A word from Iraq

Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Erbil, Iraq, has some much-needed perspective noticeably absent in the overheated debate about US immigration.

Everyone, including the [Trump] administration, seems to agree that this [temporary travel ban] should have been implemented with more clarity. There was much confusion about what the order meant and many people were very upset.

From my perspective in Iraq, I wonder why all of these protesters were not protesting in the streets when ISIS came to kill Christians and Yazidis and other minority groups. They were not protesting when the tens of thousands of displaced Christians my archdiocese has cared for since 2014 received no financial assistance from the U.S. government or the U.N. There were no protests when Syrian Christians were only let in at a rate that was 20 times less than the percentage of their population in Syria.

I do not understand why some Americans are now upset that the many minority communities that faced a horrible genocide will finally get a degree of priority in some manner.

That is what I would like to know. Where were all these protesters when Yazidis and Christians were being killed? Where was the media outrage? Did Hollywood stand in solidarity with the victims of ISIS? Of course, to ask the question is to answer it....

The bishop also had this to say:

I would also say this, all those who cry out that this is a “Muslim Ban” - especially now that it has been clarified that it is not - should understand clearly that when they do this, they are hurting we Christians specifically and putting us at greater risk. The executive order has clearly affected Christians and Yazidis and others as well as Muslims.

Please pray for the victims of persecution by religious fanatics in the Middle East. The US media, Hollywood and academia may have forgotten them, but God has not.

Not Joseph nor Mary

This little item caught my eye: Churches offer refuge for Central Americans facing U.S. deportation.

Key quote:

Leaders of the multi-denominational Sanctuary Movement, which has sheltered at least 10 immigrants from deportation over the past 18 months, joined in the criticism on Friday, alluding to the biblical Nativity story of Mary and Joseph seeking refuge before the birth of Jesus.

"As pastors we know that each and every family is a holy family," said the Rev. Alison Harrington, pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona. "We open our doors to today's Josephs and Marys. ... The gift we have to offer on Christmas Day is the gift of sanctuary."

The biblical illiteracy of these "pastors" is staggering. First of all, Joseph and Mary were not refugees (nor were they homeless, which is the other falsehood that is usually trotted out at this time of year). Instead, they were legal residents of their home country. Joseph and Mary were forced to journey to Bethlehem by a government determined to make them pay more taxes. The illegal aliens being lauded by these churches are lawbreakers and (in some cases) violent criminals.

This issue is of great personal interest to me. Last week my wife became an American citizen - legally. It irritates me that the false teachers and prophets of the Sanctuary Movement are willing to use racial and ethnic hatred for political gain. The Sanctuary Movement is a deliberate slap in the face of all legal immigrants such as my wife. The Sanctuary Movement has also shamelessly played the race card in its utter contempt for the law and its scorn for the reasonable objections to uncontrolled immigration many Americans have.

Christians must love our neighbors as ourselves. Because the Sanctuary Movement promotes lawlessness and contempt for others it cannot be considered Christian.

Immigration

Yesterday my wife and I went to San Antonio for her citizenship interview. This has been a long process, and we are thankful it is over. Praise God for removing all barriers and knocking down all obstacles so that my wife may become a US citizen! Bwana asifiwe!

TX pastor indicted for allegedly selling fake IDs

Felipe DeJesus Coronel Pacheco, a Texas minister, and Luis Angel Tovar Cisneros, an associate, are accused of selling fake identification documents to illegal aliens.

Coronel, who work at Ministerios Epicentro Donde Nace La Bendicion in Austin, has been indicted by a federal grand jury. The charges are conspiracy to defraud the government, manufacturing counterfeit permanent-resident cards (a.k.a. "green cards"), and making false statements to immigration officials.

Clergy involved in sham marraiges

Two clergymen suspended in East London sham marriage probe

The charge is that Reverend Brian Shipsides and the Reverend Elwon John were part of a conspiracy to help several Nigerians evade British immigration laws by performing fake marriages.

The artcle brought back some unpleasant memories. My wife is a legal immigrant from Tanzania. It is deeply distressing to us that there are members of the clergy willing to use their positions to help break US immigration laws through such contrivances as "sanctuary churches" and sham marriages.

The ELCA is a denomination prides itself on supporting illegal aliens in the US and in calling for "immigration reform". Yet when my wife and I requested help in obtaining a visa for my wife (we had just been married in her home country of Tanzania and were struggling mightily with the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam) the ELCA ignored our requests for assistance. As one fellow ELCA missionary put it, if my wife had been an illegal alien from Latin America the ELCA would have fallen over itself to help us. But because she was a legal immigrant, the ELCA could not have cared less, even though we were their missionaries.

