You Were Once Exiles

As for them being illegal aliens, who cares?

This country got along just fine without immigration laws for the first century. We didn't start limiting immigration until the late 1800's, early 1900's, and that was mostly because of eugenics theory promulgated by Darwin, Sanger and their ilk.

I have yet to see one good argument for being seriously concerned about immigration, legal or illegal.

"I have yet to see one good argument for being seriously concerned about immigration, legal or illegal."

Again I will ask, you must be joking.

As for ,"As for them being illegal aliens, who cares? "

Obviously you do not care about our laws being broken or not being inforced. I assume you are therefore, an anarchist.

I am not an anarchist, but I also am not bound by unjust laws. As St. Peter said, "We must obey the laws of God, not of men." I've been arrested for sitting in front of an abortion clinic's doors and I have no problem with Hispanics are anyone else who flouts an unjust immigration law. If the laws don't conform to divine precepts of justice and mercy, they aren't real laws.

The quotation from Peter is both misquoted and out of context. Acts 5:29 reads, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” The Greek word nomos (law) is not there. And here is the context. After having been taught and commissioned by Christ to carry on His teaching and, after having received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles began preaching the Gospel in Jerusalem. Part of their work was healing in Jesus’ name. For their efforts, they were brought before the Jewish religious authorities and told to stop their preaching and work. Peter’s first reply was,

“Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20).

The authorities let the Apostles go and, against the warnings of the authorities, the Apostles continued there work. This led to their being arrested and jailed. An angel appeared to them and, before springing them from jail, gave them this command:

“Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.” (Acts 5:20)

Which the Apostles did. The authorities went out and found the Apostles and said,

“Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.” (Acts 5:28)

To which Peter replied:

“We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.” (Acts 5:28-32)

So the issue here is that the Apostles steadfastly chose to obey God in the divine mission given to them and preach, teach and heal in Jesus name, as opposed to obeying the authorities, who told them to stop.

To use this verse as a proof-text that supposedly gives Christians a blank check to disregard secular laws is to disregard and do violence to the meaning of the verse. (Not that that hasn’t been done before!)

Having said that, I do agree that there are laws that violate divine principles. Laws supporting slavery would be unjust. So would laws that allow children to be worked half-to-death in factories. So is abortion. (By the way, I applaud you for the stand you have taken on that.) But I fail to see how immigration laws fall into the category. Immigration laws are simply a way for a sovereign country to manage how many people come in from the outside. If your beef is that U.S. immigration laws are discriminatory against Mexicans, and therefore unjust and unmerciful – sorry, I don’t see that as being the case, even if the laws were enforced.