by providing resolutions rather than recriminations. Blame-gaming does not serve the country's best interest.

The 43rd president, Republican and Texan George W. Bush recognized the humanitarian dilemma observing these people “... are willing to leave their homes and leave their families and risk everything to come to America” because “America remains a beacon of liberty and the most hope fill society the world has ever known.”

Christians must remember Jesus preached empathy for the little children “... do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16).

— John Compere, in Baird Texas

Donald Trump is in love with power- echo opinion

Baffling! How do Christians support Trump? An echo opinion letter published in Tulsa World, Oklahoma newspaper.

MaineWriter - Christians and Evangelicals that continue to support Donald Trump are obviously ignorant about the Bible teachings they subscribe to as being literary and absolute!  

How will history judge Donald Trump?

Like all tyrants, he first convinces people that our country has problems only he can fix. 

He then identifies groups who are the source of the problem.

In Trump’s case, it’s liberals, Democrats, immigrants and fake news. In other eras, it’s been Jews, communists, Christians, Islam, women, Indians, homosexuals and others.

Despots say they love their country. The only thing they really love is power. They will do anything, say anything, destroy anything (including character) to maintain power.

What may baffle historians is how fundamental Christians and others continue to support him.

When will Franklin Graham, Pat Buchanan and Senator Inhofe and Senator Langford look this bully in the eye and say "Sir, have you no decency?”  (Joseph Welch, June 9, 1954) 

Keenan Barnard, Tulsa Oklahoma

Maryland's Peace Cross - opinion echo

This echo opinion letter to the editor was published in the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

Visitors walk around the 40-foot Maryland Peace Cross dedicated to World War I soldiers in Bladensburg MD. (Kevin Wolf / AP)

MaineWriter -The debate about the Peace Cross is sad, because if the movement to somehow remove the monument should prevail, in my opinion, it could lead to the replacement of headstones in all veterans cemeteries, like Arlington and Normandy.

BLANDENSBURG, Maryland

It is truly amazing to me, as a Catholic, that we are turning to the Supreme Court to determine if the cross is a religious symbol (Baltimore Sun “Supreme Court to decide if cross can be a secular symbol,” Feb. 27). 

For Christians, how can it be anything else then a firm reminder that Jesus Christ died for our sins? It is a very powerful symbol in our lives. On the other hand, can it also be viewed as a memorial to other things of importance, like the dead of a war? Just something to write names on? Why not another form?

To the Romans, the cross was a method of execution and a terrible way to die. It had no other meaning, but 2,000 years later, it does have more of a religious symbolism due to the execution of Jesus Christ on a cross. Technically, there is a difference between a cross and a crucifix. The crucifix shows the body of Christ nailed to a cross where the bare cross is just a symbol of Christ’s death. 

But, in my opinion, I don’t believe they can be mentally separated.

I am a big supporter of the Peace Cross in Bladensburg and understand why it was erected to memorialize those who died in the First World war. Yet, I do see it as a Christian memorial of the dead and I find it heartbreaking that we are demeaning the Christian symbol of the cross by asking a court to rule on it. 

The Peace Cross belongs in our hearts and minds as Christians and not in the courts, as just a symbol of basically nothing more than something to write on.

Stas. Chrzanowski, Baltimore

Help for DACA "Dreamers" ~ its about doing what's right

Another gem editorial published in The Virginian Pilot ~ high energy editorials~!!!

An opinion echo with a four star rating! 

THE TIMING of Donald Trump’s heartless tweet that “DACA is dead” could hardly have been worse, coming not quite an hour after he had tweeted “Happy Easter!” that Sunday morning.

But, considerations of the meaning of the season of Easter for Christians and Passover for Jews aside (also, Eastern Rite Easter on the Julian calendar), the tweet and the flurry of others that accompanied it would have been ill advised even if he’d waited to send them.

