{"id":75214,"date":"2015-09-23T19:04:31","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T03:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=75214"},"modified":"2015-09-23T19:04:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T03:04:31","slug":"senator-jeff-sessions-notes-that-god-told-nehemiah-to-build-a-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=75214","title":{"rendered":"Senator Jeff Sessions Notes That God Told Nehemiah To Build A Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Roll Call<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s always dangerous for church leaders to start opining on complex matters of which they haven\u2019t had a chance to learn over the years. I mean, we\u2019ve been wrestling with immigration for 30 years. That\u2019s a lot of knowledge. So the pope is not invested in that,\u201d Sessions said.<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cIt\u2019s all right for him to call on us to establish an immigration law that serves the national interest and assists people, but how that\u2019s done, I think he probably is not sufficiently informed, and I would say that despite some of the biblical things, Nehemiah went back to Jerusalem and the Lord commanded him to build a wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, [there are] many references in the Old Testament about the legitimacy of nations or countries or tribal areas, deciding who goes in and through and who does not. So that\u2019s part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the conversation, Sessions suggested the pope go to his native Argentina instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would suggest on immigration, maybe he would want to go to Argentina and ask them to take more people from the Middle East. They take almost none.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Sessions isn\u2019t a big fan of the pope\u2019s criticism of capitalism either.<\/p>\n

\u201cHas a socialist policy worked in Argentina or Brazil? Who do they call on when there is a refugee crisis? The West, who has a free market system that has created wealth. \u2026 Even our poor people are wealthier than middle-class people in most countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sessions noted he\u2019s a Methodist and doesn\u2019t always agree with what leaders in his church say either.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur bishops and church leaders say really foolish things periodically that I\u2019m glad parishioners don\u2019t know that they did. It would further hurt the church than it already has,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sessions added that the church should focus on spiritual issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus focused on the bread of life, the spiritual realm,\u201d he said. \u201cYou get that right, everything else kind of falls into place. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything in the scriptures that says nation states shouldn\u2019t operate as nation states do. There was never any arguments that Rome\u2019s basic secular infrastructure was fundamentally evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sessions suggested it would be better to help countries understand that \u201ca free market system will eliminate more poverty than a government passing a law.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said there\u2019s a delicate balance, and there are times when church leadership has been very important in the public sphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been uneasy about church leaders getting too deeply involved in political issues because it can undermine their core mission, undermine their ability to be effective on spiritual matters. However, there is no doubt that on occasion there are times that a call for obedience and an objection to wrong policies is demanded of church leaders. Where you draw that line, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Roll Call: \u201cIt\u2019s always dangerous for church leaders to start opining on complex matters of which they haven\u2019t had a chance to learn over the years. I mean, we\u2019ve been wrestling with immigration for 30 years. That\u2019s a lot … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75215,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75214\/revisions\/75215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}