Love Neighbors in Need - including refugees, Muslims, women, the poor, and anyone else.

I had this column published in the Dec. 26, 2015 LeaderTelegram. I'm not sure how long that will remain online, so I offer you the text below.

This column grew out of my frustration with the crazy rhetoric of many of the GOP candidates, plus certain Christian leaders, and the pundits on TV who are pushing for a world that is distinctly against the teaching of Jesus, an agenda that is born much more out of fear and lack of trust than it is the Gospel.

Here is the article:

During Advent, most churches will hear from John the Baptist at least one Sunday. His words “prepare the way” and “repent” are important to hear before Jesus is born.

John prepares the way by offering a new ethic and a new economy to a people who have forgotten God’s vision: the command to love God and to love neighbor, straight out of the Torah.

He calls us to repent of political and religious sins that leave people in poverty; that push the sick, widows, orphans and foreigners to the margins; that use the power of the state for violence and punishment instead of mercy and life-building.

The people ask John, “What must we do?” He responds practically: “If you have two coats, give one away; if you see someone hungry, then feed them.”

This is not about personal piety, but about building God’s community based on hope, peace, joy and love.

Some tax collectors ask the same question. He says not to take more than they are allowed ― not to use their power to exploit. He tells the Roman soldiers they also should not extort or use their power for financial gain.

It’s the same message of the prophets and Jesus: Do not take advantage of the poor and powerless, but lift them up and change the systems that create poverty.

I am disturbed, especially now that we are in Christmas, that many of my fellow Christians say and do things against that Gospel message.

Dangerous and unbiblical rhetoric is being offered by presidential candidates, Christian leaders and TV pundits. One candidate suggested tagging, and even banning, all Muslims. Though many disagree, it hasn’t affected his popularity.

Christians are vandalizing mosques and harassing Muslims. In Illinois, a tenured professor at evangelical Wheaton College received a leave of absence for a Facebook post suggesting Christianity and Islam share a common foundation.

Ironically, the professor is from Oklahoma, one of numerous places around the country that refused the hope of Advent for the idol of fear, passing laws banning Sharia, or Islamic, law.

Governors of 31 states announced they will not welcome Syrian refugees, showing not only a woeful lack of understanding of basic civics, but of basic civility, and a failure of understanding the command to give away extra coats and feed the hungry.

Just last week a Virginia county closed all its schools simply because a geography teacher assigned her students an art project to try writing a sentence in Arabic calligraphy, and she received many threatening emails. Perhaps they don’t know our numbers are Arabic, as are algebra, and many other things.

Mary and Joseph were political refugees. Imagine Egypt banning all Jews. Imagine the innkeeper not having the compassion to allow them to stay in the barn. Imagine Joseph and Mary turning away the shepherds because of a stereotype or the Magi because they were foreigners with a “false” religion.

Jesus said whatever we do to the least of these, we do to him. Vandalizing a mosque is vandalizing Jesus’ home. Harassing a Muslim is insulting Jesus. Turning away a refugee is turning away Jesus. Looking into the eyes of the unclothed, the hungry, the homeless and the desperate and saying “No” is saying “No” to Jesus.

It certainly all misses the Christmas message.

I find it curious that the ones pushing this fear agenda are the ones complaining about a “war on Christmas.” The only war I see is being waged by those who follow the gospel of the Roman Empire, and not the bold gospel of love of Jesus Christ.

Almost 400 times, the Bible says, “Do not fear.” Love trumps fear.

This Advent, this Christmas season, let us remember the many refugees, strangers and foreigners who were God’s agents in the biblical story. Let us see Jesus not only in the manger, but in Syrian refugees, our homeless brothers and sisters downtown, our Muslim brothers and sisters in this community and worldwide, the poor and oppressed, the people who work but don’t earn a living wage, the sick and the tired and the desperate.

Let us not build walls and push away those who are different, but instead let us give cloaks and feed the hungry. To me, that’s the real Christmas spirit. Jesus’ way is the way of love.