TWISTING SCRIPTURE

This past week we heard the words of the Apostle Paul used to justify separating over 2,000 children, some of whom are infants, from their parents. It was not the first time that Paul’s comments in Romans 13 were totally taken out of context subverting their meaning to support inhumane and racist policies.

The part that was left out by this new theological expert who purports to understand Paul was: “for there is no authority except from God and those authorities appointed by God.” I must say I did not think that the Attorney General and the President he serves were appointed by God.

Our allegiance as Christians is to God and to the love that God requires of us. When Scripture is cherry-picked and proof-texted to fit a particular political agenda, it is not God’s voice we are trying to hear but our own. When the church has not stood apart from political authority, it has become corrupt and irrelevant. God calls us to defend the weak, the vulnerable and the stranger and not to use political power to crush them into the dirt.

–Pastor Joyce