Time has caused most of my anger to dissipate, although probably it will never go away entirely. But the fact remains that the ELCA is less a Christian church than a radical secular political party run for the benefit of the greedy few. The ELCA cares most about political causes. People, not so much.

Raising Arizona

The debate over the recent Arizona law (SB 1070) that makes it a crime to be in the state illegally has generated a great deal of heat - but not much light. Many of the news stories have been negative (if not openly hostile), but in view of the fact that most of the American media tilts rather openly to the political Left their reporting needs to be treated with some skepticism.

I do not know what is in SB 1070, so I will refrain from either endorsing or opposing the new law. But it is very hard to take seriously the accusations that the bill is an act of racism, and that proponents are xenophobic reactionaries. Much political debate seems never to rise above this kind of hysterical fear mongering, and I have learned to be cautious.

Unfortunately, the dust up in Arizona has attracted the attention of the ELCA. Their denomination may be disintegrating as congregations and members head for the exit, giving is down with no relief in sight, the rest of the Lutheran world is appalled at the rejection of the Gospel, but it seems that the ELCA is not willing to pass on the oportunity to do what it loves best - immerse itself in secular politics.

The ELCA has set up a Facebook page dedicated to immigration and refugee issues. Some of the links on Facebook caught my eye, since they lead to websites like DailyKos and the Huffington Post. Are these really the voices the ELCA wishes to echo? Abandoning the Gospel for political activism is nothing new, and I don't expect the ELCA to provide a forum for points of view they disagree with (name me one political party or lobbying group that gives equal time to its opponents), but it's hard to maintain the illusion you are still a religious organization dedicated to peace, love and tolerance when you ally yourself with voices that do little beyond shrieking how much they hate those they disagree with.

The issue of immigration is of more than passing interest to me. My wife and I have lived through it.

In 1999 I went to Tanzania as an ELCA missionary. The individuals at the Division for Global Mission (DGM) were wonderful. No matter what happened - delays in getting work permits, lost paperwork - they always stood with me, and I never felt abandoned. It was in Tanzania where I met and married my wife, and I owe DGM a deep debt of gratitude. But by the time we left in early 2005 things had changed drastically at DGM - and not for the better.

During my tenure as an ELCA missionary, DGM seemed to undergo a radical change. Many whom I had known either retired or left, and were replaced by others who seemed to have a different concept of mission. Worse still, communication between ELCA missionaries like myself and DGM became less and less frequent, as the new leadership seemed to turn to other matters they found more worthy of their attention.

My wife and I were married in September of 2003, and immediately we began the process of applying for her visa. Working with USCIS is like existing in a kind of purgatory. You are never sure where you are in the process, and always you are made to feels as though you are some guilty of ... something.

Feeling in over our heads, I contacted DGM asking for help. We were ignored - no response whatsoever. We tried again - same (non)response. It was as though we had ceased to exist in the eyes of DGM.

So bad did the situation get that when my wife was hospitalized I never bothered to contact DGM. Why bother? Why would this time be any different? Why would they care now when they didn't before?

My wife's case was so tangled that it took the efforts of two different Members of Congress - one Democrat and one Republican - to finally get her visa and her I-551 ("green card"). There was nothing unusual about her situation (she is not a criminal or otherwise attracted the notice of US authorities), but as a citizen of Tanzania she was considered a major risk. I found out later that what happened to us was not out of the ordinary. Apparently US Embassy staff are so terrified of letting in a potential terrorist through the regular immigration process they will try to throw up one roadblock after another in an effort to discourage applicants.

The ELCA's Lutheran Immigration and Relief Service's website has the following:

Since 1939 Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has worked to create welcoming communities for newcomers—immigrants and refugees who have been forced to leave their homes and begin anew.

One expat told me, "The reason that the ELCA won't help you is that your wife is an immigrant from Africa trying to enter the USA legally. If she came from Central America and was an illegal alien things would be different." At the time that struck me as too cynical. But given the overheated rhetoric on the LIRS Facebook page concerning both the opponents of immigration "reform" and SB 1070 I have come to the conclusion they were probably right.

At any rate, it is hard for me to take seriously the ELCA's claim of compassion with respect to immigrants. I don't believe that the ELCA meant my wife any harm: it's just that we did not fit the preferred political narrative. And it's politics (not the Gospel) that has become the ELCA's true passion.