Can You Be a Trump-Supporter and Still be a Good Christian?

What you really wrote :
One can be a good Christian and support ~~the Democrats~~ evil.

It has been quite a time since I read through the Old Testament but over and over and over God castigated Israel for allowing foreign people, who he called strangers, into the nation to “pollute” their culture.

He said that if they did, the strangers would become the head, and Israelites would become the tail.

That is why Israel was warned about how they would be pricks in their eyes forever. Today in the United States, and the Western world, the overwhelming majority of crimes are committed by non-whites. Now, people start yowling racism at that kind of statement, but it happens to be true.

There is no contradiction between how foreigners were treated once in the country, according to law, and keeping them out before they got in.

For example, the foreigners had to wait many generations before they could become citizens, and some could never become citizens. I remember one group had to wait ten generations before they could become citizens. So there was a distinction drawn with the groups.

Today, democrats, who hate Christianity, will pull out Biblical verses and attempt to guilt-trip Christians into complying with their wishes to destroy the culture and the country. We now have God hating non-Christians lecturing Christians on how to be better Christians.

And the non-citizens did not receive tithe money.

Christianity has nothing to do with this.
Deporting illegals is about the law and about preserving our country.

Wrong argument.

I’ll keep reading, but I think it wasn’t so much that they allowed foreigners in as much as that they didn’t totally wipe out the peoples they conquered, as God had told them to do. They intermarried with those who worshipped idols and were drawn into apostasy.

I’m not sure what you mean by the non-citizens not receiving tithe money. Are you talking about in the US? In the Old Testament there wasn’t really citizenship in a country. There were Israelis, of the 12 tribes, and those who were not of an Israeli tribe. The non-Hebrews were considered aliens if they lived among the Israelis. And they did receive the tithes every 3rd year. It wasn’t money; it was the produce of their fields, flocks, and herds. It was strictly so the widows, orphans, and aliens would have food to eat. They didn’t have Social Security, but God wanted those who faced hardships in life to have a safety net. A portion of the tithes went to the priests and their families; a portion was used for the 3 yearly national celebrations, and every third year the remainder of the tithes was stored up to feed the vulnerable population - widows, orphans, and aliens.

(”At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.” Deut 14:28-29)

Shortly after that there are commands to not deprive the widow, orphans, or aliens of justice, because God rescued the Israelites from slavery. And there is the command to not go over the harvested field twice, but instead to leave whatever was missed the first time for the widows, orphans, and aliens - and again it is because the LORD rescued Israel from slavery. The idea is always basically the same as what Jesus told His disciples: As I have loved you, so you must love each other. We are blessed so that we can be a blessing to others in the same way we have been blessed by God.

So the Biblical message is not as cut and dried as either “side” wants it to be. We are to welcome strangers and treat them well, because God treated us well when we were still helpless. But we are to expect the aliens among us to obey the laws and we are to execute justice without partiality either for or against the rich or poor, powerful or vulnerable. Only the facts and evidence matter in the courts.

What really makes a mess of things is when the “sides” talk past each other so they can ignore either side of God’s love: His justice and His mercy.

“We are to welcome strangers and treat them well, because God treated us well when we were still helpless.”

No. Do we commit national suicide by bringing in all comers? Do you welcome foreigners into your home and maintain them?

You won’t find a single verse in the Old Testament that says Israelites are to welcome in strangers; they are cautioned to keep them out. They are described as foolish to bring them in.

About every time you click on the news there is an account of an illegal killing an American. We have homeless Americans and Biden brought in millions and put them on Social Security. And free healthcare, crowding out Americans. And public education, where they turn the classroom into a circus.

Evidently you have never read the Old Testament. Moses wrote the laws on citizenship, and he did in fact specify citizenship.

As for the New Testament, it is about salvation, a personal relationship with God and interaction among church members who are called the brethren. Acts of charity are left up to individual choice, and one persons idea of charity cannot be imposed on anyone else.

