Heavy, Deep & Real ministries

Hi gang!

It’s been a while since I’ve put my fingers to the keyboard but a friend of mine really challenged me this week and I wanted to use this space to repeat his question and have a bit more space to explain my answer rather than via text messages.

I’ve known Joshua Tanzer since I think 1984 – I was an intern at the Oregonian newspaper in Portland, OR and met him there. We’ve been friends since and I can say that we are nearly polar opposites politically. So, here was his question to me:

“Hey Tom – I’ve been holding this in for a long time. I’ve seen you align yourself with the richest man in the world and the most powerful man in the world, against the poor and powerless, and then you tell me about Jesus, and I just don’t recognize that Jesus at all. There’s no Jesus in there. I wonder if you look at everythings that’s happening and can see that it’s off track. I saw this story today and it’s just one of many stories like it. I can’t live with this.”

The story was on Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, a Pakistani native who served in the U.S. military, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to Newsweek, he is a green card holder but he reportedly faced deportation charges over a decade ago, when ICE sought to remove Chaudhry over a misdemeanor fraud charge from Australia, as reported by The Olympian. The local outlet also noted that he did not acknowledge that charge on his 2001 visa application, and in addition, he reportedly misrepresented his citizenship status on an application to become a reserve officer at the Yakima Police Department.

When I wrote back I told Josh that there is probably more to the story and there is.  Dude lied on an application and misrepresented his status on other official forms – that is a big no-no as a green-card holder. (But, I believe as a veteran he should get automatic citizenship for serving though!!)

Josh’s question to me, however, is valid! Truth be known, even my wife has been arguing with me on this issue!

However, I believe there are two things happening that are causing these discussions:

1. Prooftexting – taking a piece of scripture that fits their narrative and saying the Bible supports their position.
2. Partial Gospel – only looking at Jesus (God) as loving, caring, and soft-hearted and not acknowledging His justice, righteousness and holiness.

Because the charges against me are rather serious:

1. I’m not following Jesus
2. I’m preaching about Jesus and being a hypocrite
3. I don’t care about the poor and powerless
4. I’m really not a Christian

I feel compelled to explain why I believe what I think is biblical and that Jesus (The Word) would agree.

The verse that is used the most often when it comes to immigration is Deuteronomy 10:19 –

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 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.”

So, God’s chosen people who have been set apart are commanded by God to accept the immigrant! FANTASTIC! America has done just that! If you are reading this and are not a Native American, then you come from immigrant stock and America at some point welcomed your ancestors! Mine came from Germany and Eastern Europe! America is truly a melting pot, and we must be like Israel and accept the immigrant.

Now notice what it says here – “…treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you…” What exactly do you think that means? Well, we get a glimpse of it in sevaral places. The best example is in the Book of Ruth! Poor Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi! Both their husbands are dead and Naomi has decided to return to her people in Israel. Ruth is a Moabite but decides to go with Naomi to Israel. History note here – Israel and the Moabites had fought multiple times, including when the Israelite judge Ehad assassinated the Moabite king!! But Ruth wants to stay with Naomi. As Naomi tries to disuade her, Ruth makes this incredibly important statement:

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16 – Emphasis added)

When foreigners came into the Israelite fold they were treated as if they were native meaning they would be welcomed and loved as if native and the God of Israel would become their God! You didn’t get to bring you own God, culture, language, etc… into the Israelite camp. Instead you became like a native born!

Futher, Leviticus 24:22 puts it succinctly: “You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.”

Why is this important?

When you came to Israel you had to follow their laws.

Now think about it for a moment – doesn’t this make perfect sense? God set apart the Jews to be His special inheritance, yet He allows others to join this group. Scripture is full of commands NOT to mix with other people groups; not to marry into these groups, follow their gods, or even allow them to live at times! So, God allows the foreigner into the camp but basically says you must assimilate – you will become one of us!

That’s actually GREAT NEWS for the foreigner! According to Ezekiel 47:21-23 foreigners could get an inheritance of the land! Foreigners were to be treated fairly and not opressed. The poor (foreigner, fatherless, widows) were allowed to glean the fields and various trees which were not harvested at the edges of the field just for this purpose!

Our God is an awesome God who loves His creation and expects us to love the poor and downtroden as well!

Now let’s fast forward a couple thousand years to American today!

We have legal immigration in this country. It’s a broken system that needs to be streamlined but there is a system. We welcome the foreigner when they go through that system. And unlike Israel, we don’t force assimilation – our God is not their God nor our people their people. Immigrants that come to this country are free to maintain their language, culture, religion, creed, etc…

But what about illegal immigration? That is what we’re talking about, right?

Is it unChristian to support a nation’s laws? Is it anti-Jesus to want to enforce those laws?

Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Romans 13:1-7:

Every ^[a]person is to be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except ^[b]from God, and those which exist are established by God. ² Therefore ^[c]whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. ³ For rulers are not a cause of fear for ^[d]good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; ⁴ for it is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a servant of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. ⁵ Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. ⁶ For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. ⁷ Pay to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; ^[e]respect to whom ^[f]respect; honor to whom honor.

Does Paul contradict Jesus? Nope – Watch Jesus in Matthew 22:15-22:

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. ¹⁶ They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. ¹⁷ Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax^[a] to Caesar or not?”

¹⁸ But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? ¹⁹ Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, ²⁰ and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

²¹ “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

²² When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

See what Jesus did there? Give unto Caeser what is Caesers – allow the government to govern – but give to God what is His, which is honor, glory, obedience, sacrifice, worship, et al.

