The Only Illegal Immigration Facts You Need to Know

Misconceptions, Myths, and Facts about Illegal Immigrants in America (and Everywhere):

Isn’t this the only one thats important? Deuteronomy 10:19 by way of the NIV reminds us:

19 And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

Jesus stood with the outcast and the refugee again and again. Thats because he was a refugee. He was the one from Nazareth who didn’t fit the mold of the public officials and elite church leaders of his day. And he loved everyone, regardless of skin color or geographical origin. He didn’t use spreadsheets, immigrant quotas, DNA, or blood percentage to determine if he loved someone and treated them with respect.

Our national principles likewise stand in sharp contrast to demonizing those who come from distant shores be they england, Germany, Japan, Italy, or from Sudan. For instance, these famous words are emblazened on our statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Indeed, our own Declaration of Independence points out, “We are all born by a creator with certain inalienable rights and that among those rights are the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Those fundamental rights don’t and shouldn’t change because you are from Germany, Germantown, or New Guiena.

What’s more, dehumanizing and stereotyping immigrants who fall outside the quota limits by calling them “illegals” as xenophobic pundits often do, is hardly the call of compassion and mercy that Jesus’ model embraces instead of resorting to veiled forms of discrimination based on national origin contravening our Constitutional principles. For those who are fleeing dictatorship, oppression, and genocide, this only doubles the injustice and alienation they experience.

We should change our immigration policy to reflect more humane and Jesus-like compassion for our immigrant brothers and sisters.

Free Screening in Nashville and Everywhere Online: Golden Rule Politics

Free Public Screening: Golden Rule Politics: Reclaiming the Rightful Role of Faith in Politics. Produced by Baptist Center for Ethics.

This DVD offers an antidote to the prevailing myth that GOP stands for “God’s Only Party.” The 35-minute DVD challenges the Christian Right’s political myth constructed over 25 years that the Republican Party is America’s moral party, the party of God’s favor.

Screening Sponsor: Doing Justly at Second Presbyterian Church.

Confirmed Panelists:

Tim Alexander, minister, Smith Springs Church of Christ
William Buchanan, pastor, Fifteenth Avenue Baptist Church
Gray Sasser, chairman, Tennessee Democratic Party
Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, associate pastor, New Covenant Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and assistant professor of religion at Belmont University

Date:
Thursday November 8, 2007
7pm-9pm

Check out Cool People Care for more info. You can also check it out in short segments online here.

Contact:
info@ethicsdaily.com
615-415-2348
more information
Address:
Second Presbyterian Church
3511 Belmont Boulevard
Nashville, TN 37215

Bible Verses on Social Justice and Poverty | Jesus Creed on McLaren’s “Everything Must Change”

Bible Verses on Social Justice and Caring for the Poor

Jesus Creed just posted this review of Everything Must Change:

What does Jesus have to say about equity?

Here are some passages where McLaren thinks Jesus somehow subverts the equity system of his day:

1. Matt 5:25-26: seek reconciliation outside the system.
2. Matt 18:23-35: “penal fairness that requires punishment by the book but lacks mercy isn’t the kind of justice desired by God” (246).
3. Matt 20:1-16: an economy of care for the common good … “social sustainability, healing, and transformation” (247).
4. Luke 16 — the so-called “unjust” steward presumes on a meaning of “just” Jesus doesn’t use. Jesus evidently sees the whole system as unjust and praises a man who defects from the system.
5. Luke 16:13-15 — serving God or mammon and Pharisees who loved money.
6. Followers of Jesus are to have a “justice” that outstrips that of the Pharisees and scribes.
7. He invites the excluded to banquets (Luke 14): read the chp in Luke — potent rhetoric.
8. His treatment of women is similar at undoing systemic injustice; his treatment of children and he washes feet — all subversions of the system.

What does holiness mean? He appeals to John Wesley, for whom holiness was social holiness. Then he appeals to Walter Rauschenbusch to show that holiness transcends the personal; then to Jacques Ellul on rank individualism. “We have in many ways responded to the big global crises of our day with an incredible, shrinking gospel” (252).