The Old Testament is about nation building. The New Testament is about salvation.

I don’t think we’re reading the same Bible. The Old Testament is full of commands about how to treat the aliens among the Israelites. In the laws Moses specifically says which laws apply to the aliens and which do not. What is believed to be the pre-incarnate Christ came as a stranger to Abraham and others. The New Testament says to not neglect to entertain strangers because in doing so some have entertained angels.

I was specifically looking for anything that talked about trespassing and was surprised to find that there isn’t really that concept. There is the concept of trying to move boundary lines, which is forbidden. But if somebody is walking through on your property you are to allow them to pick and eat from the field en route. They aren’t to harvest anything from your field but the idea of being welcoming/hospitable suggests caring for their needs while they are passing through. I think God is a Minnesotan. My son’s family is struggling with a Muslim refugee family on their block whose 8-year-old son comes into the garage or back yard without asking permission and rides on the Big Wheel jeep I got my grandson for his birthday. This week my son loaded that jeep on my pickup to take back to my house because it is causing too many problems. This kid doesn’t take no for an answer from anybody and has no concept of any boundaries whatsoever. He won’t leave even when my DIL tells him he can come back later but the kids have something else to do right now. Won’t listen to my son. The only one he will listen to is my 5-yr-old grandson if he says he doesn’t want to play.

So I looked in my Bible, wondering if the Middle East culture has different views on boundaries. It was uncomfortable to have my own views challenged. I don’t think what’s in the Old Testament means that people can spend unauthorized time on other people’s property and borrow their Big Wheel without asking (which would be called stealing). But the idea of being people who stand with a shotgun ready for anybody who sets foot on their property is not in line with Scripture either. We are not required to allow ourselves to be taken advantage of, but we are to be welcoming people. And that is what one “side” of the immigration argument don’t seem willing to acknowledge regarding God’s desire for how we treat the people around us.

We are also to be lawful people, and aiding others in being unlawful is NOT an option. We are also not to try to entice people to do what is unlawful or to entice them away from the people they are supposed to be loyal to. And that is what our government and these NGO’s are actually doing. The immigration process is not supposed to be a welfare line. People are supposed to show that they can provide for their families in order to come here, unless they are fleeing persecution. But when they come here illegally just to get freebies what they are doing is actually stealing from the people that God DOES say are to be provided for: widows and orphans. Aliens are included in receiving food assistance because they were mostly hired servants who didn’t have land to grow their own food or any extended family to help provide their needs like the Israelites had.

We are not to show favoritism, which means we don’t let aliens get away with whatever they want because we don’t want them deported. A people which looks the other way when crimes are committed is an abomination to the LORD. That is totally being ignored by those who say that Christians cannot support deportations. The people being deported are those who refused to go through the legal process to be here. That is stealing from the people who DO go through the right steps and wait in a very, very long line because of all the people who unlawfully butted in line.

And an invasion or conquest of land belonging to the Israelites is a totally different issue than the occasional alien living amongst the Israelites living as servants.

If you can find a place where God forbids the welcoming of aliens in Scripture I would love to see it. Please share. Also if you find any place where Moses defined citizenship in any country - as distinct from him saying which tribes were to inherit what land - I would appreciate seeing that as well because I have not found anything like that at all.

What you seem to be talking about is not about people coming into Israeli lands but about Israel’s refusal to totally annihilate the people groups they were conquering. God was very clear that they were not to let those people live; they were to destroy them all because their idol worship would never allow the actual rule of law. The child sacrifice and orgies to try to appease “the gods” is incompatible with the whole concept of justice, and God forbade Israel from showing any “mercy” to those people. They refused to do that, and that was the source of so much of their apostasy.

I was just reading how God said that if they went to war with a nation - which I understand to be different than the initial conquest of the land that God had promised to give them - and took captives they were allowed to marry a woman captive after allowing her time to grieve her family, and once she was married she had to be treated the same way as Israeli women were treated. And Jesus’ own genealogy includes Rahab, a prostitute who was allowed to live because she helped the Israeli spies before her town was conquered.

