So what do White Evangelical Protestants have to say about the US border camps? They went for Donald Trump in record numbers in the 2016 election for US president – he got 81% of their vote. And yet, surely, the camps, which most experts call concentration camps, go against their Christian morals, right?
Right?
Here is what I found:
There are three main schools of thought:
- Court evangelicals – defend Trump. These are the White evangelical leaders who have become one of Trump’s Flying Monkeys (pictured above), having pretty much sold their soul to him. They are people like Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham), Jerry Falwell Jr (son of Jerry Falwell), and James Dobson (Focus on the Family). The camps break Dobson’s heart, for example, but he blames Obama not Trump and then goes full nativist. He needs a post of his own. Falwell belittles evangelicals who speak out against the camps (see below).
- Evangelical leaders – speak out against the camps, just as you would hope good Christian leaders would. See below for two examples of that. But they are crying in the wilderness:
- The rank and file – believe Fox News, for the most part, when it comes to immigration, not church leaders. Fox News these days is a propaganda outlet for Trump. Court evangelicals regularly appear on Fox News.
Business model: Fox News and many White evangelical pastors follow a business model where they grow and maintain a large, loyal audience by telling them what they want to hear. They are not there to inform or challenge, not really. At least some of the evangelical leadership at the national level, though, seems to be more responsible:
Some examples of #2:
The NAE (National Association of Evangelicals) on June 27th 2019:
“As evangelical Christians, we believe that all people — regardless of their country of origin or legal status — are made in the image of God and should be treated with dignity and respect. Overcrowded and unsanitary conditions are inappropriate for anyone in detention, but particularly for children, who are uniquely vulnerable. Jesus reserves some of his strongest words of judgment for those who subject children to harm.”
Russell Moore, head of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest evangelical denomination in the US, tweeted this on June 25th:
“The reports of the conditions for migrant children at the border should shock all of our consciences. Those created in the image of God should be treated with dignity and compassion, especially those seeking refuge from violence back home. We can do better than this. https://t.co/Cv3AmJgypn: [link to an AP story]”
An example of #1 (court evangelists):
Jerry Falwell Jr replied to Russel Moore, saying:
“Who are you @drmoore ? Have you ever made a payroll? Have you ever built an organization of any type from scratch? What gives you authority to speak on any issue? I’m being serious. You’re nothing but an employee- a bureaucrat.”
To which Twitter user Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) said:
“Did Jesus ever meet a payroll?”
– Abagond. 2019.
Sources: NAE, historian John Lea.
See also:
- US border camps
- First they came …
- White Evangelical Protestants
- James Dobson
- slaveholder religion
- The Republican bubble
- Roy Moore
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My challenge to the White Evangelicals: Bring your loaves and fishes to the US border camps. ‘And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.’ -Isaiah 30:21
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The Evilgelicals are who they are. Not sure what brand of Christianity they are subscribing to. This is the antithesis the teachings of Jesus.
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I call them radical so called Christians.
Some people get mixed up when the read the Bible too much!
I call it selective reading. Many read more of the Old Testament then the New.
Study the history of the Christians taking Spain back from the Muslims.
The KKK sported the Bible!
The south east portion of the US has a very difficult time with this subject.
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Typo: ^^^This is the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus.
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evangelical christians are typically baptist or pentecostal
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I had enough exposure to this thinking when I was growing up.
My maternal grandfather was a deacon in a Southern Baptist Church in Alabama and my maternal grandmother was the church librarian in another Southern Baptist Church nearby. I attended church with them when I was a young child, but could no longer bear to do it when I was a teenager. I don’t want to hear that my very existence was an abomination to God.
I attended an Independent Baptist Church (in MD) while I was a teenager for a while and attended their retreat to the “mother” church in Chattanooga, TN. First time I had seen a megachurch with over 10,000 attendees. That was after the church I attended opened up an academy to avoid going to school with the, well … can’t say it, after the mandatory desegregation.
I felt that the churches (and their congregation) preached so much hate that I could not stand it. And I often felt that I was the target of that hate. During and after the Vietnam war, there were congregation members who believed that certain people needed to be eliminated from “their” country. These are people we are talking about, “God’s Children”.
So, I left and went to university in Massachusetts near Boston. That was right after the desegregation there, so sentiments were still hostile, but I found much less overt hate preaching there. They practice geographic segregation in Massachusetts (v. social segregation in Alabama). There were many more Catholics there, and I guess they were beset with their own scandals.
When I went back to the DC area, I attended a church for a while that held services in Chinese. That was a world of difference from the White Evangelical churches I had attended before. For example, they seemed to tolerate that people could hold a variety of beliefs (including eg, Buddhist and Taoist beliefs) and still be Christian. And I didn’t hear any of that hate preaching.
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