We are all legalists. We all keep the law, and the traditions that we think lead us to be righteous. The reason why Christ warned so much about the Pharisees is that we are like them. Including the damage that our virtue signalling does.
LA Voice in Los Angeles, an interfaith organization that is also working on a network of churches to provide sanctuary to undocumented immigrants, has also considered connecting with Canadian groups if the need arises, officials said. The group is also working with about 200 places of worship to provide sanctuary in the region.
Given the choice to risk deportation or stay together, some families may opt to head to Canada to stay together, LA Voice officials told BuzzFeed News.
“I really feel like what we’re doing is what God would want us to do,” Rev. Zach Hoover, executive director for LA Voice, said.
The group is willing to not only to take undocumented immigrants, but to hide them in housing provided by their network of churches, mosques, and synagogues across Southern California. Hoover admits it’s a legal gray area and doesn’t discount the possibility of the federal government targeting groups like his in the future.
Still, he says his faith and that of other religious leaders makes it an easier decision to make.
“When you die, the question is not ‘Did you follow the government?’ and then you’re allowed into heaven,” he said. “It’s ‘Did you care for your neighbor?’”
There are errors in this tradition. All faiths are not the same. The members of the synagogue are damned without Christ. The members of the mosque are damned without Christ. We should be preaching the gospel, not signalling virtue to those who are the enemies of Christ.
And deporting those who are in the country illegally happens everywhere. NZ Immigration does it. Aussie Immigration does it. The British do it. The Mexicans and Canadians do it. This is not slavery: the historical underground railroad is not the way forward.
For the law could save us, if we were not legalists.
1Now this is the commandment — the statutes and the ordinances — that the LORD your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, 2so that you and your children and your children’s children, may fear the LORD your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.
4Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
10When the LORD your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you — a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, 11houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant — and when you have eaten your fill, 12take care that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13The LORD your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear. 14Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you, 15because the LORD your God, who is present with you, is a jealous God. The anger of the LORD your God would be kindled against you and he would destroy you from the face of the earth.
The first command is the Shema: Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
The second command is to love your neighbour.
The third, to the Jews, was to not be like the pagans. To not signal virtue as the pagans do. To not worship their Gods, and to not attribute their prosperity to their own actions.
Our traditions, particularly the liberal churchian tradition, is to set a series of Laws around love that are more restrictive than the law of Moses. We accept some injustices, for they fit inside the narrative. When to follow the narrative is to worship another.
Do not do so. Love the LORD your God with all your strength and will and cunning. And do not be like those who follow the narrative.
There is a common thread to all this and it’s that God is love. While that’s true it conveniently ignores truth, light, consuming fire, holiness and so on that are parts of God’s character that should not be ignored and sidelines Christ in whom we have our salvation.
On the last day the law will apply and there will be no sanctuary except Christ.