The invisible hands of free markets will not undo the systemic injustices of the equity system.

What to do? Check out Jesus Creed for the answer.

Thoughts? Interesting that most of the verses come from Matthew and Luke.

thanks to Carf for the flickr photo

God Weeps

In my explorations of the blogosphere today I ran across these thoughful words from Henri Nouwen:

“When God looks at our world, God weeps. God weeps because the lust for power has entrapped and corrupted the human spirit. Instead of gratitude there is resentment, instead of praise there is criticism, instead of forgiveness there is revenge, instead of healing there is wounding, instead of compassion there is competition, instead of cooperation there is violence, and instead of love there is immense fear.

“God weeps when God looks at our beautiful planet and sees thousands of maimed bodies lying on the battlefields, lonely children roaming the streets of big cities, prisoners locked behind bars and thick walls, mentally ill men and women wasting their time in the wards of large institutions, and millions of people dying from starvation and neglect. God weeps because God knows the agony and anguish we have brought upon ourselves by wanting to take our destiny in our own hands and lord it over others.”

Wow! Thoughts?

UPDATE:  If you would like to learn more about Henri you can check out the Henri Nouwen Society’s webpage or his reading group blog.

(h/t to Mike Cope)
thanks to tanakawho for the flickr photo

I agree with “Planet in Peril”…now what???? How can I save the planet? 60 Practical Ways

What are we to do with a “Planet In Peril?” Here are 9 suggestions for personal action from Dr. Matthew Sleeth:

• Set up a recycling program at my workplace, church, or school.
• Cut way back on the Christmas frenzy.
• Give away or sell anything and everything that is cluttering my life. Donate the proceeds to charity.
• Use no pesticides or chemicals on my lawn or garden.
• Instead of a birthday gift or flowers for a funeral, send a donation to charity.
• Start a study group on what the Bible says about caring for creation.
• Ask my utility company to conduct an energy audit on my home and follow up on their advice, and do the same for my church.
• Follow our grandmother’s advice: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Want to save the planet? Dr. Matthew Sleeth suggests finding information about energy conservation at Energy Star as well as at the Serve God Save the Planet website where he suggests Time Magazines 51 Things We Can Do to Save the Environment. Finally, you might like my a couple of my 25+ suggestions for saving the environment from Blog Action Day. Finally, you might also check out I Need to Change or 43Things.

Thoughts? What did you think of CNN’s “Planet in Peril”?

thanks to Ari Hahn for the flickr photo

Respecting God’s Creation

I ran across this insightful quote about protecting the environment:

If we are participants in God’s story, then care for the earth is not a political issue or a contemporary cause. It is instead an essential part of our identity that we either ignore or embrace. We have the choice of whether our lives will bless what God has made, or only take from what God has made.

Thoughts?

Is a more open, compassionate, and Christian response to gays and lesbians possible?

National Association of Evangelicals, Christianity, and GLBT Rights

The folks from the National Association of Evangelicals and other leading church leaders think so. They articulate this vision in the later pages of the just released “Come Let Us Reason Together:”

Come Let Us Reason Together outlines new, common-ground approaches on the toughest cultural matters, including abortion, gay and lesbian issues, the treatment of human embryos, and the role of religion in the public square.

This community of Christian evangelicals highlights:

Progressives’ and Evangelicals’ shared commitment to human dignity, and also the Golden Rule, has hopeful implications for creating a foundation of mutual respect with regard to one of the most difficult cleavages between these two groups—attitudes about public policies that relate to gay and lesbian people.

We believe that in the midst of real differences, there are shared principles that are rooted in respect for human dignity, and commitments to both the Golden Rule and religious liberty. These shared principles will not resolve the very real differences with respect to many policies, but should provide a shared foundation for more productive discussion.

Human dignity is innate. For Evangelicals and many other religious people, human dignity is grounded ultimately in a belief that all are created in the image of God; for others, it is an innate feature of our shared humanity. For all, human dignity is not a function of what we do but of who we are: all members of a common human family.