For one thing, as has been proven repeatedly, impromptu tweets are hardly the best way for the president of the United States to issue policy statements or negotiate politically. Trump is the country’s leader now, not a reality TV personality.

Dear Donald Trump, It's time ~ past time ~ for new leadership aka "You're FIRED!"

What the country needs — what it has needed for months — is serious, consistent leadership on important questions about the future of thousands of “Dreamers” — young Americans who are law-abiding, productive members of society, yet who live under the threat of deportation because they are here illegally, through no fault of their own.

When Trump announced last September that he (cruelly) planned to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, he couched his move in terms of giving Congress six months to come up with a legislative solution for dealing with the Dreamers.

On one level, Trump’s action made sense. The DACA program shielding law-abiding Dreamers from deportation was created by an executive order of President Barack Obama. 

Obama thought this group deserved protection, but he was unable to get a Republican-controlled Congress to provide it.

As Trump’s decision to end DACA demonstrates, an executive order is a risky way to establish an important policy because another executive order could easily reverse it.

Legislative action would have been preferable. But DACA was already in place, and thousands of Dreamers were participating in good faith. And, because DACA was limited and specific — applying only to people who arrived in the United States by 2007 and before they turned 16, and who were under the age of 31 when DACA took effect in 2012 — there was little reason to change it.


An even bigger problem with Trump’s cancelling DACA in favor of congressional action is that Congress is still sharply divided. It’s difficult to get anything — even protection for the Dreamers, which polls show has widespread support — passed. Sympathy is strong for these people, who were brought here by their parents and have grown up as Americans. They haven’t been in trouble, or they wouldn’t have qualified for DACA.

A law to replace DACA might have made it through Congress if Trump had provided strong leadership or even a consistent, reasonable stance that would have let leaders of both parties know what they were dealing with. Instead, he gave them tweets, attempts to tie the fate of the Dreamers to a border wall or other drastic changes in the immigration system, and positions that changed from day to day. So nothing was done before DACA expired last month, and Congress is now focused more on the November election. The Dreamers are in limbo, fearing deportation as arguments continue in federal courts over the cancellation of the program.

The futures of 700,000 or more law-abiding U.S. residents — about 12,000 who live in Virginia – are at stake. 

Maybe something yet could be done, if Trump would step up, speak out about how wrong it would be to deport them and urge congressional leaders to do the right thing.

Instead, Trump gave us a flurry of (horrible!) Easter Sunday (and Easter Season) tweets. He blamed Democrats for not fixing a problem he created. Referencing a Fox News report about a “caravan” of people marching from Central America toward the U.S. border, he suggested that immigrants are trying to come to the United States to take advantage of DACA — even though DACA would not apply to them. He ranted about building a wall. He declared the death of DACA.

It’s time — past time — for real leadership. (?Fire Donald Trump!)

Sexual misconduct as racism

Many right wing and Republican motivated Christians are conflicted about the sin of sexual misconduct. Apparently, in the minds of the self righteous, it isn't necessarily a sin when a white polemicist is engaged in sexual sins, like stalking underage girls in shopping malls. Yet, in recent southern racism history, a Black man risked being lynched by vigilantes or the Ku Klux Klan, for even looking at a Caucasian woman.

Roy Moore is accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women 

Now, Christians are wrongly defending Roy Moore's sexual misconduct because he is "one of them". They've put morality aside and claim that electing him to the US Senate, to represent Alabama, will support the Republican's agenda.  

As a matter of fact, the Republicans' political agenda is "anti-Christian". It's not Christian to do harm to immigrants, to deport children who are protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or block health care for children by refusing to vote to re-authorize the CHIPS. (Medicaid and CHIP offered free or low-cost health insurance for kids and teens. Children could access regular check-ups, immunizations, doctor and dentist visits, hospital care, mental health services, prescriptions and more.)

Nevertheless, right wing Christians and Kay Ivey, the Governor of Alabama, continue to support Roy Moore during his relentless campaign to be a US Senator. 

