“The Most Excellent Way”

I’ve often said that after our relationship with our Creator, the most important relationship in the universe is that between a husband and his wife. Whether or not you are married, when you were a child, the most important people on earth were your mother and father (or, it should have been this way). Thus, after our love for God, the most important love in the world is the love between a husband and wife.

A few weeks ago our family said goodbye (for now) to my wife’s beloved grandfather, Horace Fitzpatrick—known to all of the family as simply “Pa.” Nearly two years ago, Pa’s oldest son—my wife’s father—David was tragically killed by a drunk driver while bicycling near his home. When I spoke at David’s funeral, I made note of David’s loving devotion to his wife:

After his relationship with his creator and Savior, David was most devoted to his wife Margie. This was clear to all of us who knew him best. This is perhaps his greatest witness. Of course, David witnessed this devotion in the life of his own father. Thank you for that, Pa.

Pa’s funeral was the best “end-of-life celebration” that I’ve ever witnessed. His generous and loving life made for a powerful end. (We were especially close to “Granny and Pa,” as they played an important role in the debt-free manner in which we built our home.) Four men spoke at the funeral, including Pa’s son Roger. Roger made special note of Pa’s love for his “Beautiful, Sweet, Toony.” Horace and Bertie-Mae were married for 67 years. My wife’s parents, David and Margie (Papa and Mimi) had been married for 46 years when David was killed in 2015. My own parents, Edsel and Carolyn Thomas (Poppy and Nonny), have been married for 48 years.

In other words, I’ve had several excellent examples of what true and lasting love looks like. In today’s sex-crazed, fornicating, adulterating, divorcing culture, such examples were (and still are) immeasurably impactful. With 19 years of marriage already under my belt, I certainly hope to continue such a tradition.

I say all of this with Valentine’s Day in mind. Several years ago, I wrote the following to help paint a picture of “the most excellent way.” I provide it again to remind all of us what it really means to love. (Thank you to all of my family and friends—but especially Granny and Pa, Nonny and Poppy, Mimi and Papa, and Michelle, Caleb, Jesse, Caroline, and Noah—for all the love you’ve given me.)

The Will to Love

I believe that the one most revealing, the most essential characteristic of our Creator is love. By His love He made us, and because of His love He redeemed us. We are closest to His nature and what He created us to be when we are living our lives according to His idea of love.

He also told us that His entire law can be summed up with one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” What does that mean? What does it mean to love your neighbor as you love yourself?

First of all, who is our “neighbor?” Most of us have heard of “The Good Samaritan.” Through this parable, Christ taught us that our neighbor means more than those who live near us, or those within our circle of family and friends. In effect, what He was saying was that loving our neighbor also means loving our enemies.

Secondly, how do we “love” ourselves? If we are honest, we should all admit that there are times when none of us is particularly loveable. In fact, most of us have probably been pretty disappointed in and disgusted by our own behavior, and thus, in ourselves. We may even have seen ourselves as downright nasty.

Therefore, loving our neighbor does not mean always having pleasant feelings about him or being happy with everything she does. As C.S. Lewis put it, it does not mean “thinking them nice either.” In fact, love in the Christian sense isn’t a feeling at all. It is a matter of the will.

As Lewis put it, “It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we naturally have about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.” In other words, do not bother so much about how you feel towards someone; act like you love them. In other words, do and say the things that true love requires. Feelings and emotions come and go, but our will can be forever unwavering.

Consider 1 Corinthians chapter 13, where the Apostle Paul reveals to us what true love is.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Patience, kindness, a lack of envy or boasting; humility, politeness, and controlling your temper; keeping no record of wrongs, and so on—these all are matters of the will. As soon as you do these things, Lewis notes, “we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

Jesus said that the greatest act of love is to lay down one’s life for another. What is that if not an act of the will? No one “feels” like doing such a thing. Jesus even prayed that His act of sacrifice, if possible, would pass from Him, but His will was surrendered: “Not My will, but Yours be done.”

Of course, romantic love can generate a torrent of emotions within us. Almost all of us have been tied in knots over one person or another in our lives. But, even in the strongest of relationships, these feelings don’t last—and thank goodness! How would we function day to day and year to year with such emotions?!

