Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 01/18/2026 6:47:10 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
A New Hampshire Episcopal bishop's stark warning to his clergy is resonating across the nation, drawing fervent praise from some and rebukes from others.
Bishop Rob Hirschfeld was one of several community and faith leaders gathered in Concord, N.H., for a vigil for Renee Macklin Good just days after she was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis.
Hirschfeld called out the "cruelty, the injustice and the horror … unleashed in Minneapolis," and warned his clergy to prepare for "a new era of martyrdom."
"I've asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written," he said, "because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable."
Hirschfeld's comments quickly went viral.
"I was actually quite surprised to open up my phone and find my social media blowing up with my own bishop on it," said Reverend Jason Wells of St. Matthews Epsicopal Church in Goffstown, N.H.
Wells, a community organizer who regularly prays outside ICE offices, said he and many others took it as a great relief – and a validation of sorts – to hear the bishop speaking openly about the mounting anxiety felt by faith leaders around the nation who've been stepping up their public prayers and protests against ICE, and getting pelted with pepper rounds, roughed up and arrested.
"People feel like he's giving voice to a feeling in the pit of their stomach about what is going on," said Wells. "It's a relief to hear him naming a concern that I've had on my mind for a while." National Violent incidents involving ICE raise questions about their training and use of force
The Reverend Betsy Hess of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Berlin, N.H. added her voice to the chorus of "amens" and immediately emailed the bishop to thank him.
Hess believes clergy "need to quit just being polite Episcopalians, and get out there and do stuff." But exactly what she would do, and what level of risk she's willing to take, is something she's still figuring out.
"It used to be that … you might go to jail, and now you might get shot! So it makes us need to be a lot more brave," she said. "I hope I would be brave, but I can't promise that I would be able to. But definitely, it's time to move beyond 'I won't do anything that has any risk whatsoever.'"
Others, however, took issue with the bishop's words.
"My initial reaction is 'Oh boy, this isn't diffusing tension at all. This feels like a war cry," said the Reverend Tom Gartin of Faith Episcopal Church who heard about the bishop's comments from his parish in Cameron Park, California.
"I didn't sign up to be a martyr," he said. "I have a family and a congregation who rely on me. If I was gone tomorrow what would happen to them?"
Gartin also bristled at the idea of a preacher making the case for physical resistance. Based on his assessment, mere statements have not "moved the needle one bit." He sees the bishop's message as "inflammatory," and at odds with one of Episcopalians' guiding tenets – Via Media – that calls for finding a middle path between extremes. Gartin said the focus of church leadership should be "to do the work of peacemaking and to deescalate the tension we've seen all around us."
"We're called to do the work of peacemaking and to deescalate the tension we see all around us because it doesn't serve anyone to become the next victim," he said, "but it does serve everyone to build the next bridge."
More at link...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
WHAT RIGHTS DO ILLEGALS HAVE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
"That, Hirschfeld said, is the Episcopal tradition. At the vigil where he made his initial remarks, he listed several church activists who became martyrs, including Jonathan Daniels, a New Hampshire native and seminary student who travelled to Alabama in 1965 to help integrate public places and register Black voters. He took a bullet to protect a black teenager he accompanied.
'Not everyone can be a Jonathan Daniels,' Hirschfeld said, but 'we're increasingly called to go into places that feel dangerous.'
That could be anything, he said, from his venture into the home of a neighbor whose political yard signs made him feel unsafe, to attending public demonstrations against ICE."
prepare their wills? What the hell? Are they going to start ramming their suv’s into the agents? Blow themselves up?
‘WHAT RIGHTS DO ILLEGALS HAVE IN THE FIRST PLACE?’
NONE!
I certainly hope not.
New Hampshire pawn.
Drama Queens
Emphasis on “queens”.
Martyrs for Antichrist.
And the gullible idiot bishop compares registering black voters in the Jim Crow South to today's AstroTurf paid professional 'protesters' who protecting criminals? Is the bishop nuts? Did he miss the real civil rights movement of the 60s and now wants to relive a glory he missed?
