On Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Wednesday evening, Vice President JD Vance described what he called an “old-school, very Christian concept.”
“You love your family, then you love your neighbor, then you love your community, then you love you fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society.”
This Christian Nationalistic defense of an intentionally cruel immigration policy is repugnant, quite frankly heretical, and I defy anyone to find anything that Jesus said that supports what Vance claimed.
I fully recognize that people of faith can have different interpretations of Scripture and have long respected that. I understand that Christians can have radically different biblical views and different priorities. I am fully aware that immigration is a challenging issue and there aren’t easy answers.
But with God as my witness, I will not be silent as people take the Word of God hostage and twist it to defend their own world view by implying that Jesus wasn’t clear that love for “the least of these” was love for Christ. And claim that there is a rank order of how we are called to love. That js a flat out lie. And I can’t ignore it.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matt. 5:46-47)
And when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, God told Moses, “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress them. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love them as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Lev. 19:33-34)
This rewriting of God’s most clarion call — to love your neighbor as yourself-has no place in the public sphere. No amount of theological gymnastics can change what Jesus said. Simply accept that it is not of God, rather than defile yourself by using God as a reason to justify it.
This is hard stuff. It’s why it’s called the Cost of Discipleship. Jesus was countercultural and asked us to move beyond self-centeredness to care about the least of these, welcome the stranger and judge not but instead love one another as we are loved by God. To do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
It’s that simple. It’s that hard. After all, it got Jesus killed.
When I was ordained, one of the Scriptures that was read said, “For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, be sober in everything, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully. (2 Tim. 4:3-5)
I haven’t been a perfect pastor by a long shot, but I took those words to heart, even as it led me down some challenging paths.
And in this new era I will continue to make that my call as a Christ follower — to speak up when I hear division, racism, xenophobia or anything that even begins to claim that God calling us to love EVERYONE is not at the center of the Christian life.
Christian nationalists like Vance can lie and make up what they want the Gospel of Jesus to say, but they are on shifting sands that will collapse because it simply isn’t true. It is perverting God and God’s word.
I’d rather stand on the solid Rock of Ages and embrace the radical love revealed in Jesus and the amazing grace he gives. Because this is most certainly true.
2 thoughts on “PAULA MEHMEL: Shoot The Rapids — Perverting God’s Word”
Cynthia Nelson February 1, 2025 at 8:39 am
Amen. Thank you.
ReplyPaula Mehmel February 2, 2025 at 6:25 am
We are in this together.
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