Yet popular culture has chosen to highlight this brief and passing aspect of love and held it up as the ideal. Of course, popular culture has also made love synonymous with sex. This is especially true with our youth. They enter relationships—even marriage—with their hearts and minds full of the wrong ideas about love.

Thus, the most important relationship on the earth—that between a husband and a wife—often rests upon a very shaky foundation. If a marriage rests upon this feeling of “being in love” alone, it almost certainly will fail. Couples need to understand that when this feeling subsides, it does not mean that we should stop loving. Love in this deeper sense is about a promise or vow that nearly every couple makes upon marrying. And keeping this promise is a matter of the will.

However, Christians know that, left to ourselves, our own will is not enough. On our own we cannot love as we should. The selflessness that true love requires runs very contrary to our born nature. That is why, in order to love truly, we must look to the One who is love.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

If Your Church is Celebrating Darwin, Leave (and Don’t Come Back)

The 200th anniversary of the birth of devoted Materialist and Evolutionist Charles Darwin was in 2009. It was that year that I first became aware of “Evolution Weekend.” Originally “Evolution Sunday,” Evolution Weekend is the product of The Clergy Letter Project. This project exists to promote the teaching of Darwinian evolution, especially within religious institutions. For example, the letter to Christian clergy, in part, reads,

While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook…Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts. 

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children.

First of all, a common criticism from Darwinists of all flavors—from the true believers: ardent atheists, to the spongy “theistic evolutionists” (ironically seen as heretics by the faithful on both sides of the evolution debate)—is that Christians who accept the biblical account of the origin of mankind are making the mistake of reading the Bible (especially Genesis) “literally.”

As apologist Greg Koukl puts it, the question “Do you take the Bible literally?” is ambiguous, confusing, and awkward to answer. The best way to answer such a question is that we (“literalists”) take the Bible literally when it is meant to be taken literally. In other words, as Koukl puts it, we read the Bible in its “ordinary sense.” (“When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense.”)

A good analogy that Koukl provides is the reading of a modern day sports page. When a sportswriter says that one team “crushed,” “destroyed,” or “annihilated” its opponent, no one speculates or frets about literal meanings. When we read that the Georgia Bulldogs “steam-rolled” the Florida Gators, there is no investigation into whether state highway equipment went missing during what used to be known as “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” Though certainly a more difficult read than a sports page, we are to approach reading the Bible in the same way.

Additionally, when it comes to believing miraculous events recorded in the Bible, whether the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus, or the miracle of a literal six-day creation, the inconsistency applied by “evolutionary creationists” is fascinating and troubling. After all, why believe in the resurrection of Jesus? Has science proven how we can raise the dead?

After His resurrection, why did Jesus chastise the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? Was it because they failed biology 101? “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” In other words, why did you not believe what was written?! If one will doubt the creation account, why believe the prophets? Why believe any of the accounts of supernatural events in Scripture?

What’s more, if Genesis is a “metaphor,” then all the rest of Scripture is in question. There is much evidence throughout all of Scripture to support the fact that Genesis is literal history. Many other books directly refer to Genesis and its characters in a way that shows they were regarded as nothing but historical people and events. Consider how often the New Testament refers to Genesis and its characters. Dozens of times Adam, Eve, the Serpent (Satan), Cain, Abel, Noah, the Flood, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Lot, and so on, are directly (and indirectly) referenced. They are spoken of as real historical characters, not mythological beings.

In Romans chapter 5 Paul refers directly to Adam and compares him to Christ as “a pattern of the one to come.” First Corinthians 15:22 states, “For as in Adam all die, so as in Christ all will be made alive.” This refers to all of humanity being under the same curse of death that was placed on Adam, because we all are his descendants. Second Corinthians 11:2 says, “…just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning…” thus making a direct reference to Eve, Satan, and The Fall.

Secondly, all truth—whether deemed “scientific” or “religious”—exists to reveal God. (“For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and his divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”) Anything or anyone that purports to have information that denies God, or His Word, is a lie.

Thirdly, the Clergy Letter Project heretics got at least something right: there is no conflict between the Bible and “modern science” (or ancient science, or future science). The word “science” is derived from the Latin word “scientia,” meaning “knowledge.” It is frequently overlooked that every side of the creation/evolution debate derives their knowledge from certain governing presuppositions.