He probably gets down on his knees and pretends to pray.
WHAT RIGHTS DO ILLEGALS HAVE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
__________________________________________________
They don’t have many; and if they are repeat offenders, you could argue that they have just about zero.
What a fool.
Does he think the Vikings are on their way?
I tend to b1tch about Scientology and the Catholics a lot - much of it over for the very active role they play in enabling the 3rd-world invasion here in the USA.
But the Episcopalians are enriched by this insanity, too: They’re not listening to their lifelong (many families have been in the church for generations), tithing membership - and the members’ tithes are only a small part of the (tax-free) revenue the church rakes in, of course - the NGOs are funneling money to them, so the taxpayers are getting ripped off AND the lifelong, sincere Episcopalians are getting ripped off TWICE. More than twice, probably.
Listen, religious churchgoing Christian folks: Your government is saying that they like these guys - the gangsters and fraudsters, and violent criminals - they like these guys more than they like you, even though you are NOT a gangster, work/put in a lifetime of work for your sustenance and shelter and never defrauded anyone (except maybe in a poker game, and you already confessed to that one), and of course never robbed anyone, r8ped anyone, s3xed up a little kid, or murdered a person you never knew and had no beef with just because your gang boss told you to. You TRIED to stay out of trouble in your life and mostly were successful.
Yeah, but they like these guys better than you - the government you’ve been paying MORE AND MORE AND MORE taxes to sustain over the years of your adult life: They like the illegals better.
So you turn to your church - where you attend worship at least every few weeks if not every week, put money into the collection plate, and feel you have a community of sympathetic, helpful....NO YOU DON’T. Now you find out your church doesn’t give a crap about you, either. They like these guys better, too!
So now what do you have?
Hm.......
Oh, that’s right! What does our Almighty Father think about it, and how does Jesus feel about your government and your church treating you like that?
Did you do something so wrong that G0d has turned against you, too?
OF COURSE NOT.
However, where is G0d when all this is going on? Why does he let your government (that you elected and supposedly works in your best interests) and your church abuse and exploit you?
I’m not the greatest Bible scholar, but just upon a casual read, one notes a pattern: People have easy lives because they have followed G0d’s laws and so they get lazy. The “easy life” thing doesn’t go away instantly, however, and of course the promise of an easy, peaceful, prosperous existence draws a lot of folks who aren’t as down with or cognizant of G0d’s law. It tends to get crowded after a while and those priestesses of Ba’al are SO CUTE AND FRIENDLY and what’s wrong with a little ritualistic abandonment and.....
And then G0d’s telling you to get out of the way because He has a little ass-whupping to do. Hustle, now! Just take what you can carry and get on out. Don’t look back.
Stopped reading at NPR
They don't have any rights. They are not Americans. What the hell did they ever do to deserve rights fought for by AMERICANS? They are cowards, criminals, rapists, murderers and thieves. Their rights are back in the sewer they crawled out of. I'm a combat vet. I did not sacrifice for those cowardly ahos who are too shickenchit to fight for their "rights" in their own country. Cowards. They need to see the UN if they need somebody else to fight for their "rights."
Yeah, you just keep protecting those murderers and child molesters, bishop.
That’s right. The left wants as many child rapists, murders, drug dealers, welfare cheats and mentally ill aliens in this country as possible. The more there are the sooner the country falls which is their objective. It’s a civil right, don’t you know. ;~((
Just because someone is in a position of responsibility in a religion doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t confused, incendiary , wrong, foolish or an absolute nitwit. ...or all of the above.
“I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written,” he said, “because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”
The most ‘vulnerable’. Those are the elderly, the sick, the people with special needs, the single mothers, those working poor. They are not those who illegally invaded and pillage the people. Communities should care for the vulnerable. Those people that have pillaged here should return to their communitie, so we can care for ours.
“Stopped reading at NPR”
It’s wise to know what the Enemy is promoting via National Pravda Radio! ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.