Re: “Immigration: A Biblical Precedent?” by James de Bree, June 19.
Well-written and researched, Jim. The description of how the term “governmental” was substituted for “higher authorities” is especially revealing.
To begin with, we should acknowledge that there is absolutely no need to consider the Judeo-Christian Bible to be a governing document for the United States. The founding fathers distilled the salient elements from the Bible, as well as numerous other sources, into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (I believe Jefferson had a copy of the Koran in his library).
Secondly, it is truly ironic that the leader of the Republican Party is guilty of multiple violations of the Ten Commandments, including committing adultery, theft, bearing false witness, and so on, while his evangelical followers shamefully try to defend his attacks on helpless children. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is living proof of the adage that “even the devil can quote scripture to his purpose,” and we should thank “SNL” for demonstrating that this is both literally and figuratively true.
Since it is clear to all thinking beings that the invocation of Romans to justify child abuse by Sessions and Sara (“born again”) Huckabee Sanders is so completely out of sync with all major religions, a closer look at the intent of the subject phrase is warranted. For those who consider Saul to be an elevated spirit, it is not consistent that his statement demanded blind obedience to the Romans. I suggest that there is a “Talmudic twist” to his position, in that to his religious following, the phrase “higher authority” could only mean allegiance to God. As such, the original phrasing could have been artfully constructed to deceive the Romans into thinking he was promoting allegiance to them, while signaling to his followers what we might expect.
The bottom line is that Sessions, Trump and “Shuckabee” are in reality renegade Christians. As such, their moral standing is entirely below that of any devout Jew, Christian, or Muslim.
Ed Shalom
Valencia