In other words, whether a person is a creationist or an evolutionist, or some combination of the two, eventually he or she must eventually rely on certain un-provable assumptions. As the late philosopher, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, put it, “At the most fundamental level of everyone’s thinking and beliefs there are primary convictions about reality, man, the world, knowledge, truth, behavior, and such things. Convictions about which all other experience is organized, interpreted, and applied.”

Thus neither side in the evolution debate can use exclusively the methods of science to verify their primary convictions. The scientific method of observing, measuring, testing, and repeating does not work when it comes to revealing exactly how life began. In spite of what some devoted evolutionists would have us believe, no one has ever observed or been able to experimentally repeat evolution that shows one kind of creature changing into another. We certainly have never seen life created in a Petri dish.

Of course, neither have we observed someone creating matter or speaking life into existence. However, what the creation account has that the Darwinian account lacks is a written record of events. Now, many are quick to discount the biblical record of events as fiction, but this is typically because the accounts of events recorded in Scripture directly contradict the primary convictions of Darwinian evolution (D.E.).

An atheist who completely denies God and the Bible and holds molecules to man evolution up as absolute truth has a more logically defensible position than the Christian who wants to mix evolution and Scripture. D.E. teaches that all life—plant, animal, human—billions of years ago sprang from the same single-celled source, strictly as a product of nature and natural processes (billions of years of death and struggle). Thus, as a liberal writer at Salon put it,

“Darwin…explained the evolution of life in a way that doesn’t require the hand of God.” (His piece is gleefully entitled “God is on the Ropes,” and writes about the “brilliant new science”—isn’t it always—that expands on Darwin’s work and will finally liberate us from any idea that God was involved in creating life.)

Many, including those who call themselves Christians and/or conservatives, would like to ignore this tenet of D.E. Even the rabid atheist and Darwinist Richard Dawkins understands the fallacy here. When asked recently what was the particular point at which he was able to conclude that God doesn’t exist, Dawkins replied that “by far” the most significant event for him was “understanding evolution.” He went on to say that he thought the evangelical Christians have it “sort-of” right when they see (Darwinian) evolution as “the enemy,” adding that there “really is a deep incompatibility between evolution and Christianity.” The “sophisticated theologians” who are “quite happy to live with evolution” are, as Dawkins puts it, “deluded.” How sad that it takes an atheist to point out the truth in this debate!

And if your church is so “deluded,” leave now and don’t go back.

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Dear GOP: Gird Your Loins and be ready for Battle over the Supreme Court

If you think the riots and marches are bad now, wait until President Trump gets a chance at filling a second or even third vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States. The “nastiness,” vulgarities, property damage, and violence we see now are nothing compared to what we will witness if the American left sees the legality of their perverse sexual agenda threatened.

With the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat vacated as the result of the death of Antonin Scalia, liberals at every level of political involvement are already throwing a hissy-fit. After Trump chose Gorsuch, radical left-winger Michael Moore threatened Senate Democrats via his Twitter account, declaring “This Supreme Court pick was Obama’s to make and it was stolen by Republicans. Democrats had better block this and demand a nom we approve.” Moore continued, “Senate Dems, let’s be very clear: You will filibuster & block this SC nom or we will find a true progressive and primary u in next election.”

When Democrat Senator Chris Coons (Del.) hinted that he might not support a filibuster of Gorsuch, the response from liberal activists was swift and stern. Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Stephanie Taylor warned Coons (and anyone like-minded),

There is zero appetite among the public for weakness from Democratic politicians. Especially after Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat, Coons and all Senate Democrats should join Sen. Jeff Merkley's filibuster of Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Gorsuch. That's the kind of backbone the public needs to see right now.

Upon Antonin Scalia’s death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told all of America that the election would decide Scalia’s replacement. In other words, Democrats and their like-minded lackeys had a chance to show their strength in this matter in the November elections, and they failed (in historical fashion).

The idea that President Trump will get to fill multiple vacancies on the nation’s highest court is becoming widely held. National Review’s John Fund writes that the Trump administration is already preparing for a second vacancy. Fund reports on multiple sources that says there’s at least an even chance Justice Anthony Kennedy retires this year. There is real fear among liberals that this is indeed the case.

