Minor Thoughts from me to you

I write to White Christian America. Who are we? As we read the Palm Sunday, Passion Week and Easter narratives, who are we? Where do we fit in the story?

We default to thinking of ourselves as the Disciples. We are the heroes of the story. We are the ones who walk with Jesus, who treasure His words, who fear the Romans and the corrupt religious establishment. We are the persecuted and the ones discriminated against.

As I’ve listened more, I’ve heard the people of Black Christian America say, “Jesus is a Black man”. I didn’t understand what they meant. Jesus didn’t have black skin. He may have had darker skin than me (that’s not hard to do). He may have looked like a Middle Easterner. But he wasn’t black.

But this isn’t a statement about skin color. (Black Hebrew Israelites aside.) “Jesus is a Black man” is a statement about society, culture, and status. It’s about where Jesus fit in the context of His world and how He was viewed and what people thought of Him.

In the Roman Empire, Judea was a cultural and economic backwater. It was the home of malcontents, criminals, and rebels. It was trouble. Anyone who came from Judea started off at a disadvantage and had to work twice as hard for respect. Just ask Herod.

If Judea was a cultural backwater, Nazareth was the cultural backwater of Judea. Jesus came from the cultural backwater of a cultural backwater. No one outside of Judea respected Judeans and no one in Judea respected Nazarenes.

Jesus surrounded Himself with unsavory people. People who were illiterate and crude. People who made a living cheating others. People who made a living doing dirty, smelly jobs. People who were criminals.

Then He had the audacity to travel around telling everyone that they were doing life wrong, believing wrong, living wrong.

Let’s put Jesus into our context. He was a poor, Black man, from West Baltimore. He was tatted up, wore his hair in cornrows. He was friends with rappers, drug dealers, street prostitutes, and con men. He wasn’t just surrounded by them, he made them part of His inner circle. Have you seen The Wire, the men from the projects? That was Jesus.

Who are we? We are the White, well-to-do people who despise the inner cities. We consider them dirty, dangerous, unsavory, full of crime and moral degeneracy. Not only do we refuse to live there, we often refuse to travel there and fear the people who live there.

We certainly don’t want any of those street thugs telling us that we’re wrong about our mostly deeply held beliefs and need to make drastic changes. We don’t want to hear about our wrong view of history, our wrong views about poverty and money. We don’t want to hear that the nation we’ve created and love and defend is wrong, and that we are culpable for much of the suffering in our world. We don’t want to hear some Black man telling us that the way to paradise and eternal life is to give away all our wealth to the people like Him, and then follow Him.

We don’t want to hear it. Jesus is a Black man and we are White Christian America. We are the religious leaders. We are the High Priests. We are the Roman oppressors. And we’re not following Jesus, as his faithful disciples. We are the synagogue rulers and political leaders who are worried about the troublemaking, rabble rousers from the inner cities. We are the villains of the story.

Sodomy. It’s when two men have sex, with each other. It’s being gay. It’s homosexuality. It’s a heinous sin. An abomination. God hates it so much that he torched an entire town that was known for homosexuality. That city’s sin and punishment were so notable, that the name of the city (Sodom) became the name of the sin: sodomy.

But is that what sodomy is? Or has modern Christianity taken a small part of a larger story, blown it up, and completely hidden the true lesson of the story?

We start with Abram and his nephew Lot. They were both prosperous, with growing households and possessions. They were looking for a place to settle down and found a nice area. They decided to each pick a different homestead. Abram gave his nephew first choice, and Lot chose to settle in the extremely wealthy city of Sodom.

Genesis 13:10–13

Lot looked about him and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other. Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

After they’d been living in the area a good long while, long enough for Abram to pass his 99th birthday and have the new name of Abraham, God sent messengers to visit Abraham and give him an important message. As the visitors left, God decided to check in on Sodom.

the Lord said, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, and if not, I will know. So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom.”

God gave Abraham a heads up and Abraham, knowing Sodom’s reputation, feared that God would destroy the entire city, destroying the good people along with the bad people. Abraham negotiated with God and convinced God to promise that if there were only 5 good people in the city, God would spare the city for the sake of those 5 people.

