So World Relief and an ACNA Bishop Are “Deeply Concerned”

World Relief continues its increasingly liberal political ways by taking out a full-page ad in the Washington Post expressing deep, deep concern about Trump pulling back on the import of those lovely refugees until it can be determined how to better vet them to make sure they really are all that lovely.  Trump is so mean!

Now on its face, the open letter is not that objectionable.  Yes, we should be concerned about genuine refugees.  Certainly, we should pray for God to grant our leaders wisdom.

So I am not going to assume motives behind this letter and those who signed it.  But I will vent a bit on what this open letter smells like.  World Relief and Co are “deeply concerned”?  Well, I’m going to express my deep, deep concern, too.

And what this letter smells like is a passive-aggressive attack on Trump’s attempts to protect us.  That “concerned” line at the beginning is a tip-off.  If a modern evangelical leader ever tells you he is “concerned” about you, watch your back!  I certainly can remember being fed that line while I was being stabbed in the back one unhappy occasion.  I was naïve back then.  Experiences with certain evangelical churchly bureaucrats make me slightly cynical now.  Yes, I admit it.

Oh, but World Relief and company are not just “concerned,” they are “deeply concerned.”  Heck, you better pray that getting stabbed in the back is all that happens.

The whole letter smells like weasel words to indulge in political attack while retaining the pretense that they aren’t getting involved in partisan politics at all.  They are just expressing Christian “concern.”

Where was all this concern when terrorists and rapeugees were invading and attacking Europe and beginning to invade and attack us with the help of Obama?

So excuse me if this cynic is not buying World Relief’s “concern” now.  It smells like the usual enabling of invaders who would make us less safe, not to mention less American – liberal enabling dressed up in polyester leisure suits or whatever evangelical leaders wear now.  (They never did know how to dress.)

Maybe it would be better to stuff all the posturing concern, complete with full page ads in the Washington Post, and stick to being a supposedly Christian relief agency.  What a novel idea!  Surely that is a better use of donations . . . and less likely to drive donors away.  And, yes, I would not be shocked at all if donations to World Relief now decrease.

But I can be dreadfully practical and downright hard-hearted about such things.  It seems to be really compassionate, you have to posture in full page ads.  I admit I lack such compassion.

As for ACNA Bishop Stewart Ruch, who signed this with “Anglican Church in North America” under his name, I will be slightly more gracious and assume the best of motives.  He certainly does have a record of reaching out to refugees and deserves said assumption.  But his signature as a bishop of ACNA is nonetheless a highly questionable use of his position.

Further, it takes us a step closer to open division in ACNA over immigration and refugees, a danger of which I have already warned.