The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus implores Justice Kennedy: “Please don’t retire.” Of course, Marcus’ piece is replete with references to the homosexual agenda and how important Kennedy was in weaving such perversion “into the social fabric” of our nation. Likewise, The Post’s Monica Hesse recently reported that “Hordes of liberals want reassurance RBG’s (Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s) health is good.” Hesse’s piece quotes multiple liberals worrying over Ginsburg’s health:

“I’m very interested in this.” says Jeanette Bavwidinski, a community organizer in Pennsylvania. “I'm interested in what her daily regimen is. Like, what are you all feeding RBG? Is she getting enough fresh air? Is she walking? Is she staying low-stress? What is she reading? Is she reading low-stress things?”… “I kept thinking, you know, I could organize a bunch of gays,” says John Hagner, a consultant for Democratic campaigns who lives in Washington. “I could organize the gays, and we would just make a protective circle around her at all times. We could help her get up and down the stairs. We got this.”

While liberals worry over Kennedy and Ginsburg, the movement against Gorsuch is not limited to kooks like Michael Moore. Bloomberg reports that there are over 200 liberal groups across the U.S. who are organizing and mobilizing opposition to Gorsuch. Per Bloomberg:

“We’ll make sure the narrative makes clear he is out of the mainstream, is extreme and in many ways is to the right of Scalia,” said Marge Baker, executive vice president of People for the American Way.

Ahh, again with “the narrative.” As I noted a couple of years ago, for liberals, it seems it’s ALWAYS about the narrative. As has been demonstrated for decades now, liberalism is quite adept at creating “narratives,” i.e. making its own “truth,” which can easily change as soon as it’s advantageous. Such skill and flexibility is very necessary when one needs political power to make sure the preferred notion of “truth” rules the day.

Remember, two of the pillars (as both Post pieces above well demonstrate) in the church of modern liberalism—abortion and same-sex marriage—were achieved through rogue judicial fiat via the Supreme Court of the United States. In these grave matters, liberals cannot rely on science and sound morality. They need the powerful arms of Big Government and compliant courts to give them what they cannot otherwise achieve. Even in a culture with as much rot as has ours, liberals rarely see their ideas adopted through elections or legislation. (Thankfully, it is harder to get ignorant, lazy, and selfishly motivated “sheeple” to the polls than those who are motivated by eternal truths and real patriotism.)

Thus, a liberal-dominated judiciary is paramount to the leftist agenda. Isn’t it telling how comfortable leftists are with unelected officials dictating “from on high?” (As Andy McCarthy has long noted, the U.S. Supreme Court “operates more like an unelected super-legislature than a judicial tribunal.”) One might think that they prefer things this way.

This battle over the U.S. Supreme Court is not merely political. As is almost always the case in these matters (whether one wants to admit such or not), this is a spiritual battle, and as I’ve noted multiple times, one well worth having. Our elected (and non-elected) conservative leaders better be ready for this fight. Millions of American Christian conservatives—many of whom had great pause voting for Mr. Trump—chose to (in my case) touch their screen in his favor because of what we hoped he would do when it came to the courts.

In other words, the chief reason many of us voted for Mr. Trump and republicans for the U.S. Senate is because of their role in the federal judiciary. I previously supported other GOP nominees who also gave me pause (McCain and Romney) for this reason as well. Other than the collapse of the Democrat Party, as The New York Times noted in late 2014, the chief legacy of Barack Obama is the reshaping of the federal judiciary (which, of course resulted in the infamous Obergefell ruling). Among reversing many other things Obama “accomplished,” this is another mess many Americans expect Donald Trump and the GOP to clean up.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Illegal Immigration/Refugees: A Christian Perspective

Several years ago (2013) I wrote, Illegal Immigration: A Christian Perspective. Given the debate over President Trump's executive order on refugees, the aforementioned piece deserves another read. Also, some additional excellent points in this same vein have recently been made by others, notably Dr. Michael Brown. As he notes in his recent piece, Who Are the Real Bible-Quoting Hypocrites?

These one-time Bible-mockers are now quoting the words of the Torah in the Old Testament – yes, those supposedly antiquated, misogynist, bigoted words – reminding us of Israel’s calling to care for the refugee and the foreigner in their midst. 