Protecting the human rights and dignity of all, even for those with whom one disagrees, is not only a consistent thing to do; it is a proud American tradition and a high moral and religious calling. America was founded on the principle that all have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and one of the deepest insights that is common to virtually all faith and moral traditions is that we should want for our brothers and sisters the same protections, public benefits, and opportunities we want for ourselves.

No legislation to protect the human dignity of gay and lesbian people should or need abridge the religious liberty of religious communities. Religious liberties and civil liberties are grounded in the same constitutional principles and
must go forward together. Religious groups have a constitutionally protected right to manage their own communities, regulate their own religious practices, and express their beliefs publicly on issues around homosexuality.

The Bible leaves the role of judging for God. It suggests that humans should first and foremost love their fellow human beings. The current strategy of building walls on both sides is an abject failure. Only a world in which let go of our fears and stereotypes and we come to the table for both dialouge and compromise do we have a hope of any sort of significant change.

At the end of the day: we’re all God’s children. We’re called to love our brothers and sisters. We’re called to love folks who, just like us are broken. A proliferation of fingerpointing, name calling, stereotypes, and shunning isn’t consonant with the love for our fellow human beings and certainly is counterproductive in terms of evangelism. (John 8:1-11)

Equally, GLBT folks hopefully will recognize that the church isn’t a monolyth and some churches are going through an ideological revolution as it struggles to grasp with the realities of life and faith in 2007. Openness to those changes and realization that the transition to a more open, loving, and diverse church will be less than perfect is critically important.

Thoughts?

Stand Up and Speak Out about Poverty and Inequality

These folks have a YouTube channel and are launched a Twitter and even a PodCamp. How’s that for groundbreaking? Chris Brogan has great coverage. Mahalo has a pretty decent rundown of some sweet poverty resources.

This is a problem internationally and domestically. More locally, Richard Florida in his book the Creative Class warns:

“The top 1 percent of households earned 20 percent of all income and held 33 percent of all net worth. The US hasn’t witnessed an income gap like this since the Gilded Age.”

Dave Richards thinks the answer is micro-finance. What do you think? Is microfinance a viable solution domestically and internationally? What model is best?

Whose afraid of abortion, stem cells, and religion?

Can we establish a “Bridge Across Troubled Waters?” Well here’s hoping we can. In fact, here’s tangible proof we can. Yesterday people from “with backgrounds in the National Association of Evangelicals and People for the American Way” gathered to present a pragmatic vision for a way forward forward across five key salient public issues:

Come Let Us Reason Together outlines new, common-ground approaches on the toughest cultural matters, including abortion, gay and lesbian issues, the treatment of human embryos, and the role of religion in the public square.

As a political imperative open dialogue is needed to bridge the perceived divides of ideology, ethnicity, and difference. The need for common ground in the increasingly partisan political landscape is imperative if we are to have nurturing communities and innovative public policy that meets the needs our changing society.

For coverage from Katie Barge at Faith in Public Life check out their blog here. You can also check out short clips of the launch.

Click here to get Come Let Us Reason Together: A Fresh Look at Shared Cultural Values between Evangelicals and Progressives to see these new political and social alliances formed on these usually rhetorically barbed issues.

I will publish issue coverage of the issues, including fatherhood and children online, later this afternoon. So is there a Third Way? Is there a way forward? Do you agree with the faith-based analysis?

thanks to Owen B. for the flickr photo

Whither Compassionate Conservatism?

Compassionate Conservatism and Health Care for Children

Rev. Anne Howard wonders “Whatever happened to compassionate conservatism?”

Remember the phrase “compassionate conservatism?” If you can’t remember, that’s OK, because that oxymoron has died several deaths already, in the sands of Iraq, the floodwaters of Katrina, and the classrooms of schools Left Behind. And there’s one more death on the way: our compassionate conservative President is threatening to veto S-CHIP, the proven and popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program that has won wide and deep bi-partisan support in both the House and Senate. 

