The Neighborly Theorist

Fascinated by political theory. Don't let self-proclaimed "heritage Americans" take away your heritage as Americans. Live free. Live free in Christ.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

Near the beginning of the old movie the Never Ending Story, there is a scene where several characters from different realms meet and begin to describe the dangers their realms are facing and that are causing them to journey to seek help. To their surprise, they find they all face the same danger. Similarly, if you have recently begun to sense that something is off, something is dangerous about the rise of the new nationalism on the woke Right, you are in a moment like those characters. No matter our cultural or denominational background, many of us face this same danger. Know that you are not alone and, above all, follow Christ, seek truth, and oppose those who would replace Christian truth with ethno-centric idolatry in nationalist form.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@EncZoomer @megbasham Nor are your beliefs defined by Christian morals.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@EncZoomer @megbasham So you would limit your nation only to whites?

Also, @megbasham, do you agree? Voddie Baucham, for instance, would not be deemed to be part of the American nation? Note that this is the philosophy you are allying with.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@crwiley1962 And the French Foreign Legion is a storied part of French lore. So what's the problem exactly?

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@EncZoomer @megbasham And, in your mind, who is part of your nation?

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

You are correct. And in many instances they are talking about citizens too. Because a lot of people believe they can eliminate societal problems by eliminating whole classes of people. That is an explicitly un-Christian idea. I support regulating America's borders. And I support the enforcement of just laws. But I do not believe we can eliminate sin by removing sinners.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@GTerri59 @megbasham Yes, many people ARE talking about legal residents. Some of them are indicating that in this very thread, even in their replies to me.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@jamesrwoodtheo Yes, and I agree with that order! I do not, unfortunately, see that order reflected in the discourse of many of my fellow conservatives at the moment. That concerns me.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@juivtr Not all Somalis live in my country. And of those who do, I have no reason to believe all commit frauds. Some do. Either way, you are spending more time this morning trying to influence me personally than they are.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

Again, though, you are commenting on AMERICAN policy, not BRAZILIAN. By the standard you set up, you are trying to change MY culture. Truth is not measured merely by culture, so I have no objection to you offering thoughts to me. But by your own standards, YOU should object to that because you are being a foreign influence while saying that foreign influences are bad.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

Left-wing relativism apparently dominates the minds of many of the most conservative of my fellow American Christians. Many of them now erroneously base their view of the good on heritage rather than any type of transcendent truth.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

There is an inherent double standard in trying to influence the culture of another country (mine) while being against people changing yours. As a result, it is better to look at broader standards of truth and the good than mere immigration policy. I believe standards of truth and the good transcend cultures, so I am not inherently opposed to anything foreign if that foreign thing is good. I disagree with Islam not because it is foreign but because it is wrong about what is true and because those distortions often lead to oppression.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

Your statements here are an extremely dangerous sort of principle to set up. If you support teaching the Bible because it is foundational to Western civilization, that is a great thing! I am a Christian, and I agree that is important. But when you measure truth and the good based primarily on how long someone's ancestors have been in the country, you depart from Christianity and key fundamentals of Western thought. Heritage is NOT the primary measure of truth and the good. Your standard would SUPPORT restrictions on Christians overseas in non-Christian countries, who, according to you, would be protecting their non-Christian heritage. In other words, you are explicitly arguing for relativistic ways of thinking that WILL attempt to limit the spread of Christianity. You need to quit listening to weird nativist arguments and return to advocating for Christian thought as something good and true, not something that is primarily ancestral heritage.

As for assimilation, IF Texas is just now adding Scripture back to its textbooks, then up to now assimilation would have required recent immigrants NOT to support teaching Scripture in schools because that policy preceded them. Again, that is why measuring things based primarily on assimilation and heritage, rather than truth, is a dangerous standard. It puts YOU on the wrong side of assimilation by advocating a policy change. And that would be ridiculous.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@Dioscuri_ @megbasham Are you speaking of Melania Trump? Or Elon Musk? Either way, all legal immigrants do not support illegal immigration in general. I'm not sure why you think that. In fact, some of them resent illegal immigrants because the illegal immigrants cut in line.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

For my part, I have no objection to the Bible being taught in public schools as part of the foundational literature of Western civilization. I believe that, even if through secular hands, the Bible's truth will always shine through because it IS true.

But I ALSO think it is important to consider the possible risks of the Bible being taught as fiction. Part of the reason Western civilization is important to me is because I believe it contains much that is true. And part of the reason I believe it contains much that is true is because the Bible, which is true, strongly influenced it. If we are indifferent to whether the Bible is being taught as something true, then we also undermine the importance of teaching about Western civilization itself. After all, if we are not seeking truth through education, then what are we doing?

One error of the mainline Protestant denominations was that they downplayed the truth of Scripture and sought mere symbolic, non-miraculous life lessons through Scripture. That path led directly to the weirdness seen in many mainline denominations today. If we use the Bible for literary analysis (and I think that such an use is not inappropriate), we still must ensure that we Christians do not become indifferent to whether the Bible is true or not. To do so would be to depart from Christianity and undermine the good within Western civilization.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@megbasham First, are you ONLY talking about at least initially illegal immigrants? And if not, can you verify that these particular 12 million people came in under scam pretenses?

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

First, Acts 17:26 and Deut. 32:8 do not prescribe any particular immigration policy, nor is open borders a heresy. It's a policy decision. That said, it is one I disagree with (and have always disagreed with). I'm not sure why you think I support open borders because nothing I have said indicated that.

As for the treatment of theft in the Old Testament, Old Testament law does not treat the thief's VERY EXISTENCE as an act of violence. We are not permitted to view others as losing their humanity entirely when they steal. Instead, as I recall, the death penalty was not even generally employed in Old Testament Israel for theft. Instead, the thief was, through the application of restorative justice, supposed to give back what he stole. Zacchaes voluntarily employed that rule and extended it in his own case in the New Testament. Biblically, society can punish a thief but cannot deny his or her humanity.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

Unless you have a serious misunderstanding of American demographics, you are obviously NOT talking only about illegal immigrants because 100 million are NOT present in this country. The figure you cite is even too large to be limited to the foreign-born part of the American population. So I can only assume you are talking about some other criteria that, for some reason, you do not care to admit.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@Eric_P8 @megbasham How? Chapter and verse, please.

[The Neighborly Theorist @USPoliticTheory]

@juivtr @megbasham Your account is based in Brazil. So I am not sure why you are so worried about American immigration policy.