Of course, I totally affirm this ethic and call, and since we are a nation of immigrants, it applies all the more to us, just as it applied especially to the people of Israel, who themselves had been mistreated when they lived in Egypt: Don’t do to the foreigners what Egypt did to you! 

But let’s put this compassionate command in context. The ancient Israelites were first commanded to exterminate the Canaanites who lived in the land they were about to inherit – including men, women, and children – because the spiritual and moral wickedness of the Canaanites was so great that it would pollute and destroy the Israelites should any survive. 

That’s what I call extreme, yet it was a one-time command for ancient Israel, only after God waited 400 years until the wickedness of the Canaanites reached horrific proportions (see Genesis 15:16). 

So then, the same God who called for compassion on the non-hostile foreigner seeking refuge among the people of Israel also called for the elimination of hostile foreigners (similar to candidate Trump’s call to “bomb the h-ll out of Isis”). 

Not only so, but the non-hostile foreigners who took refuge in Israel were required to assimilate into Israel’s culture and were expected to live by Israel’s laws (see, e.g., Numbers 15:29). Is that a standard we’re ready to apply here as well?

Also, as Biblical scholar James K. Hoffmeier (who has a book on this matter) wrote several years ago,

From the foregoing texts we can conclude that in the ancient biblical world, countries had borders that were protected and respected, and that foreigners who wanted to reside in another country had to obtain some sort of permission in order to be considered an alien with certain rights and privileges. The delineation between the “alien” or “stranger” (ger) and the foreigner (nekhar or zar) in biblical law is stark indeed. The ger in Israelite society, for instance, could receive social benefits such as the right to glean in the fields (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 24:19-22) and they could receive resources from the tithes (Deuteronomy 26:12-13). In legal matters, “there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you” (Numbers 15:15-16). In the area of employment, the ger and citizen were to be paid alike (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). In all these cases, no such provision is extended to the nekhar or zar. In a sense, the ger were not just aliens to whom social and legal protections were offered, but were also considered converts, and thus could participate in the religious life of the community, e.g. celebrate Passover (Exodus 12:13) and observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:29-30). They were, moreover, expected to keep dietary and holiness laws (Leviticus 17:8-9 & 10-12). It is well known that within Israelite society, money was not to be lent with interest, but one could loan at interest to a foreigner (nekhar). These passages from the Law make plain that aliens or strangers received all the benefits and protection of a citizen, whereas the foreigner (nekhar) did not. It is wrong, therefore, to confuse these two categories of foreigners and then to use passages regarding the ger as if they were relevant to illegal immigrants of today.

My piece from 2013:

As immigration dominates our political discourse, operating from a Christian worldview, as I always seek to do, it has been rather difficult for me to get my mind around what is the mind of Christ on this issue. It becomes even more difficult when attempting to apply the Christian worldview to what amounts to a secular political solution.

In my research for this column, I came across several great conversations/columns on immigration from a Christian worldview. (They are archived here.) While examining these conversations, one thing is clear: even within the Christian community there is a wide variety of opinion on how best to reform our immigration policy. This is even true, though to a lesser extent, in the more conservative evangelical community.

What makes the issue of immigration more challenging than topics like abortion or marriage is that there is not clear-cut biblical direction on the matter. Some who favor a more liberal position on immigration often point to Leviticus 19 or Deuteronomy 24 (go read them) when making their arguments in favor of an open-borders type policy.

However, as Alan F. H. Wisdom, then vice president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) noted nearly three six years ago,

The United States is not analogous to ancient Israel. Biblical ‘sojourners’ [aliens or foreigners] are not easily comparable to modern-era illegal immigrants. The ‘foreigners’ in ancient Israel were non-Israelites who were permitted to pass through or reside in Israel. They were required to comply with Israel's laws and respect its customs.

Wisdom adds, “Weighing the costs and benefits of immigration is complex. Immigrants often have valuable skills. Their cultures enrich our national life. The Christians among them can renew our churches with their fervent faith. At the same time, large-scale immigration imposes burdens. Taxpayers bear new expenses for education, social services, health care, and law enforcement.”

Weighing the cost of illegal immigration must be an important part of any discussion on immigration reform. A 2010 study says that the cost is $113 billion annually. According to the report, the single largest cost—about $52 billion a year—comes from educating the children of illegal immigrants. “Nearly all those costs are absorbed by state and local governments,” the report concludes. This is significant because, although illegal immigrants do contribute to the tax base (through sales taxes and the like), they rarely are property owners and local property taxes are the chief source of funding for public education.

