I want to highlight today a post by Andrea Widburg at the American Thinker entitled No, the Bible does not say conservatives must support illegal immigration. Whenever I have encountered Leftists attempting to use the Bible against conservatives, it is usually by taking an isolated verse disconnected from the whole passage around it and from the rest of the Bible itself. In this case, it is an isolated verse in the book of Leviticus. Widburg does a masterful job of taking into account the entire context and placing the verse in question into that context.
Widburg sums up the analysis with:
What’s fundamentally important here is that the Bible makes it clear that welcoming foreigners into one’s land must not be a suicide pact. Old Testament-era immigrants are welcome only to the extent that the Jewish nation thrives.
That’s the same way that conservatives, including those who take the Bible very seriously, feel about immigration to America: It’s not a suicide pact. Just as God told the Israelites that sojourners were to be treated well if they were not a threat to the institutions, we conservatives accept legal immigration, which, when properly applied, ensures that America is not conquered.
Thus, legal immigration means that we’re not swarmed by 10 million unvetted people in four years. It means we don’t give student visas and green cards to people open about their loathing for America and their loyalty to other nations and values. And it most certainly means that we don’t give people like Zohran Mamdani citizenship. Criminals, freeloaders, communists, caliphate-seeking Islamists, etc. all threaten our values and national security and today, as was the case approximately 3,400 years ago, they need to leave.
Just so. People who want to come here, pursue the American dream, and follow the Constitution are welcomed here with open arms. People who come here with the intent of destroying the United States, people like the anti-ICE rioters waving foreign flags, or, frankly, like Mamdani who is an avowed communist, should leave. One could argue that these people have loyalties to other nations and therefore should be deported. There are plenty of places in the world to practice their particular politics. In fact, anywhere else. America is the one last hope for humanity. It is truly exceptional, as was ancient Israel.
Please go read Widburg's post as you may encounter such stupid arguments yourselves.
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Note: There are certain sects, for lack of a better word, of "Christians" who famously use isolated texts as so called "proof texts" for their own peculiar doctrines. One should not read the Bible this way. Instead, one should take the whole of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments together to determine God's will for us. Understand that He seldom directs people specifically. Thus, asking Him to tell you what to do is not the way to go about it. Instead, as an intelligent human being, you are to derive the right course of action from the whole text of the Bible.
For this reason, I suggest that one takes the entirety of the Bible and break it into bite size chunks every day such that at the end of a year, one will have read the entire Bible. There are many apps that will give you each day's reading, though of course you have to actually read it. Pick one and begin. I unfortunately started my journey late in life, but better late than never.
One other thing. The Bible is not a scientific text, nor is it a historical book in the sense of modern history, though archeology continues to show that the things mentioned in the Bible did truly happen. Rather, the Bible is a theological text, a narrative wherein Jesus truly is the main character and the hero of the plot. To make sense of the Bible, one must read it through the lens of faith. It makes no sense otherwise. And there are many odd things about daily life in ancient times that are not mentioned, so finding a church and a pastor who can fill you in on the social context can be important.
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