Posted on 02/17/2017 10:53:12 AM PST by Gamecock
Evangelical megachurch pastor Jason Webb has spoken out against President Donald Trump's temporary suspension of refugee resettlement and argues that preventing refugees from entering the United States is like closing the door on Jesus.
Webb, who pastors the 6,000-member Elmbrook Church just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a conservative area of the state, was one of the 100 evangelical leaders who signed onto an open letter published as a full-page advertisement in last Wednesday's Washington Post opposing Trump's Jan. 27 executive order.
"When I was asked to sign this letter, there wasn't even really a thought that I wouldn't sign it. I do that for personal reasons as a follower of Jesus," Webb said during a conference call last Thursday. "My role as a follower of Jesus and as a pastor no matter what the issue is to help people see the world not from a political perspective, but first and foremost, as a follower of Jesus."
The letter has now been signed by nearly 6,000 church leaders across the country.
"Right now, people first go to the pages of social media or to their favorite news source. We need to elevate that and say 'No, the role of a Christian is to start where we believe is the source of truth, which is the Bible,'" Webb added. "When you think politically, we have found it leads to an irrational fear of your neighbor. But when you think biblically, it leads to an extravagant love of your neighbor."
The Milwaukee pastor explained that the Bible constantly reminds Christians that they are called to love strangers, foreigners and their neighbors.
"If you just open Scripture, you just begin to see that God's love for them is undeniable. In the Old Testament alone, the term for foreigner residing in the land is mentioned 92 times," he said. "You read in Leviticus 19 that we are to love the foreigner or the refugee as we are to love ourselves."
Jesus, who fled as a baby with Joseph and Mary into Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod, was also a refugee, Webb pointed out.
"It is no wonder then in Matthew 25, Jesus said that when we welcome a stranger or when we welcome a refugee, we welcome Him," Webb explained. "As a follower of Jesus and a pastor, the opposite is also true — that when we close the door on a refugee, we close the door on Jesus."
"Far greater than my fear of what people will say of me speaking out on this issue is my fear of Jesus asking me one day, 'Why did you close the door on me?'" Webb detailed. "So we believe that the Church isn't the Church unless we are radically committed to both refugees around the world and those that are here in the United States."
As resettlement agencies like World Relief — the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals and the key organizer of the letter in The Washington Post — rely on churches to help them resettle refugees of all religions in their new communities, Webb explained that Elmbrook Church partners with resettlement organizations to help resettle refugees. In the last year, the church has helped resettle refugees from Iraq, Iran, Burma, Sri Lanka and Somalia.
World Relief President Scott Arbeiter said that about 70 percent of the refugee resettlement cases that the organization deals with are reunification cases where family members are finally united in the United States.
Faith McDonnell, the director of religious liberty programs at the Washington-based think tank Institute on Religion & Democracy and a supporter of Trump's executive order, told The Christian Post that she disagrees with Webb.
"If a refugee, whatever kind of refugee, shows up at your church door, then closing the door on them is like closing the door on Jesus. Talking about a sovereign state that is not part of the Church, God has given the state different instructions than he has the church," McDonnell, a conservative Anglican, explained. "The first instruction is to protect the people in the state — your nation."
McDonnell added that even though the Church should do everything it can to help refugees, the Church "should not be dictating to the state what they are supposed to do when they are trying to keep the nation safe."
"I don't like when people conflate church and state in this matter," she commented. "They sure never want to do it any other time. They want to keep them in separate boxes any other time but when it comes to this, suddenly the state is supposed to be acting like the Church."
God must have been really pissed when Israel was fighting the Philistines.
He’ll impress me, and I might think about listening to him if and when he ditches the 503C classification on his church.