We now pick up our story, as told in Genesis 19:1–11.

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.” But he urged them strongly, so they turned aside to him and entered his house, and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house, and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.”

Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

But they replied, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot and came near the door to break it down.

But the men inside reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the door of the house, both small and great, so that they were unable to find the door.

I was taught that the great sin of Sodom was that the men of the city surrounded Lot’s house and demanded that he surrender his (male) guests, for the men of the city to rape. The sin of Sodom was rampant homosexuality and God would later utterly destroy the city for that sin.

The ancient Jewish commentaries disagree with that interpretation. The rest of the Bible does too, but I’ll start with the commentaries. Why the Jewish commentaries? After all, they’re not inspired Scripture. They have their share of just-so stories and outright silliness. But, they do record what the Jewish rabbis understood the Scriptures to be saying, and what people thought the “rest of the story” was. They show a consistent interpretation about what the destruction of Sodom meant—and that interpretation is consistent with the rest of the Christian Bible.

Pirkei Avot 5:10

There are four types of character in human beings: One that says: “mine is mine, and yours is yours”: this is a commonplace type; and some say this is a sodom-type of character. [One that says:] “mine is yours and yours is mine”: is an unlearned person (am haaretz); [One that says:] “mine is yours and yours is yours” is a pious person. [One that says:] “mine is mine, and yours is mine” is a wicked person.

What does it mean to be a “sodom-type of character”? The rabbinic commentaries explain what that means. The Sodomites strongly believed that what was theirs, was theirs. To the point that they turned away travelers, made sure everyone paid their fair share, and forbid charity.

What good are travelers? Talmud, Sanhedrin 109a.12 asks.

The people of Sodom said: Since we live in a land from which bread comes and has the dust of gold, we have everything that we need. Why do we need travelers, as they come only to divest us of our property? Come, let us cause the proper treatment of travelers to be forgotten from our land, as it is stated: “He breaks open a watercourse in a place far from inhabitants, forgotten by pedestrians, they are dried up, they have moved away from men” (Job 28:4).

Everyone must pay their fair share. No one could avoid that. In fact, anyone trying to avoid their fair share was charged double in recompense. Talmud, Sanhedrin 109b.4 records a story of what happened to one traveler who tried to cross a river without paying the ferry. He was beaten for doing so. When he complained to the judge, the judge fined him the extra penalty and told him to also pay the people who had beaten him. Why pay the people who had beaten him? At the time, bloodletting was a medical procedure. By beating him to the point of bleeding, the ferry guards had done him a service!

And they instituted an ordinance: One who crossed the river on a ferry gives four dinars, and one who crossed the river in the water gives eight dinars. One time a certain launderer came and arrived there. The people of Sodom said to him: Give four dinars as payment for the ferry. He said to them: I crossed in the water. They said to him: If so, give eight dinars, as you crossed in the water. He did not give the payment, and they struck him and wounded him. He came before the judge to seek compensation. The judge said to him: Give your assailant a fee, as he let your blood, and eight dinars, as you crossed the river in the water.

The people of Sodom had a unique way of treating guests. One assumes that this was to frighten away other potential guests. Here is Talmud, Sanhedrin 109b.6.

The Gemara continues to discuss the sins of the people of Sodom: They had beds on which they would lay their guests; when a guest was longer than the bed they would cut him, and when a guest was shorter than the bed they would stretch him.

The people of Sodom loved to act generously, but hated generosity. They practiced charity in a way that ensured that it would never cost them anything. From Talmud, Sanhedrin 109b.7.

When a poor person would happen to come to Sodom, each and every person would give him a dinar, and the name of the giver was written on each dinar. And they would not give or sell him bread, so that he could not spend the money and would die of hunger. When he would die, each and every person would come and take his dinar.

The problem with practicing charity is that outsiders might hear about it and come to Sodom to benefit from the charity. Therefore, it was illegal to be charitable. Anyone caught helping poor people would be executed for their crime. Talmud, Sanhedrin 109b.9 explains that this is what caused God to come seeking for any righteous people in Sodom.

