Welcoming the Stranger

As a follower of Christ, I place a great emphasis on the Gospel of Matthew. The book contains the Sermon on the Mount which the Methodist faith believes is central to living through Christ. Additionally, the Gospel of Matthew contains in chapter 25 the passage known as, "The Sheep and the Goats". It is in this part of the bible that Christ tells his followers that the people of all nations will be separated as sheep and goats. That is, those who served the needy, whether that be feeding the hungry, quenching the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the unclothed, looking after the sick, and caring for those in prison, shall be granted the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life, and those that failed to care for the needy will go to eternal punishment. It is in this passage that Christ elaborates that service to man, specifically the needy, is service to the Lord.

I don't only speak and think biblically. It is my responsibility to have secular arguments and rationalizations as I seek to represent people of all faiths, even those who do not believe as is their right. However, I write today in biblical terms because I am quite perturbed by what has happened in our country over the last week. The party which purports itself to be the so-called, "Party of Christ", has engaged in a fanciful triangulation of legal Haitian immigrants in both Ohio and Pennsylvania, two states for which I have resided. The former President on a debate stage, and now in political rallies since then, has claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, and Charleroi, Pennsylvania are eating people's pets and destroying the communities they were brought into. These accusations have led to a litany of bomb threats, and in the case of Springfield, have required the Republican Governor of Ohio to come out and reiterate that the claims of the former President and his running mate are baseless and unhelpful.

This phenomenon has infuriated me for two reasons. First, making ridiculous false claims about a group of people for political gain is disgusting. Second, there is incredible hypocrisy in the leaders of the Republican Party constantly touting their identities as Christians to permit them to marginalize members of the LGBTQ community, but when it comes to welcoming the stranger, an obligation set out by Christ, they completely abandon theistic reasoning. There is perhaps no greater example of the kind of people Christ tells his followers to accept and shield than the immigrants out country welcomed from Haiti. These are people who were subjected to catastrophic natural disasters, and a complete collapse of their government, and they came to us, the nation of immigrants, asking for a new start. When given the opportunity that this great nation purports to promise to all, they took advantage of it. The Haitian immigrants worked, built families, started businesses, and were active members of the Christian community in their new home. Yet, a couple of unscrupulous politicians have decided to smear them as people who eat pets and practice voodoo to signal to their voters that immigrants are ruining our country.

There have always been opportunities to create division in our country to capitalize politically, but as a historian, I have not seen in recent memory such a brazen example of using a vulnerable group to score political points. As a Christian and American citizen, I ask that you reject this rhetoric as what it is, a hateful rumor intended to demonize a particular group to galvanize an already morally tenuous political philosophy.