Saturday, 09 April 2011
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Justifiable Hatred?
And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:33-34
I have many friends who have worked with me in the past in the home-building industry who would dispute this portion of scripture and say that it is unapplicable to our nation today. We are seeing so many "new" faces in our midst - faces that don't look like "ours." My co-workers and employees blame the influx of aliens on laxity of government officials or loopholes in the law for this increase. Many of them are "illegals" taking "our" jobs and working for less than we would work in order to provide for themselves. I know that this verse from the Bible grates on the sensibilities of the "natives." One good question might be: Are the company owners the cause of our employment problem? Why will they pay substandard wages just because they can? But this is not about solving the problem of aliens. It is about our problem of mistreating and hating them.
However it is that we have aliens here, and whatever the legal or economic solution may be, we, as Christians are expected to treat aliens as we would want to be treated. We can't change the hearts of others - those who are inclined to hate and mistreat aliens; but we can obey the Lord in this. These friends of mine who feel justified in hating and/or showing contempt for aliens are allowing behavior in themselves that they themselves know is indefensible. I know from my own past experience that hate is ugly - in me or in those around me. Hate makes our judgment of others ridiculously unfair. It makes us impolite and selfish. It makes us covetous, as in: "they are using MY tax money for health care and education, etc." We act as though anything gained by another is lost from our assets....as though there is a limited pie and anyone getting a piece of the pie is taking MY piece. The truth is that we are endowed by our Creator with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...#that's not from the Bible, but we infer it, and I think rightly so#. We are not guaranteed land, income, education, health, freedom from disease, or happy outcome for our lives. Because God is sovereign and because He knows our needs, He, not our economic system or government is the source of all that we have.
Racial and ethnic bias is not the exclusive characteristic of our country alone - or even of these economic realities. It was even a problem back in the ancient Bible times, or God would not have gone to the trouble of speaking about it. Bias and hatred come with sin. They are in themselves sin. We have many, many sins to deal with in our lives, but this is one that we somehow excuse, maybe because it is so widespread. Is it OK to hate someone because "they started it?" Hatred starts in the heart. We see that person ahead of us in the checkout lane, and we can find all sorts of reasons for hating. How do they get their money? Why do they get food stamps? or, I can't even afford the things they are buying. It isn't right!
Going back to the verse in Leviticus, there is no loophole for mistreatment or hatred there. Maybe we need a new heart? If these feelings are as natural to us as they seem to be for others, we have a bigger problem than we know. God loves these people. God loves us. So, maybe our professed love for God and men is rather hollow. Love is of God for God is love. Sin has marred us and made us the opposite of love, whether we want to admit it or not. We need to confess our need for God to change us and make us like Himself. Christ died on the cross for our sins, that we could be forgiven and changed - given a new heart. That new heart won't ask for justification to sin. It will seek to love as we are loved.
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Comments (10)
It's sure a difficult situation. Christians are expected to keep the law and show love. I've ministered to many illegals and treated them like anyone else. I'm glad my country doesn't require me to turn them in. If that ever happened I don't know what I would do. It is illegal to be in this country without going through the proper channels.
@Randy7777@xanga - I don't know what I would do in that case either. Are we accomplices if we don't turn them in? Anyway, the true love of others is the question - and what God is telling us to do. He knows if our love is genuine or not. Maybe it doesn't feel like love, but if we act in love, that's a start.
God has also commanded that we be in submission to those in authority over us. If a law was passed requiring that illegals be reported, unless you could show that it was a violation of God's law to obey, you'd have no choice, because otherwise you are also sinning.
I'm not sure a lot of the "hate" shown to illegals is because of their mere presence, but it is a combination of factors (job losses, social expense, etc). For example, an uncle of mine living in Arizona told me in his locale all the emergency rooms in the local hospitals except the one on the military base in the area have been closed because illegals used them for doctor offices because they could not afford health care. They'd come in, get treated, then stick the hospital with the cost. The public hospitals couldn't afford the cost and closed the ERs. Here in Indiana a couple of the local school districts have had trouble with deficits due to illegals sending their kids to the schools. Not only are they not paying taxes to help pay for the education they get, but the school has to provide Spanish speaking teachers because they don't speak English.
Simple fact is the problem of illegal immigration isn't a victimless crime. In this era of massive deficits in government, can we really afford to ignore it. And I'm of the opinion that to turn a blind eye to their presence isn't showing love towards them, it's showing hate towards those who foot the bill for it. Not to mention that in the OT the "foreigner" dwelling in Israel wasn't exempt from the laws. So what business do we have in giving them a pass on obeying our immigration laws?
@Watchmans_OP@xanga - In writing this post, I knew that there is no simple answer to the problem of aliens, legal and illegal. But that is all the more reason for Christians to examine their own hearts. Can we look God in the eye and say that we love these people? That's the real topic of the post. We feel "justified" being jealous, suspicious, angry, covetous,unloving, and even unthankful to God for the abundance that we have in comparison to just about every other people in the world. Why is that? There is where the question really lies. What do we say to God about our duplicity? God says that if we don't love those we can see, we are lying when we say we love God, whom we cannot see.
All of the problems you have cited are real. Many of them were there before there was an alien problem. We are not charitable because we have out-sourced charity to the government which has no heart and little compunction to handle any task efficiently. So we blame the aliens. Medical costs are going through the roof - have been, with or without the aliens. We look askance at aliens, secretly hate them, and dismiss any feeling of wrong on our part....it's all their fault! We would love them if only they would stay in their "own" country. Yeah, right!