There was a young woman who would take bread out to the poor people in a pitcher so the people of Sodom would not see it. The matter was revealed, and they smeared her with honey and positioned her on the wall of the city, and the hornets came and consumed her. And that is the meaning of that which is written: “And the Lord said: Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great [rabba]” (Genesis 18:20). And Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: Rabba is an allusion to the matter of the young woman [riva] who was killed for her act of kindness. It is due to that sin that the fate of the people of Sodom was sealed.

After reading the commentaries, the story of Lot and his guests looks very different. Lot was a righteous man. He saw travelers in the city and knew well how his neighbors treated travelers. If they stayed somewhere else, they were likely to be tortured in their beds. He urged them to stay with him instead.

The men of the city heard about Lot’s generosity and kindness and were incensed by it. They demanded that he hand over the visitors, so that they could rape and terrorize Lot’s guests. When Lot protested, the men of the city grew angrier at him and decided to give him the same treatment that they gave to anyone being generous. Lot was only saved by the angels blinding the Sodomites.

The sin of Sodom was inhospitality and extreme greed.

What does the rest of the Christian Bible say about Sodom?

Isaiah 1:10–11, 15–17, 21–23

Hear the word of the Lord,
    you rulers of Sodom!
Listen to the teaching of our God,
    you people of Gomorrah!
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
    says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
    and the fat of fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls
    or of lambs or of goats.

…

When you stretch out your hands,
    I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
    I will not listen;
    your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
    remove your evil deeds
    from before my eyes;
cease to do evil;
    learn to do good;
seek justice;
    rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
    plead for the widow.

…

How the faithful city
    has become a prostitute!
    She that was full of justice,
righteousness lodged in her—
    but now murderers!
Your silver has become dross;
    your wine is mixed with water.
Your princes are rebels
    and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
    and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
    and the widow’s cause does not come before them.

That sounds a lot like extreme greed and an attitude of what is “mine is mine, and yours is yours”.

Isaiah 3:9, 13–15

The look on their faces bears witness against them;
    they proclaim their sin like Sodom;
    they do not hide it.
Woe to them,
    for they have brought evil on themselves.

…

The Lord rises to argue his case;
    he stands to judge the peoples.
The Lord enters into judgment
    with the elders and princes of his people:
It is you who have devoured the vineyard;
    the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people,
    by grinding the face of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts.

Again, the sin of Sodom was the rich becoming richer by crushing and oppressing the poor.

Ezekiel 16:46–51

Your big sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; your little sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. You not only followed their ways and acted according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. Samaria has not committed half your sins; you have committed more abominations than they and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed.

Ezekiel is writing to the people of Judah, passing along God's judgment on them. What are the abominations that Judah did? I was taught that it was sexual abominations, specifically homosexuality. But Genesis, the prophets, and the commentaries all point in a different direction: it was torturing guests in their beds. It was practicing false charity, while allowing beggars to starve in the streets. It was executing people for being charitable. Those were the abominations of Sodom.

Moving to the new Testament, we see Jesus mentioning Sodom. He does it when He sends out His disciples to evangelize and tells them to depend on the generosity of strangers.

Matthew 10:5–15

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff, for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

Jesus proclaims judgment on any town that does not welcome his disciples (strangers) and provide for them.

Jude 1:7

Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Again: is this ‘unnatural lust’ a sexual lust? Or is it greed and an unnatural lust for money? Yes, Sodom was sexually immoral. They wanted to rape Lot’s guests. But they didn’t limit their depravity to homosexual rape. They were clearly ready to rape everyone, both women and men. We know this because Lot offered them his daughters as a substitute. Clearly, he believed that the men of Sodom might accept that peace offering. Their sexual immorality was a weapon that they used to terrorize others and protect their wealth. They used many weapons to act abominably and unjustly enrich themselves. Homosexual rape was just one of their many weapons.

Taken altogether, I do not believe that the “sin of sodomy” is a sexual sin. The sin of sodomy is greed that holds tight to what is mine. It maintains its power through any means necessary. It refuses to give in an open-handed manner. And it resents anyone else who does.

“If you have ears, hear!”

(I first read this information on Patheos: We are Sodom. Me being me, I wanted to seek out the original sources. And that’s how you get this post. Thanks also to Mendy Kaminker and his essay Sodom and Gomorrah: Cities Destroyed by G-d - Chabad.org.)