It would seem strange for Jesus’ human lineage to include a foreigner if God was so adamant that absolutely no foreigners should be allowed to live amongst the Israelis. Actually, now that I think of it, the whole Davidic line comes also from Ruth, who was a foreigner who married an Israeli and chose to stay with her widowed mother-in-law. Was basically adopted into Judaism. And God gave a means for servants to choose to become slaves for life out of allegiance to their masters and to their master’s way of life. Moses’s own father-in-law was specifically brought into Israel as an alien.

I believe that illegal immigration is illegal and the civil authorities should be enforcing the law without partiality. But I also believe that a lot of people don’t understand what is in their Bibles. A lot of “Christians” are letting non-Christians tell them what is supposedly in their Bibles and are being deceived. I also believe that if God’s people repent of their wicked ways and seek the Lord’s will, God Himself will forgive our sins and heal our land. What really needs to be happening right now is the people of God need to dig into their Bibles and actually listen with open hearts to what God is really saying. What God says needs to hold more sway with us than what any party or ideology says. The only ideology we should commit to is GOD’s ideology, His ideas of what we should be and do, and how the world should function.

I already showed you a place where God said that every 3rd year’s tithes were to be kept in the cities so that widows, orphans, Levites, and aliens could have food. And the reason God gave for that is because He rescued the Israelites from slavery. Specifically slavery in Egypt where the Israelites were harshly abused and their male children ordered to be killed as if there was no sanctity of human life. That is God talking. You seem to be giving reasons why God didn’t really say that. But He clearly said it. He did not say we have to allow ourselves to be conquered by an invading army, which is what I think applies to our current situation. But He did say that we are to treat aliens well because we remember how He has treated us beggars.

I urge you to find a Strong’s Concordance and look up the word “stranger”. That is the word the KJV most often uses for the Hebrew word that can also be translated as “alien”. There are places where the word “foreign” is used, and that is most often associated with the idol worship of the foreigners, which was to be forbidden. Israel’s refusal to forbid that is what got them into trouble, not the fact of there being foreign people - non-Israelis - amongst them. What makes someone a stranger/alien is not being a descendant of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. “Citizenship” was in terms of genealogy. The land was given to the tribes. If you were not of that tribe then you were a stranger/alien. A totally different definition of “citizenship” than any of the legal terms used by modern countries.

But if you look at the Bible references where the word “stranger” is used, you will see that God is constantly including them in His instructions for how Israel was to live and be ruled. He knew that there would be aliens amongst them and He instructed Israel to treat them with dignity and respect. They - just like Israelites - were not allowed to worship idols and were to be killed if they did. Israel didn’t follow that for either the aliens or Israelis, and that is what got them into big trouble. But aliens were expected and provided for within God’s Old Testament law.

In my Concordia Study Bible there is a study note on Exodus 22:21-27:

“That the poor, the widow, the orphan, the alien - in fact, all defenseless people - are objects of God’s special concern and providential care is clear from
- the writings of Moses
(see Ex 21:26-27;
23:6-12;
Lev 19:9-10;
Deut 14:29;
16:11, 14;
24:19-21;
26:12-13,
- the psalmists
(see Psalm 10:14, 17-18
68:5
82:3
146:9

and the prophets
(see Isaiah 1:23
10:2
Jeremiah 7:6
22:3
Zechariah 7:10
Malachi 3:5

as well as from the teachings of Jesus
(see e.g. Matthew 25:34-45”

I think you are confused about what I am saying. I am not saying that we need to bring in all comers. Scripture says that we are to be subject to the governing authorities, and our country has laws that govern immigration. Those laws are to be followed. For those who legally immigrate to this country we as a people/nation are to treat them well and give them justice just as we do for anybody else. As individuals we treat all people with kindness and justice, seeking the well-being of all our neighbors. We don’t either abuse or refuse to help somebody because they are a Samaritan and we are a Jew. They are our neighbor regardless of where they come from and whether they came legally or not. We care for them. That doesn’t mean our government has to care for them or refuse to enforce laws that they violated. In fact, it would be an abomination if the nation failed to enforce laws impartially.