In addition, uninsured illegals cost American taxpayers over $4 billion a year in healthcare costs. This includes receiving Medicaid benefits. According to Kaiser Healthcare News, “Federal law generally bars immigrants who enter this country illegally from being covered by Medicaid. But a little-known part of the state-federal health insurance program for the poor has long paid about $2 billion a year for emergency treatment for a group of patients who, according to hospitals, mostly comprise illegal immigrants.”

One often neglected aspect of this debate, especially within the Christian community, is the role of the Mexican government in the matter. Whatever the number of illegal immigrants is (Some estimates place the current total at about 11 million. Others say the number may be as high as 20 million, while some put it at over 40 million.), there is little doubt that most hail from Mexico. In 2005, a Pew Hispanic Center report said that 56% were from Mexico. In 2011, the Congressional Budget Office reported that it was 62%.

Most of these Mexicans are poor, low-skilled laborers who are looking for a better life in the U.S. The government of Mexico seems very content with the status-quo when it comes to the virtual open-border policy that currently exists within the U.S. As a column in FrontPage Mag recently noted, “The message of the Mexican government to its citizens is: You want a job, human rights and medical care, then go to the US if you can’t afford it here.”

Of course, to a great extent, illegal immigrants don’t have to “afford” things in America. As I already implied, they have significant access to a myriad of government services (food stamps, schools, Medicaid, and so on.) in the U.S. Combine such state welfare with the billions of dollars ($25 billion in 2007—about 3% of Mexican GDP) earned by Mexican immigrants (legal and illegal) and sent back to their homeland, and it seems that Mexico is reaping quite a financial benefit.

However, as FrontPage also notes, with so many Mexicans able to leave their country for work and welfare, the Mexican government has little incentive to improve conditions there. And despite decades of illegal immigration, economic and living conditions for poor Mexicans have improved little, if at all. Thus, the current immigration policies of the U.S. have made us an enabler, hurting not only the American taxpayer, but the millions of poor who are still living in Mexico. Is this very Christ-like?

It should be pointed out that, if we did not have the massive welfare state that exists (for citizens and non-citizens alike) in America today, it is unlikely that we would be having such a fierce debate over current immigration policy.

If within the Christian community we can’t even come to a consensus on matters such as abortion, homosexuality, and marriage, it seems to me very unlikely that we will ever get to a clear agreement on immigration. What Christians should seek, says Dr. Daniel Carroll Rodas, Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Denver Theological Seminary and author of Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible,

is a moral compass from the Bible, not a blueprint for policy. To imitate how an ancient people dealt in its laws with foreigners in that agrarian peasant context does not make sense…But this legislation was seen as judicious and as a pointer to the God of Israel (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). In other words, the law contains a set of enduring principles that can be carried across borders and across the centuries.

And just as was ancient Israel, we are a nation of laws. “No man will contend that a nation can be free that is not governed by fixed laws,” said John Adams. President Clinton, in his 1996 State of the Union Address declared, “We should honor every legal immigrant here, working hard to become a new citizen. But we are also a nation of laws.”

Though we are a nation of laws, those laws should not be 1200 pages each! (Such volume alone should disqualify any bill.) Writing in the Federalist Papers, James Madison instructs us that “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”

Lastly, as well meaning Christians debate immigration, we must remember that, along with the obvious call to be compassionate and forgiving, as Mark Tooley, the current president of the IRD puts it, we must remember “Christianity’s understanding of the state’s divine obligation to enforce laws and protect its people.”

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The Taxing Moral Waxing of Hollywood Hypocrites

This column is almost too easy to write. I mean seriously, how long does one have to examine the life and work of a Hollywood liberal to find immorality? Likewise, how long must anyone endure virtually any political or moral rant from a Hollywood liberal to spot his or her hypocrisy?

Donald Trump issued a substantively sound—though perhaps poorly executed—executive order on refugees attempting to enter the U.S., and liberals across America find another excuse to avoid work (or to avoid looking for work) and conduct a protest. I suppose we should be used to this by now, but somehow the modern left always seems to find some way to take their protests fits to new heights lows. Of course, leading the way into the verbal gutter is the Hollywood elite.

