The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19:34 (ESV)
As we have covered, Shane Idleman used to be a decent expositor of the word. Then COVID hit and faced with dwindling tithes he went against the state to reopen his church at the height of the plague. He then was hit upside the head with the Trump idolatry stick. The Shane Idleman of today is a MAGA pastor, making his name by defending everything Trump. Today's subject is covering a recent post from Shane parroting right wing talking points about the immigrant situation. Shane sees the optics on TV with folks being carted off into war planes and is trying to pretend that somehow within the paradigm of Christan love and mercy, this is all somehow ok. The bible of course is vehemently opposed to Shane's position. The number one topic in scripture after salvation, is taking care of the least in society. I used the above verse from Leviticus but I could have chosen countless other verses as well. I used this one because I recently heard the NAR dominionist push back on this that it secretly meant something else having to do with assimilation into Israel. NONSENSE. Exposit the verse! God does not just say love the alien as yourself, which should be good enough by the way. God tells us why, which probably means He knew that some would try and twist their hatred into His word and He wanted to leave no doubt as to why. That reason is because Israel were once aliens in Egypt. Were they assimilated into Egyptian culture? Hardly. They lived separate and apart and then were enslaved for 400 years. The subject of immigration is a thorny and contentious one in this country but the primary reason for that are disinformation agents and pure blind hatred. That is bad enough but when Christians and pastors join in, it permanently damages the witness for Jesus Christ and undermines the cause of the gospel. So, let us reason once more and reset what we are supposed to be about in all things - loving and merciful.
"QUESTION: "Shouldn't we be loving and merciful to immigrants?" The biggest mistake that those who ask this question make, is that they don't differentiate between the role of government and the role of individual believers. The government is called to restrain evil. Everything Can't Be a Priority. To properly handle immigration, it must be a legal process. Second, we must prioritize citizens and citizenship " if everything is a priority, then nothing is. When an airplane loses cabin pressure, parents put on their oxygen masks first so they can then assist their child. This isn't selfishness; it's wisdom. In the same way, the governor is to put the safety of his people first. We are about to pay a heavy cost given the fact many convicted murderers are here illegally and that Gavin Newsom and California Democrats recently reached a $50M deal to Trump-proof the state. Yes, you read that correctly. Confused? So am I. It Makes No Sense." - Shane Idleman
Let me start with the obvious problem here. Shane Idleman cosplays as a pastor. He is not a politician, yet 80% of his social media activity is entire political, and entirely sold out to the Republican Party. The problem of course is he constantly mixes his faith with his politics. In doing so, he confers righteousness upon pure evil. I am not playing whataboutism games. No one is making any argument of Christian values or righteousness on the left. So, what Shane tries to do here is a not so clever sleight of hand. The question is, should we as followers of Jesus Christ be loving and merciful to immigrants. This should produce a reflexive, "of course so" from Christians and how much more from Christian pastors? If you want to make this myopically simplistic view of government, fine. It actually has a little more responsibility than this and one could argue that it is more the role of the church to resist evil than a secular government that thinks the things of God are foolishness. The sleight of hand is in abdicating our response to the government. Shane throws his hands up in the air to say, well sure I am merciful and loving but that's not the government's role! Shouldn't it be? Shouldn't the role of Christians and pastors be to help facilitate the love and mercy of Christ? I would also argue that people fleeing mortal poverty and unspeakable violence in their countries to try and survive or find a safer place for their kids should not be classified as "evil," as Shane does here. While I agree that everything cannot be a priority, shouldn't love and mercy? We are supposed to be Christians, no? The dirty little secret is that we have made the legal process so impossible, that these desperate human beings, in case we forgot in our nationalism who we are speaking of, become more desperate and try sneaking in illegally.
The second sleight of hand is this obscene NAR dominionist view that we must come first. Screw anyone who was not blessed enough to have been born in this country. They cannot be a "priority." Whatever. As if the most advanced country in the history of the world cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. The technical term for this is an excuse. Hey, I would like to be loving and merciful but you know, everything can't be a priority. Not only is this profanely unchristian, Shane tries to make the argument that being loving and merciful is not showing wisdom! Now, let's deal with the bovine excrement talking points. Do you know how many convicted murderers are here illegally? About 13,000. That is out of 11 million illegal aliens currently residing in the US. Is it 13,000 too many? Absolutely, but fix THAT problem. Attacking the 11 million and pretending your stance is righteous because of less than one percent of them is not only intellectually bankrupt but morally as well. Hey, I would like to show you love and mercy but one percent of you are really bad. Gavin Newsome is blamed here because Idleman hates him, because he is a Democrat. The legislature passed these measures that Shane refers to almost in passing because he doesn't want to get into the details. The fifty million dollars is so they have a fund to fight the legal battles Trump likes to play with Democratic states and has nothing to do with this conversation.
"I have a hard time understanding how many are silent on this issue unless it's to attract more voters to California. Just recently, California would not allow voting locations to require IDs to vote. Please tell me how this makes sense." - Shane Idleman
Sure Shane, I would be happy to. When all you listen to is the Charlie Kirks of the world, it is no wonder you are so confused. The argument about voter ID is what is known as a "red herring." What it would amount to for poor people is a poll tax because you must pay to get the ID and many do not have it because of that. It is another hurdle to try and suppress the vote. That's it. Now here is the thing they won't tell you. You need to provide identifying information when you register and in California, if you did not provide such and it is your first time voting, you will have produce ID. Here is the other thing, no one votes twice. It is a miracle to get people to vote once. Let alone vote, then secretly go vote under someone else's name in a different district and face prosecution. For what? The closest election ever was 2000 and that was 537 votes in Florida. If you think 537 people could have voted twice, and all for Al Gore, then you are crazy. The 2016 Presidential Election for example, found FOUR cases of voter fraud. Do not buy the voter fraud myth perpetuated by Republican politicians that hide behind the guise of election integrity to try and suppress the votes of the poor and minorities. That is bad enough but to have an alleged pastor parrot those talking points is despicable. So, love and mercy cannot be priorities but it's OK to focus on bogus voter ID laws? Cause you know Jesus? You remember Him, right?
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