Posted on 01/31/2008 5:58:59 PM PST by SmithL
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The presiding bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Episcopal Church called for members of their churches "to advocate for just national policies on resettlement and migration." The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, and the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, made the comment in joint statement released Jan. 30 at a gathering here with refugees, staff and friends of Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries (IRIM).
The gathering was at the Episcopal Church of the Atonement. Jefferts Schori is here in advance of the Feb. 2 consecration of the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. The ELCA, based here, and the Episcopal Church, based in New York, are full communion partner churches. The churches are affiliated with IRIM through Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service or Episcopal Migration Ministries.
In their statement, the presiding bishops noted that there are 33 million people worldwide who are refugees. They wrote: "The current migration climate in this country is often focused on exclusion and restriction. As people formed by a generous and embracing gospel, we must challenge our leaders to avoid cultivating an unwarranted atmosphere of fear. We must not encourage building walls or denying basic human rights to those who clamor for security and justice. Our perspective should be one of abundance, for we are blessed with abundance and guided by the mandate to love all as part of God's good creation."
Two refugees, served by IRIM, told their personal stories to the presiding bishops. One refugee, Baraka Kubaya, came to the United States through Egypt, after he and his wife were forced to leave their home in Sudan. Sponsored by St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Park Ridge, Ill., Kubaya and his wife resettled here in 2006 with IRIM's help.
"That day was like a new page in my life," he said. "For the first time in my life, I felt secure. IRIM prepared everything for us. They deserve good credit for the work they are doing here."
"Most of us in this country, if we're willing to go back far enough or even just a few years, have stories (in our histories) of oppression, of hunger, of warfare, of not knowing what it is to live in peace with justice," Jefferts Schori said. "We are called to transform this world into something that looks more like what God has in mind for all of us."
Hanson agreed, saying that every person has immigration stories in their histories. "I'm convinced this culture would be in a very different place if we would stop, as privileged people, and simply hear the stories of refugees."
IRIM represents all organizations and people who are living out their faith by heeding the Scriptures, Hanson said. Immigration stories "drive us back to the biblical narrative," he said.
"It's always bewildering for me that people of faith become so ardently anti-immigrant and anti-refugee because they are becoming biblically illiterate about their own narrative. God expects -- requires -- God's people to reflect that covenantal relationship in the extension of justice to the sojourner, the refugee among us," Hanson said.
Founded in 1982, IRIM provides support and services for 2,500 people annually who have resettled in the Chicago area. It has served people from 64 countries, said Gregory J. Wangerin, executive director.
I try to avoid posting press releases, but I thought this one was worth reading.
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Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15
Over a decade ago I authored this Memorial for my Synod Assembly; it passed with hardly any dissenting votes; and, I am delighted to say that ever since that time my congregation has supported Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services to the amount requested.
WHEREAS The Old Testament calls us to “remember that you were a slave in Egypt” (Deuteronomy 5:15) and to share abundantly with the refugee in our midst “Then you...and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house” (Deuteronomy 26:11); and
WHEREAS The New Testament reminds us “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without know- ing it.” (Hebrews 13:2); and
WHEREAS Our congregations in North America largely began as immigrant, refugee peoples seeking religious freedom and economic well-being; and
WHEREAS Despite these mandates and this heritage, congregational support for refugee resettlement programs has declined in recent years; and
WHEREAS In response, the Board of Directors of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services issued a statement of concern on September 29, 1994 entitled Who Is My Neighbor?
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Lower Susquehanna Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America commends each congregation to:
1. Utilize the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services paper Who Is My Neighbor? in its program of Christian Education.
2. Consider budgeting at least one month’s rent for a refugee family as part of its outreach and mission giving.
Yeah, I know. I try not to do that very often.
Sadly, organizations like your LIRS and Catholic Charities have created havoc and upheaval "on the ground" in areas where they have dumped thousands of Mohammedan "refugees", some of whom are so primitive they have no idea how to use a door handle. What these organizations do teach them is how to use "the system", not work and hand the bill to the local workers. Your Lutheran organization and Catholic Charities may feel an obligation to assure the growth of Mohammedanism in America, but they have no right at all to hand the bill for their social/religious engineering to those of us whose people have had up close and personal experience with Islam and want nothing more to do with it or its depraved devotees.