Rev. Howard continues: 

Maybe he hasn’t heard that it covers 10 million uninsured children.   

Wow! Julie Clawson, also in the clergy, wonders why the administration is turning a blind eye to “the least of these” by ignoring the health needs of 10 million children. Is this our definition of success as a nation? Success in protecting our principles? I ran across this poem about success by one of our nations leading intellectuals, Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
And endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty,
To find the best in others,
To leave the world a bit better;
whether by a healthy child,
A garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.”   

Its profoundly tragic that these 10 million children won’t get to live a life of success and won’t get their own taste of the American dream because of a cold and apathetic health policy. What exactly is compassion, if it isn’t protecting and nurturing these 10 million innocent lives? They are certainly the “collateral damage” of this administration’s radically bankrupt policy of compassionate conservatism.

thanks to Sipula for the photo at the top and the poem from Emerson. to Su-chan for the flickr photo below.

Roadtrip through evangelical America: Zack and Elizabeth Exley hit the road to document the unsung stories of 4th Great Awakening

I read Zack Exley’s blog.  I first encountered Zack by reading his piece on evangelical progressivism, which featured folks like Rob Bell and Jim Wallis.  While these ideas weren’t new to me, the article offered new perspective on the movement.Well, I popped over to my handy Google Reader for my daily dose of hard hitting blogs and noticed that Zack and his wife have a new project.  They are hitting the road and looking to interview folks in the movement or what they describe as the fourth Great Awakening.   The movement, however transcends some of our typical notions of what politics is.  To me at least, this movement erases the demarcation between the personal and political, so that every day action is both an act of God-based personal faith and political transformation.  This radical politics is partially encapsulated in this post on Missional Living that reminds me a lot of my reading of Shane Claiborne’s Irresistible Revolution. Apparently, the movement is growing so much that its getting some traction in the traditionally Christian conservative territory at Regent University:

Her missions team sees Church mission work in terms of four levels: She called the first the “Cadillac” level—as in driving through a poor community in a Cadillac, throwing money out the window. The next is the “Popcorn” level, where church members pop in and pop out of oppressed communities, e.g., going to a soup kitchen for a few hours, dropping off a Thanksgiving turkey to a family, etc…. The third level is the “Relational” level, where church members actually get into life relationships with those in need.But their church, like many others these days, is attempting to move towards a fourth level, “Missional Living“, which means totally altering your life and lifestyle in order to live completely and totally in the service of others—”sacrificially,” in their language.   

Interesting. So, the Exley’s put their lives in DC on hold and are taking to the road to document the new, more progressive evangelical movement that lives out the message of Matthew 25. The Exley’s are quite passionate about this:

[T]here is an incredibly large and beautiful social movement exploding among evangelicals right now that stands for nearly all of the same causes and goals that secular progressives do. Those goals include: eliminating poverty, saving the environment, promoting justice and equality along racial, gender and class lines and for immigrants—and even separation of church and state.By learning to work together with “progressive” evangelicals, secular progressives will stand a better chance of achieving their goals and also learn an enormous amount from these remarkable people and their organizations that will help secular progressives strengthen their own movement.   

You can learn about their mission at Heartland Innovators and their journey at Revolution in Jesus Land.

So—welcome to Jesusland. We hope you enjoy the tour.   

thanks to Ohad* for the creative commons flickr photo of the Awakening and Fototwerp for the photo of Route 66.

Confessions of an imperfect tree hugger…

Actually I wish I was a much better tree hugger. I strive to be better in my personal environmental ethic by informing myself and adjusting my own personal behaviors. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this…but its certainly frustrating to want to recycle in public and see no recycling bin on the horizon. Does anyone else feel like the recycling movement has stalled?