The New York Times reports:
Roy Moore Is Mired in a Sexual Misconduct Scandal. Here’s How It Happened.

That Roy S. Moore, the Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama, would cruise to victory seemed almost a foregone conclusion. Now, after a series of women have come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, very little is certain in a race that could have major implications for the party’s ability to govern in Washington.

Yet, Senate Republicans have distanced themselves from Mr. Moore, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and they are openly discussing the prospect of expelling him from the chamber if he wins the election. Democrats, for their part, are contemplating the near impossible: flipping a seat in a deeply red state that last elected a Democratic senator in 1990.

As voters prepare for the Dec. 12 Alabama special election — in which Mr. Moore will be on the ballot come what may — here is a breakdown of The Times’s coverage on the race since the accusations emerged.

What are the allegations?

The Washington Post reported that four women said Mr. Moore had pursued them sexually or romantically when they were 18 or younger and he was in his 30s, and one of them said that he touched her sexually when she was 14, below the age of consent.

Mr. Moore, 70, remains defiant, trying to discredit the accusers while denying the most serious charges against him and insisting that the women are part of a conspiracy to stop him from putting God at the center of American politics. Moreover, he refused to answer questions about the allegations.

Alabama G.O.P. Says It Stands Behind Roy Moore NOV. 16, 2017

In my opinion, the root of this Alabama political debate about a man who is clearly unqualified to be a US Senator is the obvious situation of his white race. For some reason, the media won't report about what is obvious. There's no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Roy Moore would already be in jail if he happened to be a Black man.  

Voting against Roy Moore is the best way for Alabamians to oppose the state's racist past and demonstrate a truly Christian response to the December 12 election.

National Rifle Association and the Ten Commandments

Recently, I was enjoying an outing on the Maine coast with a wonderful Christian couple. As nice as they are, they support gun owners rights and having the access to all the ammunition a person needs to keep weapons. It's impossible to argue with these people because, afterall, they have the cover of the Constituton's Second Amendment, the right to own guns.  

Nevertheless, Christian beliefs are in sharp contrast with the Ted Commandments.  "Thou Shall Not Kill" because guns kill.

For some strange reason, the Ted Commandments do not seem to be relevant when the Constitution gives gun ownership cover.

Yet, The Ten Commandments are so important that they are reported twice in the Bible. As far as I know, the US Constitution only mentions the Second Amendment once. The Ten Commandments are listed twice in the Hebrew Bible, first at Exodus 20:1–17, and then at Deuteronomy 5:4–21.

There's definitely a big and obvious flaw in the bizarre thinking about guns and the intrepretation of The Ten Commandments. 

Moreover, "One nation under God" said in the Pledge of Allegience, means The Ten Commandments are important and, therefore, must preceed the words in the Constitution. 

Unfortunately, gun ownership appears to carry a different set of values for some Christians. At least, it did for the Christians I was with in Maine.

Belief in the literal interpretation of Biblical Scripture seems to stop when it comes to endorsing gun ownership and Second Amendment rights, even though guns kill people. 

"Thou Shall Not Kill", incedulously, doesn't appear to apply to Second Amendment rights among Bible believers who don't believe that guns kill.  

This flawed logic falls under the cliche of "you can't make this stuff up". Americans must vote to stop the National Rifle Association from creating it's own rules and reinterpretating the words in The Ten Commandments.  

Consequently, I must ask this question.  Do members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) believe in The Ten Commandments? Or, do they think "Thou Shall Not Kill" has special considerations?

Pope Francis takes on challenges - is it just me or does he look like he enjoys his job?

Turkey-  "... three evangelical missionaries were murdered, as were a Catholic priest and a bishop. In addition, anti-Christian prejudice is intense in the Turkish media."

