California Governor Jerry Brown said Sunday on Meet the Press that a border wall is not “Christian,” and pledged to do everything in his power to oppose it.
"We are going to do the right, humane, and I would even say the Christian thing from my point of view [to oppose the wall]. You don't treat human beings like that. Trump's supposed to be Mr. Religious Fellow, and I thought we had to treat the least of these as we would treat the Lord."
"I hope he would reconnect with some of his conservative evangelicals, and they'll tell him these are human beings, these are children of God, [and] they shouldn't be treated that way.”
It’s striking first of all that Gov. Brown so freely injects religion into his discussion. The Left is all about the separation of church and state until it comes to a pet project of theirs and suddenly all that separation business is forgotten and Christian principle mysteriously and instantly becomes the guiding light for our whole nation in matters of public policy.
It’s also worth noting that no one is likely to accuse Gov. Brown of advocating for a theocracy, which is the first thing that happens when a conservative Christian injects biblical principle into the public dialogue. So perhaps we can all just relax a little. We’re happy to allow Gov. Brown to cite Christian principle all he wishes, and we ask only for the same courtesy in return.
As far as “humane” treatment is concerned, there is nothing inhumane about expecting people to respect other people’s sovereign soil and to refrain from trespassing on it. That’s just ordinary human decency and respect for the rule of law, without which a culture descends into chaos.
In fact, it’s inhumane not to expect outsiders to respect our borders, because of the toll that crime, drugs, unrest, and strain on social services border trespassers take on native residents who have a right to live peacefully in stable, secure neighborhoods. Perhaps we should think more about how humanely we are treating our own citizens.
Gov. Brown gets confused when he starts comparing our border security fence with the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was built to lock good people up. Our wall is being built to lock bad people out.
As a man who once trained for the priesthood, Gov. Brown should be familiar with the strategic importance of walls in the Christian Scriptures. One entire book of the Bible (Nehemiah) is devoted to the story of God calling and equipping a man to rebuild the broken down wall of security and protection around the ancient city of Jerusalem.
According to the book of Revelation, even God’s eternal city will have a “great, high wall” 216 feet high and 1,380 miles long on each side built around it (Revelation 21:12-17). The purpose of the wall is so that “nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false.” I guess if a wall to keep bad people out is good enough for God, it ought to be good enough for us.
As a former seminarian, California’s governor is certainly familiar with the wall Pope Leo built around the Vatican in the 9th century, a wall 40 feet high and twelve feet thick, to protect the Holy City from Muslim marauders.
If a great big beautiful wall was good enough for Pope Leo, perhaps it ought to be “Christian” enough for Gov. Jerry Brown.