“The Old Testament is full of commands about how to treat the aliens among the Israelites.”

You insist on blending concepts. How aliens are treated is one thing; allowing them to overwhelm your culture is another. God repeatedly warned Israel about that.

“I was specifically looking for anything that talked about trespassing and was surprised to find that there isn’t really that concept.”

Moses said if you have an intruder in your house at night you can kill them. He wrote that is someone moves boundary markers, the penalty is death.

“But if somebody is walking through on your property you are to allow them to pick and eat from the field en route.”

Nonsense. The farmers would have nothing to harvest. They were required to leave the corners of a field unharvested for the widows to glean. Said not a thing about aliens doing that.

“I think God is a Minnesotan.”

Not a chance. He ordered rebellious teenagers to be stoned.

“So I looked in my Bible, wondering if the Middle East culture has different views on boundaries.”

Like anywhere else in the world, Middle Eastern cultures would kill over boundaries.

“If you can find a place where God forbids the welcoming of aliens in Scripture I would love to see it.”

I gave you one my first post. And you cannot show me one where he commands aliens to be welcomed into the nation.

He does warn that if they are let in in sufficient numbers, they would become the head and Israelites would become the tail.

“Also if you find any place where Moses defined citizenship in any country - as distinct from him saying which tribes were to inherit what land.”

Moses gave the law on how to establish a unified nation once it got into the promise land and he wrote about how it should be. He never entered the promise land. It was not enforced much at all the way he wrote it out. Israel was hardly ever unified, only under David and Solomon. Third tithe? Forget it. The priesthood was always too corrupt.

Third tithe was not delegated to be given to aliens. It was for Israelite widows and children.

“But if you look at the Bible references where the word “stranger” is used, you will see that God is constantly including them in His instructions for how Israel was to live and be ruled.”

Of coursed he did. Can you imagine he would say anything differently. You can’t have a civilization if a group of people are terrorized constantly.

You still can’t separate the concept of treating aliens humanely, which is the law in the United States, and opening the nation to aliens to overrun the culture.

“I think you are confused about what I am saying. I am not saying that we need to bring in all comers.”

You say they should be welcomed and the all comers concept is according to whose agenda is being imposed.

“Scripture says that we are to be subject to the governing authorities, and our country has laws that govern immigration.”

Read the Preamble to the Constitution. It specifies that the people are the governing authorities — “We, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish...” The vast majority of Americans, the governing authorities, are solidly against what is going on with immigration and are being overruled by a corrupt, godless government.

You refuse to listen to what i said I supported and you refuse to listen to the actual Biblical quotes I gave.

(Jesus Himself ate from the fields He walked through as specifically allowed in the Old Testament - and actually got accused of working on the Sabbath because of it! Wherever God talked about leaving stuff for the widows He also mentioned the aliens as well. Look in your Bible and see, as I suggested. Well, I’ll just go ahead and post it here, since you haven’t looked up any of the references I’ve posted. “Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this. When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.” Deut 24:17-22_

And since you brought this up and it’s right here on the same page while I’m looking at my Bible I’ll give you this one too: “If you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. If you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing grain.” Deut 23:24-25

I also wanted to double-check the thief reference. Here’s the full quote. “If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after sunrise, he is guilty of bloodshed” Ex 22:2-3