Syria - a framented Third World War- Pope Francis



I swear, Pople Francis seems to look younger as a Pope than he did when we knew him as a Cardinal from Argentina. Contrast Pope Francis and his vigor facing challenges, with his predecessor who appeard to carry the burdon of being Pope like the chains of St. Peter being dragged back to Rome to face Crucifixion.

Reaching out to Turkey's predominantly Muslim people isn't a job for the meek.  Nevertheless, Turkey is where the Byzantine  Orthodox Christians have shrines and sanctuaries. Supposedly, the Apostles took refuge in Turkey with Mary, the mother of Jesus, after the Resurrection, to protect her from persecution. A Marion Shrine is located in Turkey, it's at the place where Mary was until her Assumption into heaven.  

Therefore, Turkey certainly seems like a natural place for Pope Francis to begin a dialogue with Muslims. This is especially timely, because the Pope is seeking advice about how to remove the terrorist factions within Islamic extremism. 

National Public Radio (NPR) reports that Orthodox Christians are very excited about the visit, says Robert Mickens, editor in chief of Global Pulse magazine. "There is something very compelling about Francis, he is seen by other Christians, leaders and people, as somebody very special, a harbinger of a better future among the different Christian denominations," he says.

In the Muslim world, Francis has a great deal of credibility.

He won points last year for his opposition to Western military strikes against President Bashir Assad's regime in Syria and for signaling sympathy for Palestinian suffering by stopping to pray at the security barrier while visiting Israel last May.

One of the visit's thorniest issues will be the plight of Christian minorities in Turkey, which long presented itself as a model of moderation and tolerance in the Muslim world.

In recent years, three evangelical missionaries were murdered, as were a Catholic priest and a bishop. In addition, anti-Christian prejudice is intense in the Turkish media.

Moreover, Turkey bans the training of Orthodox priests, and makes it very hard for foreign clergy to get residency or work permits.

"It is of course very sad story because this is a negation of the basic right of religious freedom. If you don't have the formation of clergy, how can you sustain a church life? It is impossible," says Mustafa Aydin, a Turk who heads a center for inter-faith dialogue in Rome.

And there's the issue of the Orthodox seminary that's been shut down since 1971 – despite Turkish President Recep Erdogan's promises that it would be re-opened.

John Allen, longtime Vatican analyst, now with the Boston Globe, says the pope has the opportunity to challenge the president publicly.

"(He can) look at Erdogan in the eyes and say, 'Mr. Erdogan, re-open this seminary,'" Allen says. "That will become the litmus test as to whether Erdogan is truly serious about protecting religious pluralism and protecting Turkey's secular moderate heritage."

Just across Turkey's borders, fighting rages in what Pope Francis has called the "fragmented Third World War."

It is a world war in bits and pieces with many spots of crisis," says veteran Vatican analyst Marco Politi. Politi expects the pope will reiterate his vehement denunciations of the so-called Islamic State that has carried out massacres of Christians, Muslims and other minorities in the region.

"Certainly Pope Francis will stress the distinction between Islam as religion and violent, terrorist, fundamentalist groups who abuse and manipulate religion for political purposes," he says.

But it's the dwindling number of Christians in the Middle East who will be listening most closely to what the pope has to say, says John Allen.

"Is he going to be able to move the ball in some concrete way to give Christians in Turkey and Christians in Middle East a sense that they have a future in this region?," Allen says. "Right now the vast majority of them, they feel that they have been given a death sentence, and most of them are looking for ways to get out."

Francis has also expressed interest in a visit to border areas near Iraq or Syria to meet refugees. Up to now, Turkish officials have ruled it out on the grounds of security.

ISIS critical mass must be destroyed by taking out its leaders

Needn't be a mathmatical genius to figure out how the Islam nations are growing populations. In fact, Islam will probably grow to outnumber most of the Christian and Jewish groups involved in Middle East conflagrations and rebellions.  

Sheer numbers build critical mass.