Sura 8:12 commands Muslims to strike unbelievers on the neck and to cut off each of our fingertips. This includes people who practice Islam the wrong way in the opinion of those commanded, which is why even Muslims are not safe from the violence of Islam. The religion is at its core a recipe for human suffering and violence. How about we help those Christians and other non-Muslims and those wishing to escape Islam who want to get away from Muslim majority countries instead
I am sorry it is so, but the brutal truth is that authentic Islam is not compatible with Western democracies. It is a religion that demands its followers to overthrow religious freedom and enslave the world. If people want to pray to Mecca and not eat pork that's fine. But if they really think their scripture is authoritative, they do not belong in a free country.
No, it’s like closing the door on Islamic wars whether they be small or large, since 624 A.D. until the present. We don’t need this type of violent, destructive, murderous thinking and actions in a country that hasn’t been involved in a religious war since the crusades around 800 years ago.
red
Isaiah 60:18
“Violence will not be heard again in your land, Nor devastation or destruction within your borders; But you will call your walls salvation, and your gates praise.
Tell the pastor to let all the money changers come into his church... but as for us, we follow Jesus’ teachings.
We. An try to love them as soon as we repel their invasion of our country. Require them to go home NOW while we still can. Before they turn us into another damned Moslem terrorist murder gang battlefield like Lebanon Germany and France
Nehemiah 4:17
Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon
The pastor’s premise is untrue. The USA receives foreign refugees, visitors and immigrants every day, and only begs to save American lives with a 4 month moratorium on traffic from 6 countries until embedded ISIS operatives can be filled out.
Besides, these refugees do not prefer to be taken from the Middle East and forced over here, but sheltered on their continent until danger subsides.
How would Pastor Bob like it, to be shipped to Syria if not safe in the US? Hmmm?
It’s hard to know where to begin with Pastor Webb’s misunderstandings.
The stranger in the land was the legal immigrant and not the invader. They had both, and they were very keen on keeping out invaders. How did they distinguish the one from the other in their day? For all I know, they did have some kind of ceremony or paperwork, but beyond that, the legitimate stranger was attempting to become a PART of them. As Trump would say, “People who love us and want to be part of us.”
I can give any number of examples of Amorites, Philistines, Syrians, etc., encroaching on Israeli borders and not welcomed for doing so.
Jesus did not say that when we welcome illegal immigrants then it’s like we welcomed Him. Specifically, He said that when we help one of His brothers and sisters, that is when we’ve helped Him. “Mt 25: 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
He actually is talking about showing a speck of faith by aligning with believers in Him, and especially when it could cost you your life...these are His brothers and sisters. Luke 8:21 “He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”
And sorry, Rev Webb, Jesus wasn’t a permanent refugee immigrant in Egypt. His father, Joseph, was a temporary asylum seeker, and knew it was temporary. He left at first chance to return home.
Who?
Whatever happened to telling people to be law abiding citizens and to go and sin no more.
By being in this country illegally, they are breaking the laws of this country and should not be encouraged to do so or validated in it.
WWJD? GO HOME!
Start providing all those “humanitarian services” for free (no tax dollars) and maybe I’ll listen to you. As long as your “charity” rakes in millions you’re nothing but a hypocrite profiteer. (That goes for all those supposedly Christian (or other) scammers, of course - Catholic, Lutheran, whatever.)
And had the Roman government established a camp for asylum seekers from Herod, I’m fairly certain Joseph would have gone there. Except for the prophecy “Out of Egypt I have called My Son.” it could well have been engineered that way by God.
Tax exempt privilege makes it easy to share tax dollars
Is he still OK with the Cuban refugee ban?
This preacher apparently has no idea what happens to Christians when Islam takes over - here’s 2 videos that give one of the best descriptions from a survivor of the Lebanon Civil War:
History of 1400 years of Islam in 5 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTt8E8uUgpw
Radical Islam and their plan to infiltrate and destroy America from within (also has some of her personal story):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFO1AtjoUoo
Check out your local schools folks, even if you are homeschooling, it’s important what the schools are teaching to future voters.
I always ask these folks the same question: Why did the city of Jerusalem have walls and gates then? Also, why did Nehemiah find favor with the King and with God to go home and rebuild them? What were those walls for?
American Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep.
Jesus wasn’t a refugee.
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