'The Bible is not a policy manual’: Christians reckon with immigration under Trump

0:00Gabriel Salguero:I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story from Up First. I often think about my faith and how it affects the way I carry myself as a journalist. And as a journalist who is a Christian, I have obviously been noticing the Trump administration use biblical language and imagery online, on social media, to justify foreign and domestic policy decisions. And I'm always curious and interested to hear from people who have studied the Bible and studied Christianity and religion who can talk about the biblical context that these ideas are being pulled from and what that says about the faith that this administration is portraying.

1:04Gabriel Salguero:I guess that's why I was really, really interested when I heard a recent interview by Brittany Luce, who hosts NPR's It's Been a Minute podcast. She sat down with two people who think a lot about the separation of church and state and also about what happens when religion is mixed with policy in America. Jason DeRose is NPR's religion correspondent.

1:33Brittany Luse:Part of the rhetoric of conservative white evangelicals is that they are the oppressed minority in the United States.

1:42Gabriel Salguero:Reverend Dr. Gabriel Saul Guerrero is the president and founder of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. He's also the pastor of The Gathering Place and Assemblies of God Congregation in Orlando, Florida.

1:56Jason DeRose:Look, I think like in any community, evangelicals are not a monolith. And oftentimes when headlines say evangelicals say they mostly mean white evangelicals.

2:07Gabriel Salguero:What I think makes this conversation special is how both guests engage with the idea of welcoming the stranger in Christian thought and how those values come to bear on current debates in the U.S. about immigration and war. Brittany's insightful conversation with Jason DeRose and Reverend Dr. Gabriel Salguero after the break.

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3:56Gabriel Salguero:Here's Brittany Luce, host of NPR's It's Been a Minute podcast, with NPR's Jason DeRose and Reverend Dr. Gabriel Salguero. Gabriel, Jason, thank you so much.

4:08Jason DeRose:Hi, good to be here.

4:09Gabriel Salguero:Hello. To start us off, how are you both seeing churches respond to the presence of ICE in their communities across the country? Gabriel, we'll start with you.

4:18Jason DeRose:Look, I think that at least in the Latino evangelical community, there's a deep sense of anxiety and disillusionment. People are severely disappointed with these indiscriminate enforcement actions that in many cases are contributing to 25, 30 percent decrease in worship attendance. Parents being detained and deported and children either in the foster care system or in care of somebody they trust. So the churches are really, really, I think the word is righteous indignation around these indiscriminate enforcement actions.

4:54Brittany Luse:And Jason, what are you saying? Well, I've reported largely around the Los Angeles area where I'm located and also from Minneapolis. And I've talked to many people elsewhere, Texas, Florida, where these enforcement actions have been taking place. And I would say that it depends on the kind of church. You know, if it is, say, a white progressive church in Minneapolis, I found a lot of people very much out in the streets following DHS agents around blowing whistles to alert people. And these were organized by faith leaders in the Twin Cities area. If it's a predominantly Latino church, I've been talking to for months now, a predominantly Latino Catholic congregation here in Los Angeles, that, you know, they're responding by bringing food to members who are too afraid to come to church.

5:44Brittany Luse:So they're organizing, you know, grocery distribution to their members. So there's really a range of responses depending on the specifics of the congregation. If they feel less endangered, they might be willing to maybe go out into the streets in ways that congregations where the population feels more in the crosshairs of DHS might feel less inclined to go out into the streets right now.

6:09Gabriel Salguero:I wonder what about like when churches support the U.S. government's current immigration enforcement tactics? Because I imagine that there must be some.

6:17Brittany Luse:Well, that's right. I mean, look at, you know, any of the polling that's looked at who supports Donald Trump. It tends to be white evangelicals, white conservative evangelicals by huge, huge numbers. And so in those congregations, I think there's a lot of focus on rule of law and the importance of paying attention to what the government wants and understanding that the government is doing something for the good of the people. But I think that sometimes that is thought of as the only way that churches are talking about this.

6:53Gabriel Salguero:I just want to note, like in thinking about like the range of sort of responses that we've seen in churches across the country, thinking right now of what happened back in January at City's Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, protesters interrupted service, alleging that one of the pastors named David Easterwood was the head of the local ice field office. It seems like there's kind of like a wide variety of response. Have you seen that kind of reflected in some ways as well, Gabriel?

7:20Jason DeRose:I have. Look, I think like in any community, evangelicals are not a monolith. And oftentimes when headlines say evangelicals say, they mostly mean white evangelicals. They're not predominantly interviewing the close to 10 million Latino evangelicals, the Asian evangelicals, the African evangelicals, the Haitian evangelicals, the Somali evangelicals. And so there has to be a little more nuance when people say evangelicals say. And so the truth is that for the close to 10 million Latino evangelicals, of which I am one, we are deeply indignant about what's going on. And there's going to be a reckoning around this issue, particularly around evangelicals of color.

8:06Jason DeRose:I want to jump in.

8:07Gabriel Salguero:I mean, Jason, you're in the midst of reporting a piece about the ways that scripture is showing up in government communications about immigration and war. It's one thing to talk about what's happening with priests in their congregations. It's quite another thing to see some of this very Christian rhetoric coming up in government communications. What's standing out to you about the ways the government is using the language of the Bible?