That's one among several reasons why the Islamic State (ISIS) recruitment of thousands of fighters, every month, who join their horrific jihad, is seriously dangerous. Islam outnumbers opponents. Therefore, as powerful as air strikes are, this power alone won't destroy the rapidly growing numbers of fighters. 

Yet, boots on the  ground won't necessarily improve outcomes, either. More troops equals increasing casualties. Consequently, the only way to destroy ISIS and their recruitment is to figure out how to destroy their leadership. 

Fighters without leaders make mistakes. Divide and conquer.  

Otherwise, the growing number of ISIS fighters will continue to build a critical mass and attract even more Islam extremists, like tumble weeds attracting dust.  

ISIS Recruitment Reaches ‘Unprecedented Scale’ With 15,000 Foreign Jihadists Joining Militant Fighters

More foreign jihadists are traveling to Syria and Iraq to take up arms alongside militants of the Islamic State, or ISIS, than ever before, according to a new report from the United Nations.

The recruits came from more than 80 countries, including ones that had previously not had problems with terrorist recruitment.
Pew Research Center reports on the world's Muslim populations.

An estimated 1.6 billion Muslims live around the world, making Islam the world’s second-largest religious tradition after Christianity, according to a report from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Although many people, especially in the United States, may associate Islam with countries in the Middle East or North Africa, nearly two-thirds (62%) of Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Pew Research analysis. In fact, more Muslims live in India and Pakistan (344 million combined) than in the entire Middle East-North Africa region (317 million).

Muslims make up a majority of the population in 49 countries around the world. The country with the largest number (about 209 million) is Indonesia, where 87.2% of the population identifies as Muslim. India has the world’s second-largest Muslim population in raw numbers (roughly 176 million) though Muslims make up just 14.4% of India’s total population.

Allies who are obviously opposed to the dangerous growth of the diabolic ISIS movement and their slaughter of Christians, must figure out how to stop the group's critical mass. 

Destroying ISIS leadership is urgent. Obviously, ISIS leadership is hiding, but they  must come up for air sometime, especially to meet their vestal virgins, and that's when they must be evaporated.

Bible Belt and Pro-Life Hypocrisy

Brazilian Roman Catholic Bishop Dom Helder Camara, who said: "When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are poor they call me a communist."

“If you are not sharing God’s concern for the poor, it raises huge questions about whether you are a Christian at all,” Ronald Sider says about pastors who say nothing about the uninsured poor.

Finally, humanitarian coverage about how Christians should be calling for health care coverage for the poor.  

Bible Belt Christians have been obsessed with the abortion issue, but they haven't seemed to understand how health care is as pro-life an issue as protecting the lives of the unborn. There's virtually no difference between protecting unborn babies from death by abortion, and supporting the right for every person to access quality and affordable health care.  Christians should oppose abortion and support access to health care for all people.

In fact, it's hypocritical to oppose all abortions without also advocating for universal health care and visa versa.

Now CNN Reports:  John Blake reports

(CNN) – The Rev. Timothy McDonald gripped the pulpit with both hands, locked eyes with the shouting worshippers, and decided to speak the unspeakable.

The bespectacled Baptist minister was not confessing to a scandalous love affair or the theft of church funds. He brought up another taboo: the millions of poor Americans who won’t get health insurance beginning in January because their states refused to accept Obamacare.

McDonald cited a New Testament passage in which Jesus gathered the 5,000 and fed them with five loaves and two fishes. Members of his congregation bolted to their feet and yelled, “C’mon preacher” and “Yessir” as his voice rose in righteous anger.

“What I like about our God is that he doesn’t throw people away,” McDonald told First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta during a recent Sunday service. “There will be health care for every American. Don’t you worry when they try to cast you aside. Just say I’m a leftover for God and leftovers just taste better the next day!”

McDonald’s congregation cheered, but his is a voice crying in the wilderness. He’s willing to condemn state leaders whose refusal to accept Obamacare has left nearly 5 million poor Americans without health coverage. But few of the most famous pastors in the Bible Belt will join him. 