Funny. I don’t know anyone who’s anti-refugee and anti-immigrant. I do know people who are anti-illegal alien, but refugees and immigrants can and do come here legally.
I’ll be going to this consecration. In fact, I’ll be singing in the choir. So this should be interesting.
As opposed to inviting everyone who wants to come. All of my ancestors were in the US before the largest flood of the world's tired, hungry & poor. They came here to build & build they did. There weren't any kind of safety net programs for any of them. There wasn't even any infrastruction for many of them, so they built the infrastructure in the communities they formed.
Exclusion & restriction are less about, "I've got mine, close the gates" & more about policies that give greater "rights" & government handouts to the newcomers. When receiving charity became a "civil right", those who are forced to provide it need the corresponding "right" to exclude & restrict.
The Bible says we're to teach men to fish. It doesn't say that it is our responsibility to give everyone with their hands out as many fish as they can carry. The Bible also says that men who will not work should be allowed to starve.
As people formed by a generous and embracing gospel, we must challenge our leaders to avoid cultivating an unwarranted atmosphere of fear.
Many only fear enforcement of just laws, as they should.
We must not encourage building walls or denying basic human rights to those who clamor for security and justice.
Wonder what they define as basic human rights. If the "rights" are given to them by any government policy of any government, they're not rights, they're privileges. All of our rights come from God. A nation or community can, at best, protect rights or, at worst, take them away without due process.
we cant do gods work when a flood of illegal immigrants destroys the country.
The flood isn't the problem, because we've handled much larger floods (in both numbers & percentage of population) than the one we're currently facing. Government policies that put people on a government teat serves to weaken the home grown population, while at the same time drawing too many of the "wrong" kind of immigrants.
Those who are attracted by opportunity have a different mindset than those who are attracted by handouts. A population of opportunity seekers raise the boat, while a population with too many looking for a free ride in the boat will sink it.
nor do I - attended a church conference this week and the leaders and others often mentioned the anti-immigrant sentiment, linking it to racism seemed to be trying to make everyone feel guilty. But in reality, those in my circle at home look with great affection on immigrants. Some hire them in both skilled and unskilled jobs, associate with them, etc. Why they even drink margaritas with them. The definition of "immigrant" is one who enters the country legally)
It is the illegal alien which upsets everyone.
I in NO WAY support the globalist scheme of encouraging large-scale, almost unlimited Third World immigration to the US!!!! Nor do I support any muslim immigration to the US whatsoever.
Large-scale Third World immigration is not about love of neighbor. It is about: 1. destroying Euro-American culture to turn the US into a model world-state as the seat of empire; 2. providing a pool of cheap labor for corporatist/globalist interests; 3. increasing numbers of votes for corrupt globalist politicians who manipulate “demographics” in order to win elections.
A lot of the problem centers around Mexico, a resource-rich country that should be able to provide a decent life for its citizens. But corrupt Mexican politicans collude with corrupt US politicians to keep most Mexicans poor,use immigration (and “sending money back home”) as a psuedo-safety valve, and providing cheap labor and votes to the corrupt US globalist politicians and business interests. Then there is the looming spectre of AZTLAN, or the “Reconquista” of the American Southwest.
IMHO, real love of neighbor involves learning about the real economic situation of Mexico, and working with our Mexican counterparts to bring about a situation where Mexicans can have a good chance for a decent life in their own country. Then Mexican immigration to the US will be no more troublesome than German, Irish, or Serbian immigration.
But the corrupt arch-globalist feminazi “bishop” Katharine Jefferts-Schori promotes unlimited Third World immigration instead (as expected), bashes any Christians who oppose it, and drags her abject vassal Mark Hanson along with her. This is truly bogus!!!!
See my post #14.
A few years ago (well after clinton’s war and 9/11), our local Lutheran social service agency posted pictures of the refugees and immigrants that they helped settle in our area. Among them, they PROUDLY displayed pictures of Muhammadan women in hijabs. These were obviously NOT “moderate” muslims.
As a result, I immediately stopped giving to that agency. Even earlier, I had stopped giving to Lutheran World Relief, because of their blatant Serbophobia and their work building up a KLA-run Kosovo. Since then, I have given to International Orthodox Christian Charities, the Decani Monastery Fund, etc. instead.
In the past we had a natural way of separating the sheep from the goats (no welfare bennies), and as many as 50% of prevous immigration waves ended up going back home.
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