Of course, Hollywood liberals—perhaps better known as the “people-who-pretend-to-be-other-people” as Chicks on the Right describe them—are typically familiar with gutters of all forms, so no one should be surprised that they would drag down political discourse as well. The only thing that surpasses their stunning ignorance and immorality is their hypocrisy. (Perhaps they should have an awards show for these efforts.)

There are many examples from which to punctuate this piece (the recent actions by Madonna and Ashley Judd come to mind), but none is better than the Tweet fired off by pop-harlot Rihanna to her 69-plus million Twitter followers. (Does Twitter even have 69 million users?) In between creating albums that are most-deservedly adorned with the “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” label and performing in pornographic music videos (even the libs at the Daily Beast declared one of her recent efforts as “the most explicit music video in history”), Rihanna had time to declare herself “disgusted” at Trump’s refugee order.

She added, “The news is devastating! America is being ruined right before our eyes! What an immoral pig you have to be to implement such BS!!” Oh my, where to begin? First of all, when it comes to “disgusting” and the ruin of America, there are few in popular culture who have done more to heap moral devastation upon our culture than the “Duchess of Debauchery.” Reveling in her fame and fortune, Rihanna seems blind to the fact that in the realm of what might be called entertainment, only the vilest of pornographers has done more damage to American society than has she.

On the song—Needed Me—that spawned the above-mentioned video, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times writes that Rihanna “sings about using men for sex and disposing of them like tissues.” Lyrics such as “You was good on the low for a faded f**k,” verify Caramanica’s conclusion. (Along with their rampant vulgarities, why must such entertainers perpetuate an ignorant “Ebonics” form of the English language?) Along with multiple “f-bombs,” Needed Me is filled with other vulgarities, including offensive racial slurs.

Rihanna’s 2016 album containing Needed Me also contains a song entitled Sex with Me. (“Me” thinks there is a pattern here.) There’s no need to go into graphic details about the lyrics on that one. Your imagination is almost certainly correct. Not to be one-dimensional, along with her sexual filth and lies, Rihanna has also spewed many other forms of cultural garbage. In 2015, USA Today reported on public opinion related to Rihanna’s “dark, bloody, violent, and misogynistic” video B**ch Better Have My Money. In an op-ed on the video for The Daily Mail, Sarah Vine (the mother of a 12 year-old girl) wrote “By the time it had finished, I wondered whether I ought not to report (Rihanna) to the police. Charges: pornography, incitement to violence, racial hatred.”

Vine added that Rihanna “gesticulates incomprehensibly [a form of Ebonics sign language, no doubt] as though she were some genuine gangster (and not just a spoilt little rich popstar),” and spends much time with her “legs wide open.” So much so the latter that Vine concludes, “In fact, such is the frequency at which we get to view Rihanna’s gusset, I’m actually starting to wonder whether she might not have some kind of medical condition which prevents her from keeping her legs — as well as her stupid trap — shut.”

June Eric-Udorie of the New Statesman adds, “Of course what Rihanna has done is not new; you only have to do a quick YouTube search and you will find a multitude of music videos that just ooze misogyny.” Along with misogyny, graphic nudity, and drug use, B**ch Better Have My Money is graphically bloody, depicting torture, rape, and murder.

Of course, this is just a mere sampling of the vulgarities produced by Rihanna. (Sadder still, instead of being shunned and shamed—or even arrested—she’s appointed as “global ambassador to champion education.”) And likewise, Rihanna herself—though perhaps the leading candidate to be the poster child for the “nasty woman” title (my wife prefers “skank who needs Jesus”) so eagerly embraced by Ashley Judd and her liberal ilk—is far from alone in her cultural degradation. Virtually every movie, sit-com, cartoon, song, album, documentary, (in addition to most news broadcasts and lesson plans), and so on, produced from a liberal worldview (which is almost all of them) is morally corrupt.

There aren’t many other ways to say it: Hollywood is awash in immorality. Thus, for almost any Hollywood liberal to lament the actions of any so-called “immoral pig” is truly the height of hypocrisy. They should keep their mouths shut, but they won’t. Thus, whenever the likes of Rihanna attempts to provide moral instruction, it’s best just to turn off, tune out, and pray.

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com