Joel Osteen? Bishop T.D. Jakes, and other prominent pastors throughout the South?

Like McDonald, they preach in states where crosses and church steeples dot the skyline yet the poor can’t get the health insurance they would receive if they lived elsewhere. All declined to comment.

When people talk about the Affordable Care Act, most focus on the troubled launch of its website. But another complication of the law has received less attention: a “coverage gap” that will leave nearly 5 million poor Americans without health care, according to a Kaiser Health Foundation study.

Learn more from Kaiser about the coverage gap in states that refused Obamacare

The coverage gap was created when 25 states refused to accept the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. The people who fall into this gap make too much money to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to qualify for Obamacare subsidies in their state insurance exchanges. If they lived elsewhere, they would probably get insurance. But because they live in a state that refused the new health care law, they likely will remain among the nation’s uninsured poor after Obamacare coverage kicks in come January.

The coverage gap has been treated as a political issue, but there is a religious irony to the gap that has been ignored.

Most of the people who fall into the coverage gap live in the Bible Belt, a 14-state region in the South stretching from North Carolina to Texas and Florida. The Bible Belt is the most overtly Christian region in the country, filled with megachurches and pastors who are treated like celebrities. All but two Bible Belt states have refused to accept the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.

Should Bible Belt pastors say anything publicly about the millions of poor people in their communities stranded by the coverage gap? Is it anti-Christian for state leaders to turn down help for the people Jesus called “the least of these"? Or should pastors say nothing publicly about such issues because they are strictly political?

 CNN's Sanjay Gupta explains who falls into the coverage gap

Who speaks for the poor in the coverage gap?

When these questions were sent to many of the most popular pastors in the Bible Belt, they hit a wall of silence. Virtually no prominent pastor wanted to talk about the uninsured poor in their midst.

Joel Osteen, pastor of the largest church in the nation, declined to be interviewed about the subject. So did Bishop T.D. Jakes. Their megachurches are both in Texas, the state with the nation’s highest number of people without health insurance.

Max Lucado, the best-selling Christian author who is a minister at a church in Texas, declined to speak; Charles Stanley, the Southern Baptist pastor in Georgia whose In Touch Ministries reaches millions around the globe, declined to speak; Ed Young Sr. and Ed Young Jr., a father and son in Texas who pastor two of the fastest-growing churches in the nation, also declined to speak.

Bishop T.D. Jakes declined to talk about the millions of poor people stranded in the “coverage gap."

The list goes on.
The silence is not hard to understand. Obamacare is a polarizing political issue in the Bible Belt. A pastor who publicly weighs in on the subject could divide his or her congregation or risk their job. And some prominent pastors like Osteen are popular in part because they  do not alienate fans by taking political stands.
The Rev. Phil Wages, senior pastor Winterville First Baptist Church in Georgia and a blogger, was one of the few Bible Belt ministers willing to speak on the subject.
He says he won’t preach about the coverage gap created by the state’s rejection of the Medicaid expansion because he has what he calls theological differences with the thrust of the new health care law.
Wages says the Bible teaches that the care of orphans, widows and the sick are given to the church, not to the government. Early Christians were the first to create hospitals, orphanages and hospices.
“I have an issue with the government coming in to get money through me - through taxes - to take care of people, when my argument is that I should be free to give to charities or to my church in order to take care of the sick and destitute,” he says.
Wages says he has no doubt that lack of health insurance is a monumental problem, and that many people are poor because of circumstances beyond their control. Yet there is no New Testament example of Jesus trying to shape public policy on behalf of the poor.
“I do not see any biblical precedent where Jesus ever went to Herod or Pilate and said you should be taking care of the poor,” Wages says. “Jesus told his disciples to take care of the poor and the apostles said the same thing to the early church.”