Your reference to the fact(?) that the aliens lived according to the laws of the land, is not a good argument for not loving those who don't. Do any of us live to the letter of the law here? And if we do, is that why God loves us? Or commands others to love us?
@Watchmans_OP@xanga -One other note. The taxes paid to run schools, in most states comes from property owners, many of whom have no children in school; and many, many families with children in school do not own property. But that still has nothing to do with the subject of my post.
@quest4god - I find it ludicrous to equate demanding that the people coming here abide by our laws, and not, for all intents and purposes, steal from the legal citizens, is the same thing as hating them. I don't know anyone who "hates" the legal immigrant. I'd say having married one, I'd be more qualified than most to know since I've had problems with the legal side stemming from the illegal issue (as I told her, it would have been far easier and cheaper to fly her into Canada and sneak her across the border than bring her in legally as I did). But I also know that the problems with illegals are prevalent enough that my wife has faced issues with folks who see her and hear her accent and automatically assume that she is illegal. In fact, if you want to find a group who are most angered by the illegal immigrant issue, try discussing it with legal immigrants.
If the illegal problem wasn't as prevalent a problem as it is, there would not be the "hate" there is. But when most citizens are expected to abide by the law and then see a class of people who are excused not only breaking the law to come here, but to continue to break more every day they are here, and then have the audacity to expect to have their health care needs met, their kids schooled, and finally, to be rewarded for breaking our laws with citizenship.
To expect these people to obey the law is not hate. It is called justice.
@quest4god - "One other note. The taxes paid to run
schools, in most states comes from property owners, many of whom have
no children in school; and many, many families with children in school
do not own property."
Exactly the situation I am in. About eighty percent of my property taxes go to schools. I have no children and never will, so frankly, I'm paying for something I have no benefit from. On the other hand, that is one of the responsibilities of citizenship. If I was really angered by it, I simply would not be a property owner.
@Watchmans_OP@xanga - OK I'm not getting anywhere. If I had not heard first-hand hatred and nasty talk, I wouldn't have broached this issue. I hear professed Christians, of which I am one, speaking as if justified in doing so, degrading generalities toward Hispanics - even murderous references. I don't care how anyone tries to justify it, there is no excuse for such talk. If that glorifies God then I am a monkey's uncle. I have a friend and a son and a few in-laws all of whom are not starving or otherwise inconvenienced who are so obsessed with this that I can't stand being around them. It's impossible to change the subject and even harder to point out the sin in hatred. I believe that this is no different than the bias against blacks or, in times past, against the Irish, the Polish, etc.
As I have said earlier, we are not "suffering" as the people in other countries are. We are rich in comparison to most all other nations....at least the populace of those nations.
The Body of Christ has no business in fostering bigotry and focusing on any ethnic group as a target for hatred...No Business!
@quest4god - I guess you'll have to explain to me how ignoring criminal activity is a sign of "love" either. Simple fact is that much of the hatred come about because of the special status that the illegals are granted supposedly because of their "suffering." They come here, they refuse to assimilate, learn the language, they use more social services than they contribute to, all the time while those who turn a blind eye to their activity then complain that we aren't taking care of our own poor well enough. And then demand more coerced "charity" from taxpayers to meet the increased demand.
I'm not surprised there is hatred. Most folks tend to hate it when they are being robbed. What I'm am surprised at is that it hasn't resulted in violence up until now.
As far as the your post itself, maybe if you hadn't started with a Bible verse given to the nation of Israel and whose application to us here is tenuous at best, you might have gotten better traction with your argument. And I'll restate that the "stranger" in the verse according to the Levitical laws was not exempt from them. The stranger not only was protected by them, but was bound to obey them. Hispanics here illegally aren't being given a pass because of their plight, but because they're a significant voting block. Why not get indignant about that? But it flys in the face of verses in the NT commanding us to obey those put in authority over us, who, by the way have also given us the laws concerning immigration. Maybe you ought to be as angry about the way they're being twisted and ignored in favor of a single ethnic group. As a matter of fact, you might want to examine the difference between anger and hatred. You can be angry without hating.
@Watchmans_OP@xanga -I am not ignorant of the difference between anger and hatred. That is exactly why I wrote this post in the first place, as I have already stated. I have seen hatred and heard hate-filled speech among Christians and was led to bring up the subject. Your insistence on dwelling on the "cause" of hatred is off the subject. Unbelievers have hatred because they can't do otherwise. Christians have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. They are His children, and ought to bear fruit as His children. That is the whole point of this post - not the sins of the aliens.
Usually when people start pointing fingers at others' sins, they are in danger of being exposed for the sins they commit and being called hypocritical. I do not obey the laws of this land perfectly, and neither does anyone else. Being obsessed with the sins of others leads, not to peace with God, but to legalism and fault-finding. The people I referred to as being the "inspiration" for this post are obsessed. The are consumed by their own hatred.
Judgment begins at the house of the believer. We are criticized, sometimes rightly, by the world for trying to legislate morality and cram our "religion" down the throats of unbelievers. Here we have Christians joining the voices of haters and getting in bed with them regarding ideas of violence. That is reprehensible and ungodly. Until we can show reasoned resistance to the influx of illegals or until the US modifies its imigration laws, we must be peaceable and loving. That is all I'm saying.