Throughout Jesus’ walk on Earth, He did not disobey the law, Roman or Jewish. That is why they couldn’t legally arrest Him and why Pilate found no guilt in Him! He followed the rules.

What I hope I’ve shown so far is that we are to accept the foreign but the implication is they assimilate and do so legally.

As a Christ follower, I believe what scripture says!

But there is more to this issue! For me it’s not about whether you obey the law or not – of course you do – but how do you treat people as you are obeying and enforcing the law! Scripture is clear on that one as well!

Zecharia 7:9-10 – “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.”

We are to treat immigrants to our nation kindly even if we have to send them back to their nation of origin due to them coming to our country illegally.

My friend Josh was worried about the military veteran who was detained by ICE. From Josh’s perspective, the guy didn’t do anything wrong and was just picked up for no reason! I would argue that in fact the guy did do something wrong and the question is does the punishment fit the crime?

I was concerned that not only Josh but A LOT of people on social media are saying there are tons of people being “kidnapped” by ICE! I thought I’d look it up myself. Maybe I’m missing something! What I found was people getting picked up by ICE who are not the hardened criminal types but do have some criminal or fraudulent issues in their background. No, ICE is not just randomly grabbing green card holders off the street and hauling them off to hidden detention centers. That is simply political hyperbole.

That said, and I’ve written this before, I think we do a HORRIBLE job of processing illegal immigrants, and an even worse job of providing legal ways for people to enter our country.

For me, there are different types of people with whom we are dealing. There are the cartels, drug dealers, gangbangers, sex traffickers, et al who simply need to be arrested and immediately sent back to their home nation. Period. We need these folks off our streets.

Then there are the people who have been in the country for decades, working, paying taxes, and have either been stonewalled trying to get citizenship or haven’t really put in the effort (a lot of people I know fall into the latter category). My opinion is we give them an opportunity to become citizens. They are not criminals, they’re not just living off the system. They are productive members of our society and we should embrace them.

Then there are the people coming into the country who want a better life. Great! Who doesn’t want to chase opportunity! Let’s streamline the process for getting a work visa, green card, and citizenship and actually HELP these folks chase the American dream!

Then there is a group who have come to the country illegally, don’t work, don’t try to assimilate, and simply live off the system. My opinion is we give them opportunity to integrate but if they refuse we send them home.

Lastly, there is the group that are truly oppressed and seeking asylum. Again, streamline that system so they are safe and secure. Let’s [protect them!

Honestly, immigration reform is not really that hard in my mind but Congress has had opportunities during the past four administrations to do it and have failed.

Now that that is all said, I would push back on the idea that somehow, I preach Jesus but am a hypocrite when it comes to how I feel about illegal immigration. I would push back that I am being unbiblical. I would push back that somehow, I don’t care about the poor and downtrodden. I even would push back against the narrative that Jesus would support America having open borders with illegal immigration.

I will agree that we need to be softer hearted toward that vast majority of those coming to our country illegally. Having a “Florida Alcatraz” and prison-like detainment camps certainly is not the answer! I was appalled that they would even think about using an old Japanese internment camp for ICE detainees! How stupid is that! Further, splitting kids from their parents is a non-starter for me (I’ve written on that extensively). Ensuring kids coming over the border are doing so with blood relatives and aren’t being trafficked if vital! We need to take care of people in compassionate and humane way even if we’re sending them home.

Here’s the thing, you can hold two competing thoughts in your head at once! For example, I’ve written multiple times on how I am not a big Trump fan. Yet, I can support policies he puts forth – the two are not mutually exclusive. I didn’t particularly care for the past couple Democrat presidents but there were policies I supported – again not mutually exclusive. You can dislike a person but agree with their position – that’s called adulting.

So yes, I can applaud ICE for aggressively deporting MS-13, Tren de Aragua, cartel members, pedophiles and other dangerous illegals from our country! At the same time, I can support expedited legal status for people who have lived in America illegally yet have been productive members of society. I see no contradiction there.

The real problem with the debate is there is a cognitive distortion – If you don’t agree fully with someone you then are against them totally! I think that there is a lot more going on with the issue of immigration than Orange Man Bad thus all his administration does is Bad. That’s just intellectually lazy.

So, yes, love your neighbor as yourself! Welcome the foreigner! Obey the Law! And if you’re really concerned as is my friend Josh, be part of the solution! Write up a proposal on how you would handle an immigration law rewrite and submit it to you congressman. Clearly you probably have better ideas than the ones they’ve come up with!

But please don’t accuse those of us following biblical commands and principles of being unloving, hypocrites, and basically disparaging the name of Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And as for the charges against me, I would respectfully disagree. I don’t align myself with Trump and Musk (I think he was talking about Musk) – I agree with some of their positions. I don’t believe that the positions with which I agree violate any Biblical commands or principles – to the contrary, I think they actually align with the Bible when you read Scripture within the context of the entire book. I don’t hate the poor – I’ll let my ministry work speak for itself on that one. And the Jesus I know is both the lamb and the lion! The Jesus I know told us to love our neighbor but also the same One who overturned tables in the temple and whipped the money changers. The Jesus I know loves everyone but told us to obey the law. The Jesus I know doesn’t condemn us but tells us to sin no more! The Jesus I know called Samaritans “dogs” yet revealed Himself to a Samaritan woman at a well. And I think the Jesus I know would love the immigrant deeply but tell the immigrant to go about things legally.

Truly I want to follow Jesus so I believe we do need to treat people as Jesus would, but we can also enforce laws in a way that scripture (the Word) commands.

Thus, I plead not guilty to all charges!