I read Becky Garrison’s Red and Blue God and Black and Blue Church earlier this summer. It has a great analysis across a range of salient political issues, including the environment from a faith-based perspective. One great quote she highlighted:

“Only after the last tree has been cut down; only after the last river has been poisiones; only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money can’t be eaten.” Cree prophecy

For more information check out Becky’s book and reviews or the Evangelical Environmental Network

thanks to Jeirdan for the creative commons flickr photo

“Who speaks for evangelicals?” and the Colbert Report

Given that I’m packing up I’m a little short on time. Faith and Public Life posted this article from the USA Today about “Who Speaks for Evangelicals?”

The article juxtaposes the values of the old. vs. new guard on faith issues;

True, on cultural touchstone issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research, there is no difference between the Old Guard and the New Guard: All are equally opposed. But the younger pastors want to broaden the evangelical agenda beyond what Hunter calls “below the belt” issues linked to sexuality. For them, people of faith should engage issues such as AIDS, Darfur, economic justice, war and peace, prison reform and human trafficking. For Dobson and Robertson, this represents an unacceptable dilution of focus and a squandering of political capital.

Its very troubling for me that Dobson and Robertson see this as in issue of cold and calculated political capital, rather than voting based on a Biblically principled consideration of the issues. Thats seems like a crystal clear case of prioritizing politics over faith. So Biblically sound values play second fiddle to the mechinations and fluctuations of the latest polling data. Sweet! I’m sorry if that seems entirely upside down to me. Making your principles sacrificial lambs, doesn’t seem like a sound brand for the church or any personal endeavour, for that matter.

Second, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend author of Failing America’s Faithful was on the Colbert Report recently and talks about how the Religious Right has “shrunk God” and misses large sections of the Jesus’ message that deal with social justice, poverty, and love.

On a side note, this is a curious article in the Washington Times. It seems as if the Right is may begin an intentional strategy of minimizing values issues, as they see their strength and monopoly on values lost to the democrats on values issues.

What do you think? What do you think about this new movement of individuals determining for themselves how to vote? Do you think the second article was written to steer feligious right in a crisis? Do you see an old vs. new guard emerging? Is this a good trend? Does it potend good things for people of faith? What are God’s politics? For lack of a better term What Would Jesus Do? What did you think of what Colbert or Kathleeen Kennedy Townsend had to say? Compelling? Correct?

Corporate Corruption, Poverty, and the Christian Response

 
Jim Wallis of Sojourners on Global Poverty and Christian Compassion

A few thoughts on how neglectful policies fuel the erosion of family from the pages of Jim Wallis’ book “God’s Politics“…

Global Poverty and Family Values

“Indeed, what can destroy family life and values is losing a job that provides the capacity to support your family or being unable to find affordable housing, quality health care, or educational opportunity for your children. Conversely, steady employment at a livable family income, access to health care, a path to homeownership, and the chance to send your kids to good schools can lay the best foundation for solid and successful family values.”
~Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners

Corporate Corruption and Global Poverty

“Today it is large corporations that push down wages, cut health benefits, lay off workers, and export good jobs overseas; they are the biggest violators of ‘family values’ and the principal force destabilizing family life in America”
~Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners

Militarism, Budgets, and Global Poverty: Interdependent Issues

“We must have a clear moral message. Budgets with billions of dollars of increases for the military and massive tax cuts for the wealthiest—while cutting funding for overcoming poverty—should be named as morally unacceptable. Rather, funding for real solutions to poverty needs to be increased. Let’s reward people’s efforts to improve their lives.”
~Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners

Hyper Affluence and Greed vs. Global Poverty

“More and more we see how our anxious striving after affluence has also created spiritual poverty. It is the great myth of modern advertising that mere prosperity can give us happy, fulfilled, and purposeful lives. Nobody wants to say out loud that shopping doesn’t satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart.”
~Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners

What do you think? Is the Christian response to turn away from these atrocities? Should Christians be taking a stand on these issue? How can the situation be changed? How can political and economic power be checked sufficiently and kept accountable? Any authors or verses or examples you like on the issue of poverty?