And since you brought up a passage you said in your first post at https://freerepublic.com/focus/religion/4318479/posts?page=34#34 ) and haven’t heard anything I’ve said about it, let me copy the actual verse: Numbers 33:55 - “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they will harass you in the land in which you dwell.” What don’t you understand about “drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you”? They are to drive out the people WHO ARE ALREADY THERE. This is saying that the Israelites are to be invading aliens who drive out the inhabitants of the land! The Israelies are to be the ILLEGALS! And they are to do it because the inhabitants of the land were so bad that the Israelites were being used as a punishment for them. And in fact, God used other conquering invaders against Israel when Israel needed to be brought to repentance - usually not because they allowed aliens but because they allowed the aliens’ idol worship and followed them in it! It behooves us to ask whether God has allowed these invaders because WE ARE LIKEWISE IN NEED OF REPENTANCE!)

I’ve given you the references before, so it isn’t that you haven’t been given what you need, to see God’s actual words. I don’t think you have the humility that it takes to be subject to God’s will above your own.

I don’t have a problem with you saying we shouldn’t be invaded; that’s exactly what I said my view was. I said that Scripture says we are supposed to obey the governing authorities and that this means we cannot support illegal immigration but should instead require impartial enforcement of the law, as God continuously says in Scripture - but that we are to not oppress or abuse the legal immigrants and recognize and protect them in their times of vulnerability and need, as God says we are to do with aliens/strangers who live among us. You seem to have missed that part.

The problem I have is that you are attributing to God a whole bunch of stuff that He didn’t say (or that He said in a more specific context that you are applying to other contexts where He specifically said something different), and denying a whole bunch of stuff I gave you direct quotes of.

Are you ELCA, by any chance? The idea that we can cut and paste the parts of God’s Word that we like in order to form a narrative that suits us is actually putting ourselves above God, and it can happen for “conservative” narratives as much as for “liberal” ones. The liberals cut out all God’s commands to execute justice without partiality, and people like you cut out all God’s commands on how to treat aliens/strangers. It’s the same apostasy, just for different human purposes.

And it is for this very thing - from the left and the right - that God calls us to repent. He says that if HIS PEOPLE, WHO ARE CALLED BY HIS NAME, will humble themselves and repent of their wicked deeds, pray to God, and seek HIS WILL, then He will hear from Heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

It starts with us. We have the many kinds of plagues among us because WE are not actually listening to God with sincere hearts that seek ONLY HIS will. We go to our Bibles with the intent of finding what we want to hear rather than earnestly wanting to hear what GOD SAYS.

In this world, with this temptation so present, we really should all have a Strong’s concordance and a KJV Bible so we can see what words the original languages used and find all the other times that word was used - so we don’t selectively find just the passages we want to hear but actually hear the whole counsel of God.

I’m done with this. You have what you need. You can choose to hear God or not. But this land will NOT be healed until God’s people choose to actually listen to what He has actually said.

How?

Because the editors are now there to ensure the public gets bleep like this.

“Are you ELCA, by any chance?”

I don’t know. I don’t know what that is.

“You can choose to hear God or not.”

So I suppose you think what you believe and write is hearing God.

It would be far better to ask if you can be a Christian and support any current democrat position.

There is no believing Christian that could support the trans idea, the never ceasing war idea, the hate Judeo/Christian values idea, the disdain for God idea, the abort all babies at any time idea, the hate of the USA as founded idea, the hate all Caucasians idea, the coddling of criminals idea. The list could go on. Their ideas are all profoundly disgusting.

The left is on the side of evil, and these are ALL democrats.

American Thinker may get a lot of clicks on this one. Shame on their editors. What a dumb article to post.

“”It would be far better to ask if you can be a Christian and support any current democrat position.””

Exactly in line with my thoughts, re: everything you stated. And yes, when you start to see even previously deemed good sources like American Thinker show signs of being compromised, it is a very worrying indication of more ‘bad’ to come. But I think back on how I used to depend on Fox News for all of my news. Everything, given enough time, changes... it seems.

I posted what God actually said, word for word, in the Bible.

You still said that was not what God had said.

I’ll let the Bible speak for itself.