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Alright, which word above should not be associated with the others in the title? Don't fight it. Your answer says it all.
Most Christians believe that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead to bring God's grace and mercy to ALL people. Catholics rejoice in the universality of Christ's redemptive reach annually during Eastertide and daily by their participation in the Eucharist, as they celebrate the memorial of, the participation in and the sacramental reenactment of Christ's victory over sin and death through his passion, death and resurrection for all peoples everywhere.
To Catholics, Christ's redeeming death and resurrection for all bestows on every person an inherent dignity shared with all human beings, already lifted up through creation by God to his image and likeness, but then broken through sin. Through his Resurrection Jesus was not merely brought back to life to die again like Lazarus; he was transformed. Through the power of his Resurrection, Jesus does not simply revive humans either; he transfigures those who manifest their acceptance of his grace through love and raises them to a life without funerals. ALL of them.
In Galatians 3:28, we are reminded of the intrinsic worth of every human being beyond all circumstances: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." In today's America, that list would supernaturally include "illegal immigrants as well as Blacks, Hispanics, the disabled, those of other or no religion, Jews, Asian people, gay, trans and all the other targets of hate crimes. Jesus said that those who enable and support hate are not his true disciples. Instead He says that his true disciples can be identified by the love they have for the least of His brothers and sisters, for they too are called to be transformed by Christ's resurrection.
The hard part of being a Christian is that Christians don't get to pick and choose whom to love. Christ came to rid mankind of hate for anyone, not to encourage Christians to hate others.. Right wing media falsely repeat migrants are change their faith, their lives, their values, their culture, their freedom, and their country FOR THE WORSE, NOT THE BETTER.
In his 1937 novel, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck described the vulnerability, the dashed dreams, and the cruel lives of George Milton, Lonnie Small and other migrant workers during the Great Depression. Like those in Steinbeck's short novel, today's migrants do backbreaking work to keep the cost of food, homes and road/bridge (re) construction and repair, restaurants, domestic help, landscaping— you name it— from sky-rocketing beyond today's already inflated prices. Contrary to widespread hogwash, migrants do not get a government-provided $5K in cash, credit cards, free cell phones and housing, non-emergent healthcare and food. But they do get get things like nickel and dime wages to manicure and landscape large estates in places like the Hampton's where a fancy restaurant's salad can cost $100. Migrants are often hated the way our own ancestors were hated, when during the 19th and early 20th centuries, they entered by the tens of millions through what for all practical purposes, were open borders.
Christians so easily forget the lessons of Christian discipleship. In their hatred for migrants, wide swaths of Americans in different Christian denominations have rejected Christ's command to love everyone without exception. They have chosen a leader who does so too. They have granted him messianic status to speak authoritatively on God's behalf. They launder his misdeeds and parrot his lies.
However, one who is really "Chosen by God" is a person of universal love, not selective hate. He doesn't invoke personal privilege to loathe or abuse the marginalized or his legal freedom of speech to signal his followers to inflict bodily harm on others. He does not betray allies fighting for their lives. He does not suggest allowing victims of forced mass starvation tin Gaza o be finished off. He is not called by God to depersonalize classes of human beings with obscenities like "vermin: or "animals," or "poisoning our blood," especially when he had employed and exploited illegal migrants as laborers on this own properties, and, as President, approved large-scale immigration enforcement actions targeting illegal workers in companies other than his own.
"Vermin." "Animals." "Poisoning blood." That is exactly the kind of language that incited the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity during my lifetime and memory by people in countries where the populations were largely Christian. Yet that language fails to shock today. Good pagans don't talk and act like that and here we are, worried PAGANS are going to hell unless they become Christians like us who live in a country some insist be called a Christian Nation. In thirty six of the least cherry-picked Scriptural passages. the Bible teaches an ethic of outpouring hospitality toward strangers. This commandment to love everyone applies above all to a leader who publicly clothes himself in righteousness, proclaims the Bible to be his favorite book and includes the sale of copies of the Holy Scriptures in his for-profit product line, along with perfume, trading cards, sneakers, his mugshot, and pieces of the suit he wore for the mugshot at $4699.63 a suit piece.
Jesus warned us to carefully evaluate prophets, that is, self-styled messengers of God, claiming to speak on His behalf. Jesus said you could tell those who spoke for Him if you observed their actions and the fruits of their actions as well as their outward appearance or public words alone. One obsessed with profit most definitely is not a messenger of God. Love of God is not the love of money. True spokesmen of Christ speak clearly of unity. False spokesmen speak the language of vindictive divisiveness..
True spokesmen of Christ seek to reconcile others with God and with each other, in alignment with God's truth and love for all. False spokesmen seek to alienate people from each other by stoking discord through appealing to resentments and threatening revenge to those who do not promise unconditional loyalty.
Some may hate those who say this, but a self-styled Christian leader has no more license to hate and threaten ANYONE with violence than his enabling followers do. The hatred of anyone, including lowly migrants, called to be "temples of God," by a Christian leader or his enabling followers is the rejection of a person transformed by the Resurrection of Christ and thereby, the denial of the transforming Resurrected Christ Himself.
The God revealed in Jesus Christ is the God of Love, not hate. His concern, as expressed in Jesus self-emptying through his incarnation is for others, not for Himself. His signature message is the Sermon on the Mount, not the Tweet of the Day. His gift to those who offend him is mercy, not retribution. He says he is "the Way, not the harbinger of Bloodbaths; the Truth, not the Big Lie, and "the Life," not the instigator of death threats. Still, belief in such a misguided charismatic leader referring to other human beings as "vermin, animals and poisoning our blood" may be a religion alright. It just isn't a form of Christianity Jesus would recognize.
Tim Mannello is a retired hospital system executive and business consultant residing in Williamsport.