Values and religion

Dear Editor,

A few weeks ago I wrote a letter about immigration and the Bible. I received many comments, mostly “Are you advocating for open borders because of Old Testament Law?”

My reply was: “Read it again.”

Perhaps some did.

Recently there was a response to the article in the Times Observer, a well researched, well thought out, and well written article. It points out the danger in picking and choosing verses or words from any Holy Book to justify policies and political actions. And that is just what I hoped my words had conveyed. A rebuttal to exactly what our recent elections asked for. What a political party deeply embraces. Christian Nationalism. A country, a government based on Christian principles.

I am a devout Christian. Christ taught love for your God, love for your neighbor, compassion and charity for the poor, and forgiveness for one’s enemies. If that is what Christian Nationalism represented, well, that would be hard to argue with.

But no, verses are picked and chosen, shortened or misinterpreted.

Ironically the very verse in Deuteronomy I used to welcome the stranger was used to justify turning away immigrants. The verse, correctly translated in the opinion of U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen, is “Welcome the stranger if that stranger fully submits to your ways.”

Our ways being defined as U.S. culture, English language, Christian religion, and a proper skin pigmentation.

Some immigrants obviously exhibit characteristics that can never be met.

Again ironic is that many of these people who judge come from populations that were at one time not welcomed here either. Can you remember the slurs directed toward the Irish, the Italians, the Poles? Goodness, I am 50% dumb Swede myself.

Separation of Church and State? It is in our Constitution. Why? Well here are three reasons.

— The early colonies were anti-Catholic. Yet when the Independence movement grew two Catholics played pivotal roles. Charles Carroll, who signed the Declaration of Independence, and cousin Daniel Carroll, a patriot and the person George Washington asked to design the new Capital, Washington, D.C. Both served at the Constitutional Convention. Neither could hold political office in any colony save Maryland.

These critical players in the early years of the United States had been discriminated against for years for being Catholic. Separation of church and state was to end that discrimination.

— The early colonies were anti-Jew. The Jewish population in Rhode Island was not accepted in the 1700s, but George Washington changed that. He visited the community in Newport and wrote letters of acceptance and support to Jewish communities up and down the coast. They still hold a day in honor of him.

— Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were vehemently for separation of church and state. Because of persecution. Persecution of Puritans against Baptists who were being locked up for their faith.

Yet a group still promotes Christian Nationalism, using Bible verses in and out of context. To persecute LGBTQ persons. To address marriage by quoting Genesis: one man — one woman, conveniently leaving out the escapades of King David and the 700 wives and 300 concubines of King Solomon.

Women — they cannot be leaders in the church. Or elsewhere?

It’s a man’s world. To judge divorced persons –they are adulterers. To justify slavery. To justify wars in the Middle East.

The border? Well, what would Jesus say? What would Jesus do? I’ll leave that up to you and your relationship with God.

James Spangler, OD,

Warren

Witnessing wrongs

Dear Editor,

Eighty years ago on Jan. 27,1945, the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland was liberated by American and allied military troops. At that camp some 1-plus million Jews were executed by the German authorities. Today, a few political elements in Germany deny that the holocaust occurred.

Today, certain elements of our society deny that the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on our Capitol was not an insurrection rather a “peaceful demonstration” according to felon Donald J. Trump and other MAGA reactionaries.

Historic photographs of Auschwitz and our Capitol do not lie!

M.J. Shanshala,

Warren