This article—and this passage—has lived in my head, since I first read it, nearly 4 years ago. If you’ve talked politics with me, I’ve likely mentioned it at least once.

A Jewish theologian once asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. Jesus responded by giving his own twist on the Shema.

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

How do American Christians hear, understand, and follow Jesus’s words? Let’s check in with some good, Christian, God-fearing folks from rural Alabama.

God, Trump and the meaning of morality — The Washington Post

Linda nodded. It wasn’t just Muslims that posed a threat, she said, but all kinds of immigrants coming into the country.

“Unpapered people,” Sheila said, adding that she had seen them in the county emergency room and they got treated before her. “And then the Americans are not served.”

Love thy neighbor, she said, meant “love thy American neighbor.”

Welcome the stranger, she said, meant the “legal immigrant stranger.”

“The Bible says, ‘If you do this to the least of these, you do it to me,’ ” Sheila said, quoting Jesus. “But the least of these are Americans, not the ones crossing the border.”

To her, this was a moral threat far greater than any character flaw Trump might have, as was what she called “the racial divide,” which she believed was getting worse. The evidence was all the black people protesting about the police, and all the talk about the legacy of slavery, which Sheila never believed was as bad as people said it was. “Slaves were valued,” she said. “They got housing. They got fed. They got medical care.”

Luke tells of a situation in which another theologian quoted the Shema to Jesus, as the qualification for gaining eternal life. Then he wanted Jesus to praise him for how well he was following this commandment and asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” That’s when Jesus busted out the story of the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan.

When Jesus finished telling the story, he asked a question of his own.

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

When it comes to being Jesus’s people, there is no distinction between neighbors and American neighbors. There is no distinction between strangers and “legal immigrant strangers.” These good, Christian, God-fearing folks from rural Alabama don’t know their Bible and don’t know the love that Jesus taught, lived, and died for.

If “they will know that we are Christians by our love”, what are we to make of this rural, Alabama church that only shows love to people like them, and that disdains and fears everyone else? What are we to make of the great mass of American evangelicals who live like them, love like them, worship like them, and believe like them?

Bethlehem Baptist Church, the church that grew to prominence under Pastor John Piper, is convulsing. Jean Hopfensperger has the story and I have a few thoughts.

What’s been happening?

Three pastors have abruptly resigned this summer from Bethlehem Baptist Church of Minneapolis, signaling “a painful and confusing moment” at a megachurch that gained national prominence under longtime pastor John Piper.

The pastors cited several reasons for resigning, including how the church’s leadership council has handled race and diversity issues, and what one labeled a “bullying” and “toxic” culture toward those who hold different opinions.

At least one of the pastors said he was disturbed over the council’s refusal to distance the church from remarks about abused women by the incoming president of the church’s college and seminary.

…

“I believe our leadership culture has taken a turn in an unhealthy direction as we try to navigate conflict and division,” Meyer wrote in his July resignation letter. “Institutional protection can go too far when other viewpoints are unwelcome.”

Former care and counseling pastor Bryan Pickering, who also resigned, went further and claimed there was “domineering leadership, spiritual abuse and a toxic culture.”

…

interviews and correspondence with the departing pastors and congregation members point to several underlying issues.

One stems from church officials’ response to a “racial harmony” task force in 2019, which analyzed the diversity of the church’s leadership or lack thereof, and made numerous recommendations to recruit and retain members to the council, made up overwhelmingly of white men.

Task force members wanted the 85-page report to be sent to the congregation, but it wasn’t. Some elders charged the report was influenced by Marxism and critical race theory, task force members said. The elders now say the report will be released.

“We believe that in the absence of biblical clarity, ethnic harmony becomes a ‘wax nose’ that we can shape and twist any way we like,” according to a Council of Elders statement. “We simply cannot allow politics or secular culture to define our terms or determine our beliefs.”

Hold up. There is an absence of Biblical clarity on the topic of “ethnic harmony”? I would have thought that Revelation 7 succinctly summarized God’s perspective: “there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

Likewise, talking about “the sins of racism” or spousal abuse from the pulpit was not welcomed, Pickering said.

