America the Hateful

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” These lines are from the poem “The New Colossus,” written by Emma Lazarus in 1883.


America the beautiful has become America the Hateful.  We have turned our back on the world and spit in its face.  Our election of Trump has turned the face of America dark and angry.  We have turned our backs on hopes and dreams and being a great melting pot of many ethnic groups and faiths, and have become a pariah repulsive to all.

Trump has endangered us all and we have put him in a position to do it.  Targeting people on the basis of religion and where they live is unacceptable.  It puts Americans aboard at risk.  It leaves interpreters and others who have worked hard for us, who have put themselves at rick for America, stranded and abandoned.

I know America has done this before, but it doesn't make it right.  It was not right when we interred Japanese-Americans during World War II.  It was not right when we persecuted and slaughtered the Indians.  It was not right when we brought people over only to keep them in slavery based on the color of their skin.  And it was not right when we refused to take in Jewish refugees to escape the madness of the atl-right of the 30s and 40s, including refusing to take Anne Frank and her family.

We were proving ourselves better than that.  And now all of that is lost.

 ‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt."  Leviticus 19:33-34.

America the loved has become America the Hated.  All the respect and acceptance we earned under eight years of President Obama has been frittered away in a week.  

As Christians, we should be deeply offended and angry and hurt by what Trump has done.  Instead, the Christian right is leading the charge. Christianity is not turning your back upon the world.  Christianity is not America first.  True Christianity does not recognize borders.

But we will not just bend over and take this affront to what is right and decent.  Thousands have swarmed to our airports to protest.  Many of us will always stand in opposition to this.

No, America does not have to take everyone.  But we have to be a part of the world.  We have to do our part.  We cannot be a fortress apart.

When we do, we turn our back on the values and dreams that made America great.  We turn our backs on both our civic and religious faith.  

We turn our backs to the world.

We turn our backs to this country.

We turn our backs to God.