Proof-texting the Bible about 'refugees' is the hots today. But proof-texting doesn't tell the whole story.
St Thomas Aquinas DOES tell the whole story, and it ain't what that Wandering Homosexualist Jebby Martin would have you believe.
...St.
Thomas explains that in the Old Law only those nations that “had close
relations with the Jews” were allowed to settle among the Hebrews, and,
even then, those people had to wait for three years before being
“admitted to the fellowship of the people” (S.T., I-II, q. 105, a. 3).
Moreover, there were some tribes such as the Ammonites and Moabites who
had “hostile relations” with the Hebrews” and thus “were never to be
admitted to citizenship” (S.T., I-II, q. 105, a. 3). Finally, the
Angelic Doctor explains that there are some people such as the
Amalekites who “had no fellowship of kindred” with the Hebrews and “were
to be held as foes in perpetuity” (S.T., I-II, q. 105, a. 3). Aquinas’s
statements here could not be any clearer: There are some people, due to
religious and even ethnic reasons, that cannot assimilate to another
people’s culture or political community....
So it's clear: SOME refugees and legal immigrants are just fine. Not Mohammedans, sorry....and not everyone who claims to be 'persecuted.'
"Not Mohammedans, sorry."
ReplyDeleteYou really need to look at history more carefully. Despite his criticism of Islam, Thomas Jefferson supported the rights of its adherents. Evidence exists that Jefferson had been thinking privately about Muslim inclusion in his new country since 1776. A few months after penning the Declaration of Independence, he returned to Virginia to draft legislation about religion for his native state, writing in his private notes a paraphrase of the English philosopher John Locke’s 1689 “Letter on Toleration”:
“[he] says neither Pagan nor Mahometan [Muslim] nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.”
The precedents Jefferson copied from Locke echo strongly in his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which proclaims:
“(O)ur civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions.”
The statute, drafted in 1777, which became law in 1786, inspired the Constitution’s “no religious test” clause and the First Amendment.
Jefferson was wrong about a lot of things and this is one of them.
ReplyDeleteThe Mohammedans have a counter-government built within their 'theological' system. It's not compatible with the Constitution--and certainly not compatible with Christianity (nor Judaism.)