I can understand that. When people are hurting and the culture outside of the church is talking about the ways in which people have been hurt, abandoned, and attacked, we absolutely would not want to give anyone the impression that the Bible might have anything relevant to say on the matter. Taking a stand could offend someone. And that someone might be wealthy and influential. Better to keep quiet and preserve our relationships with the powerful.

Another flash point occurred after church members became aware of Bethlehem College and Seminary President Joe Rigney’s appearance on an episode of “Man Rampant,” an Amazon Prime video series hosted by controversial religious figure Doug Wilson. In a discussion about what to do when a woman reports physical abuse to a pastor, Wilson and Rigney stressed it was important not to immediately believe her until they’ve heard the abuser’s side of the story.

Yes! The woman was probably mouthing off to her husband, neglecting her most important responsibilities (such as catering to her husband’s every whim), or voting for the wrong people. Regardless, she likely had it coming and once you’ve heard his side of the story you’ll understand exactly why he was justified in hitting her.

Upset church members introduced a motion at a Council of Elders meeting this year, asking that the full council “make a written, public statement separating the views expressed by Joe Rigney in Man Rampant from the views and teachings of Bethlehem Baptist Church.”

A council member who had given the episode a five-star online review threatened to resign if the motion passed. It was tabled.

Of course it was. Whatever else American evangelical Christians are, they’re moral cowards. It’s more important to coddle the powerful and defer to their feelings than it is to take a stand for truth and righteousness.

Church leaders declined to sanction a seminary professor who had been accused by a dozen students of abusive behavior. An investigation later determined there were no legal violations.

Oh. No legal violations. Professors can act like any kind of asshole that they like as long they don’t actually break the law. A seminary professor certainly has no higher moral or ethical standard that they should live by. All of those fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—are for other people.

Stokes attributes some of the tensions and resignations at Bethlehem to the impact of the nation’s climate of polarization.

“You talk about racial issues too much, and some people will say ‘I’m leaving the church,’ “ he said. “You don’t talk enough about racial issues, and people say ‘I’m leaving.’ “

So he admits it: people will leave regardless. The only thing you get to choose is why people will leave and what you’ll stand for. Stokes is on the side of standing quietly by while evil is done, being complicit in that evil, and retaining the good opinion of both the evildoers and those who don’t want to hear about the existence of evil.

I believe Jesus had something to say about this as well.

“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

I've been growing and evolving my religious beliefs and political positions over the past 15 years. I may have changed the most in my attitude towards the American military and the hero worship that American evangelicals have for our military. I grew up in a conservative household, in a Navy town. I was surrounded by active duty and retired members of the military, both in my extended family and among my friends' parents and my parents' friends.

Our church was typical of many. Every July 4th, we'd celebrate America and its armed forces. Representatives from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines would carry their service's flag down to the front of the church, as the service's march was played. The American flag would be prominently honored as well. Every Veterans Day Sunday, we would ask all members of the military to stand, to be honored for their service. I thought this was only just and right, as America was a Christian nation and these men and women protected us and helped to enact America's will and — by extension — God's will.

That's all changed. I can't abide churches mixing the worship of God and the worship of American military might. Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God. Our first allegiance should be to God. If He is a jealous God, as we say He is, we shouldn't be bringing other powers into His church, to praise, honor, and venerate. God's house should be holy — set apart to God and God alone.

I've also become a peacenik. I no longer see American military might as a good thing and I no longer see the demonstration of American power as something to desire. Violence is violence and we should always mourn it and do everything we can to prevent it. In Foundation, Isaac Asimov's character Salvor Hardin says that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". I'm idealistic enough to believe that's true. I haven't become a full-fledged pacifist, but I do believe that we should avoid military force unless we've truly exhausted every other solution and we have no choice.

In that light, I read Brian Doherty's recent article for Reason.com, "No More Vietnam Syndrome". Here, he's talking about the results of America's military efforts since 9/11.