Wages’ position is impractical and unbiblical, says Ronald Sider, a longtime advocate for the poor and author of “The Scandal of Evangelical Politics."
Churches and charities don’t have enough resources to take care of an estimated 48 million Americans who don’t have health care. The Bible is filled with examples of God's fury over economic oppression of the poor, which Christians should regard as scandalous, he says.

“If you are not sharing God’s concern for the poor, it raises huge questions about whether you are a Christian at all,” he says about pastors who say nothing about the uninsured poor.
“As God’s spokespersons, you ought to be talking about God’s concern for the poor as much as God. In the richest nation in world history, it’s contradictory to have millions without health insurance.”
“It absolutely stinks”
The coverage gap may inspire a religious debate, but for its victims the issue is raw and personal.
A recent New York Times article about the coverage gap revealed that many of its victims are the working poor: cooks, cashiers, sales clerks and waitresses.
“These are people who are working people but they haven’t been able to afford health insurance or their employers don’t offer it and they’re stuck,” says Andy Miller, editor of Georgia Health News, a nonprofit news organization that covers health news in the state. “A lot of these folks have chronic health conditions.”
They are people like Shelley “Myra” Mitchell, a single mom with four children who makes $9 an hour working at a Chick-fil-A in Georgia. She makes $18,000 a year – too much for Georgia’s existing Medicaid program, but not enough to qualify for subsidies to sign up for Obamacare’s insurance marketplace in Georgia.
Mitchell’s voice grew edgy with frustration when asked to describe her health needs. She rang up about $20,000 in emergency room bills because she has no health insurance. She can’t afford to get pap smears, go to the dentist or get surgery for a two-year-old hernia. She can’t take medication for her depression and anxiety because she can’t afford it.
She thought she could get help under Obamacare but recently learned she can’t because Georgia did not accept the law’s Medicaid expansion.
“It stinks,” she says. “I’ve been dealing with this hernia for two years now, and I can’t get anyone to help me because I don’t have health insurance. It absolutely stinks.”
Why pastors should stay silent about the coverage gap
Mitchell’s plight may stink. But at what point should a pastor go public on such a complex issue, and what could he or she actually say?
Two prominent evangelical pastors openly wrestled with those questions.
Andy Stanley is one of the most popular evangelical pastors in the nation. He is the senior pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, a megachurch with at least 33,000 members. He is also the author of the forthcoming book “How to be Rich,” which urges Christians to be "rich in good deeds" instead of wealth. His church recently announced that it donated $5.2 million to Atlanta charities and provided another 34,000 volunteer hours.

Joel Osteen has the largest church in America. He also declined to speak about the coverage gap.