8:36Brittany Luse:Well, I think it's not uncommon for, say, a president to make a reference to scripture in, say, a State of the Union address or in a speech, especially if a president is speaking at some sort of memorial service or something like that. But what I'm looking at is in sort of official or quasi-official capacity. So the Department of Homeland Security has produced a number of videos that it tweets or puts on Instagram that quote scripture. There's a famous one that came out early this year that begins with Blessed Are the Peacemakers. And then with the song, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, covered by Lord from The Hunger Games, plays while video is shown of DHS agents and DHS helicopters going in to arrest people.

9:28Brittany Luse:So, you know, here you have this quotation from the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God, contrasted with law enforcement and military style helicopters. There's another instance that I found very interesting. There is a lengthy, lengthy tweet from Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. It's more than 1300 word tweet in which he lays out a biblical justification for the Trump administration's immigration policies, where he takes to task what he calls liberal people of faith, who say that caring for the stranger is an important biblical value.

10:09Brittany Luse:And he sort of does a lot of biblical proof texting to say, well, here are the good biblical reasons that the government should have strong borders and should enforce immigration policies. And then the other instance, I would say that the person within the Trump administration who speaks most frequently using the Bible is probably Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense. And I'm very interested in a speech he gave at the National Prayer Breakfast a few months ago.

10:36Jason DeRose:So to that end, here is a reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark, chapter 8, verses 28 to 38, the word of the Lord.

10:48Brittany Luse:And he uses that to describe why people should go into military action and should fight for their country.

10:57Jason DeRose:For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. This is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the word of the Lord. Sort of equating the idea that, you know, if you lay down your life for your neighbors,

11:15Brittany Luse:which is what Jesus is saying to do in, to arch their back against the empire that was oppressing them, Hegseth is more or less saying, well, if you lay down your life for your country, you will get into heaven. The warrior is willing to lay down his life for his unit, his country, and his creator.

11:33Jason DeRose:that warrior finds eternal life. His legacy will not be one of loss, but of glory for a cause greater than himself. All power, all honor, and all glory belongs to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

11:51Gabriel Salguero:I'll say this. I was raised going to church. I'm sure my parents are listening right now. They're like, girl, you should remember some of this stuff. Like, you should really remember some of this. I'm wondering, like, Gabriel, how do these examples that Jason has brought up of how different government officials are sort of interpreting biblical text, how does that square with your own understanding of the Bible?

12:11Jason DeRose:Well, Brittany, before I was a pastor, I was a seminary professor. And so I'm trained in theological ethics. And one of the first things they tell you in seminary is when you take a text out of a context, it becomes a pretext to defend your opinion. And so that happens all the time in history. Many people use scripture to defend slavery. Scripture was used to defend apartheid in South Africa. Scripture was used to defend segregation in the United States of America. And as a theologian, I have often seen that you have to take the whole volume of scripture. So Matthew 25, this is Jesus speaking.

12:58Jason DeRose:Jesus, who for Christians is the maximum authority. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me. In prison and you visited me. And people will say, when did I do this to you, Jesus? And Jesus says, when you did this to the least of these, my sisters and my brothers. Hebrews 13 says, remember hospitality. because many of you have entertained angels unaware. The word for hospitality in Greek is xenophilia, literally. Remember, love of the stranger. In the book of Leviticus, God tells the nation over and over, treat the stranger like a citizen because you were once a stranger in the land of Egypt.

13:43Jason DeRose:And a bunch of evangelicals, Brittany, used Romans 13. Be subject to those in authority over you. because they do not, and I'm paraphrasing, not quoting, yield the sword in vain. But they forget that Romans 13 comes after Romans 12.

13:58Gabriel Salguero:Oh my gosh, I know that one.

14:01Jason DeRose:Yeah, that says, do not be conformed to this world.

14:04Gabriel Salguero:Yeah, be transformed. By the renewing of your mind.

14:07Jason DeRose:Oh, see, your parents did a good job. Your parents did a good job. And so here's what I want to say is, you can take any text out of its context to make it say whatever you want, but overwhelmingly the gospel is for the immigrant, the orphan, the stranger, and the widow, and the poor overwhelmingly. Everybody's trying to get God on their side. Everybody. But Abraham Lincoln was right. It's not as God on my side. Am I doing what God wants me to do? Am I on God's side?

14:39Gabriel Salguero:You're listening to The Sunday Story. We'll be right back.

14:49Gabriel Salguero:This message comes from Schwab. With the new Schwab Teen Investor Account, teens can gain hands-on investing experience and build positive money habits. It's an account co-owned by you and your teen, so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. This message comes from the Arbor Day Foundation. For more than half a century, the Arbor Day Foundation and its global network of more than a million inspired individuals, businesses, and community leaders have united behind the power of trees to help solve some of the planet's most pressing problems.

15:25Gabriel Salguero:From Michigan to Madagascar, the Arbor Day Foundation is planting trees at the speed of a changing world in communities and forests across the globe. See how you can do your part at arborday.org slash NPR. We're back with more Brittany Luce's conversation with NPR's Jason DeRose and Reverend Dr. Gabriel Salguero about religion and policy. You know, you've brought up so many different examples, Gabriel, of how scripture has been used throughout history to justify certain political actions. But I wonder if there are any specific examples of the U.S. government using scripture in support of their actions or agenda.

16:05Gabriel Salguero:Jason, is that something that has come up in your reporting?