After September 11, 2001, the U.S. military fully re-entered the world stage. The last 17 years have seen a variety of wars, quasiwars, and ongoing interventions with a mix of shifting rationales, from revenge for the attacks to spreading peaceful democracy in the Middle East to targeting specific bad actors to simply helping our Saudi allies as they work to reduce Yemen to a charnel house. None of these more recent efforts have worked out well on a geopolitical level. Meant to end Islamic terrorism worldwide, our post-9/11 warmaking multiplied it. A 2007 study by NYU researchers found that the average yearly number and fatality rate of terror attacks rose by 607 percent and 237 percent respectively after we entered Iraq in 2003. If you exclude violence in that country, the increases were still 265 and 58 percent; most jihadis in subsequent years were radicalized by the invasion itself.

Meant to crush Al Qaeda, our interventions have expanded its breadth and numbers; meant to create stable democracies in the Middle East, they've helped reduce Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen to the same sort of chaos that bred the terror in Afghanistan that began this whole bloody, pointless process.

…

These various post-9/11 foreign policy failures have cost our debt-riddled nation at least $1.5 trillion in direct costs, according to a recent Defense Department report, and more than $5 trillion in ancillary costs—such as interest and future veterans expenses—according to a 2017 analysis by the Watson Center at Brown University. In constant 2018 dollars, the Defense Department will spend this year in excess of 50 percent more than it did in 1968.

But the more hideous cost—especially poignant for those who remember the cries of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"—is in lives. That same Watson Center study estimates that there have been 370,000 deaths from direct war violence since 2001; 200,000 civilian deaths; and over 10 million people displaced by the harm to property and municipal functionality. Alas, this human and social misery is obscured by consistent, deliberate use of bloodless rhetoric. American foreign policy professionals and pundits somehow manage to look at our costly failings and the world's suffering—all that money, all that death—and think the answer is that the U.S. military should have done more, and smarter, and harder.

…

If only the lessons of Vietnam, or even of Iraq, would actually stick. We can't expect the aftereffects of this century's foreign policy sins to be short-lived. Laos still suffers dozens of deaths a year because of 80 million unexploded bombs left behind by the Vietnam War. The casualties of our drone wars may be their own variety of unexploded ordnance, as generations grow up in the literal and figurative shadows of insufficiently discriminating robot death machines in the sky, courtesy of the United States.

As a Christian — not as an American, but as a Christian — are you proud of these results? Can you truly look at them and say that America was "doing the Lord's work"? I can't. I supported the Iraq War in 2003, but I don't support it now. There is nothing to cheer in the ongoing military operations in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Syria, and in Yemen. And there's certainly nothing Christian in what the U.S. military is doing around the world today. Let's stop pretending that there is, let's stop treating Veterans Day as a church holiday, and let's stop confusing patriotism with religious devotion.

Evangelical Christians are forming the backbone of President Trump's support — and driving the Republican Party's anti-immigrant agenda. I thought I'd review my Bible to see what God had to say about how his people should treat immigrants, the strangers and the sojourners.

You Were Immigrants

God reminds his people that they were the immigrants in Egypt. (Fleeing, let us remember, economic collapse in their own land.)

Exodus 22:21:

"You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 23:9:

"You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:17–19:

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. —

Treat Immigrants Well

God wants his people to treat immigrants well, to leave work for them to do, giving them a way to support themselves.

Leviticus 19:10, 33–34:

And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God. … "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native 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 23:22:

"And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God."

Leviticus 25:35:

"If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.

Deuteronomy 14:28–29:

"At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.

Deuteronomy 24:14–22:

"You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the LORD, and you be guilty of sin.

"Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

"You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.

"When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.

You Are Immigrants in God's Land

In fact, the Israelites are now living in land that God gave them, making them immigrants into God's land.

Leviticus 25:23:

"The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.

1 Chronicles 29:15:

For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.

God Condemns His People For Mistreating Immigrants

And God uses his prophets to tell people that He's not happy about the way that they've been treating immigrants.

Ezekiel 22:7,29:

Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you. … The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the sojourner without justice.

Zechariah 7:8–12:

And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart."

But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts.

Malachi 3:5:

"Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.

How You Treat Immigrants Is How You Treat Jesus

Finally, Jesus sees how we treat others as a direct reflection of whether or not we love Him.

Matthew 25:35–46:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'

Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?'

And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?'

Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."