Stanley says the coverage gap disturbs him. The church cannot handle the needs of millions of uninsured people alone and should quit taking shots at government involvement, he says. But he adds that it’s not anti-Christian for political leaders in states like Georgia to turn down the Medicaid expansion for the poor.
“If you really want to know how concerned someone is for the poor ask them what percentage of their personal money they give to organizations that help the poor,” he says. “Ask them how much time they give to organizations that help the poor.”
Stanley says it would be difficult for any pastor to talk about the Medicaid expansion without addressing the entire law.
“I tried to imagine a scenario where I urged people to write our governor encouraging him to reconsider his decision regarding the expansion of Medicaid for the poor,” he says. “As I imagined that, I got the feeling that by the time I finished explaining the issue, people’s eyes would be glazed over.”
Pastors who don't preach one way or the other on Medicaid expansion aren't callous or apathetic, says Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. They may be suspicious of a bigger government and skeptical of whether this move will solve the problem.
“The Bible calls on Christians to answer the cries of the poor,” he says. “All Christians must do that. The question of the Medicaid expansion is a question of how we do that. I don’t hear many people arguing that we shouldn’t care about the plight of the poor when it comes to medical care. The question is a genuine debate about the role of the state.”
Moore says some people have a “utopian view” of what state power can accomplish.
“Government programs sometimes encourage dependency, unintentionally break down family structures, and become unsustainable financially,” Moore says.
Bob Coy, pastor of Calvary Chapel megachurch in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, wondered aloud about what he could, and should, say.
Florida, which has the second highest number of people without health insurance behind Texas, has not accepted the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.
Coy says he hasn’t spoken publicly about poor people missing health coverage in Florida. But he has called the governor to get more information.
“I’m not an activist guy. I don’t tell the government what to do. I am a church guy. I teach the Bible.”
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care for the poor, though, Coy says. He grew up in a poor family that couldn’t afford to go to the dentist. His church also spends a large percentage of its budget on serving the poor.
Coy says he is suspicious of large-scale programs that are publicly funded because they are often abused.
“One side of our society is saying, 'We need this,' while on the other side is saying, 'This isn’t fair and isn’t going to work.’ So how should a pastor, who has a heart to help people, respond?”
Why pastors should speak out
The Rev. Shane Stanford’s answer to Coy is simple: Talk about justice for the poor like Jesus did.
Stanford is the senior pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis and author of “Five Stones: Conquering Your Giants.”
He is also HIV-positive. He was born a hemophiliac and contracted the virus when he was 16 during treatment for his illness.
Stanford says he publicly speaks out about the millions of Americans stranded without health coverage because he knows how it feels. Once, after heart surgery, he was getting a transfusion when a nurse came into the room and pulled the needle out of his arm because she said he had maxed out his health insurance coverage.
He says standing up for people in the coverage gap is a matter of justice.
“Sometimes pastors have to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.”
Stanford ignores fellow pastors who counsel him to be silent about his state and others that refused to accept the Medicaid expansion.
“They say you have to be careful talking about political issues,” he says. “When I look at their lives, part of me thinks they never had that needle yanked out of their arm.”
Conservative pastors who urge their colleagues to avoid politics are hypocrites, says James Cone, a prominent theologian who has spent much of his career writing books condemning white churches for what he says is their indifference to social justice.
“When their own interests are involved, they are very much involved in politics,” Cone says. “Same-sex marriage and abortion – they have no trouble politically opposing them.”
Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, says a nation is defined by how it treats its most vulnerable members. But there is an entrenched hostility to poor people in America that goes unchallenged by some white, conservative Christians, he says.
“When poor people get food stamps, they get mad,” Cone says. “When the rich and corporations get tax breaks and pay no taxes, they don’t say anything.”
McDonald, the pastor who spoke out on behalf of poor people from his Atlanta church, says Jesus provided universal health care. The Gospels are filled with accounts of Jesus healing marginalized people.
“He did it for free,” McDonald says of Jesus’ healing. “The reason the crowds gathered around Jesus primarily was for healing. People want wholeness.”
Perhaps the gap between Bible Belt pastors who say nothing about the uninsured poor and those who do is also rooted in history. 
Conservative Christians have traditionally emphasized providing charity to the poor - soup kitchens, donations to impoverished people in undeveloped countries - while progressive Christians have blended charity with calls for public policy changes that help the poor.
The distinction between both approaches was distilled by a memorable quote from the late Brazilian Roman Catholic Bishop Dom Helder Camara, who said: "When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are poor they call me a communist."
That may be changing as a new generation of evangelicals rise in the Bible Belt and elsewhere. One minister who speaks to them is the Rev. Timothy Keller, a conservative Christian author who pastors a megachurch in New York.
Keller is the author of “Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just,” a popular book that argues that evangelicals should do more than preach personal salvation; they must “speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves.” He is a role model for many younger evangelicals.
“God loves and defends those with the least economic and social power, and so should we. That is what it means to ‘do justice.’ ’’
CNN.com recently contacted Keller to see if he would talk about "Generous Justice" and how it might apply to health care and the poor. Did he think pastors in Bible Belt states should say anything publicly on behalf of poor people being denied basic medical insurance? His publicist said she would contact Keller with the request.
Several days later, she returned with Keller’s answer.
He had no comment.