Separation of Church and State & the Public Sphere Part II

Separating Church and State: An Analysis of the Legal and Political Issues

What does exactly does separation of church and state mean? While I agree with some of the sentiments those that would call for extreme secularism express, I don’t see how a person expressing their views in the public square is a bad thing. Its very important that it says “freedom of religion” not “freedom from religion.” Second, it seems that if we suppress leaders from talking about their views it would be a violation of their First Amendment right to free speech and if they internally did so it would be betraying their very identity. Third, as long as the politics of faith always gets back to respecting and protecting both human dignity and the common good, it shouldn’t matter what rhetoric its wrapped in.

I was reading a couple chapters from Jim Wallis God’s Politics between bouts of reality TV last night and came across three key notion that dovetail the issues about separation of church and state outlined above:

“One invokes the name of God and faith in order to hold us accountable to God’s intentions—to call us to justice, compassion, humility, repentance, and reconciliation. Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King perhaps best exemplify this say.”

Our largest empowerment initiatives to throw off the shackles of oppression were the “anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, the fight for children’s labor laws, and the civil rights movement—[which all] had overt religious roots and motivations”

“Not everyone in America has the same religions values, of course. And many moral lessons are open to interpretation. But by withdrawing into secularism, the Democrats deprive Americans of an important debate”

I think Jim is onpoint on all three accounts. A call to erase religion from the public square would be a draconian and discriminatory witch hunt, which no one wants. And it would roll back the clock on many of our nation’s most precious civil and individual rights. So as the feminists pronounce, the personal is political. Its inevitable that faith is intertwined with politics. Therefore, its up to us to make sure that it’s accountable and that its used in the service of human dignity and the common good. After all, isn’t that the litmus test for all good public policy?

Any feelings on the issue? Is the GOP being responsible with its interpretation of God’s politics? How about the Democrats? Are there ethical issues they are neglecting in their respective platforms which they should address?

Christian Voters Guide: Discerning God’s Politics in the Media Frenzy

A Call for a Closer Walk: A Movement for a More Compassionate Christianity
Infusing the compassion and love of Jesus in our daily lives and politics is no easy task. Speaking truth to powers and principalities and even our friends, family, and neighbors is a difficult and sometimes emotionally prickly process. But as people of faith [and humans ] were often faced with hard decisions and its the hard decisions that most prove our character as Christian followers of God.

I’ve been reading fellow Christian, Becky Garrison’s thoughts, who personal, insightful, and ultimately faithful. Her book, Red and Blue God: Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churchs are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes and Worshipping the Almighty Dollar is a great compannion to Jim Wallis God’s Politics or Michael Lerner’ The Left Hand of God. She offers three key suggestions when faced with a tough faith-based political decision:

Christian Voters: Follow the Money
“By all means, examine the policies advanced by politicians who claim to be speaking for Christ to see if their pronouncments reflect the Gospel Truth or the whims of those who are bankrolling their campaigns.”

Prayerful Investigation and Discernment for Christian Voters
But when you speak out or preach against, “…ungodly behaviour, pray about how to frame the discussion, so you are honing in on the policy and not the person. Disagree with what they say but continue to love them as brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s that hate-the-sin-but-love-the-sinner-business. Deal with it.”

Becky’s story and life experience
“I know from firsthand experience how difficult it can be to put Christ’s radical love into daily practice. It seems next to impossible, but Jesus considered it our number one priority. That’s why they call it a Commandment.”

Hopefully, Becky’s words of wisdom can help you on your faith-path as you as Christian voters delve more deeply into your personal, political, and spiritual life. It seems by doing so can we really breathe new life into our personal faith lives and reach new spiritual heights in our relationship with God.

For a dose of humor-filled insight by Becky, check out the Wittenburgdoor You can also check out more info on Becky and related authors at the Burnside Writer’s Collective

Christian Voters: Got Christian faith and politics questions?
Finally, inform yourself about the hijacking of faith by checking out Chapter 1 of Becky Garrison’s Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church

Upcoming later today…the Environment and Faith & Christianity meets commercialism