Many people over the years have said that I should write my story. To give it context, however, I’d have to write about my mom’s parents who died almost 20 years before I was born and she adopted me at 2.3 years old. I don’t think it would be right given that many family are still out there. Some I’ve never met but for Facebook, and others I haven’t seen in person for 40 years. I’m not Pat Conroy in writing gifts, nor apt to write barely fictionalized stories of family abuse, tragedy and mental illness.
Moving from 1983 to living as if in 1883 literally overnight from ciry to forest (but with cars) would certainly be colorful though. Dumpster diving, homelessness and quasi-homelessness, working my mom’s puppy mill (basically), Hoarding, my birth mother s tragedy being taken from the reservation, my disability, severe childhood bullying due to that… so much more but I’ll stop there.
I’ve never thought of myself as a victim, being a Gen-X Latchkey kid, doing what i has to do. I live despite, not because.
Wayne Grudem wrote a hit piece in 2018 on immigration and Scott Hicks wrote this response.
“I post this for everyone, even though it is an argument based on Scripture from a theologian. I do not have time to go into a full rebuttal, but feel compelled to point out a few things.
I will not really go into the Scripture argument, other than to note this reads much more like eisegesis (reading into the text what you want it to say) than exegesis.
But what really irks me is the use of straw men to make the case. Much of the piece, once you get past the theology, is arguing against open borders.
Dr. Grudem, the United States has not had open borders in about 140 years. Literally, we have hundreds of pages of laws and regulations detailing who is allowed to come and who is not and what keeps you out or gets you kicked out. There are literally at least five Federal Agencies who oversee this, DHS, DOJ, DOS, DOL, and and HHS, with multiple agencies and branches within each of these involved.
But wait, there’s more. I have been professionally involved in this area since 1995. I can not name a SINGLE person who seriously argues that we should have no regulation or control over who comes to this country. I’m sure they are out there. But to act as if this is a mainstream argument is ridiculous. So, you make your main argument against a position that no one seriously is arguing for, or those that do are on the fringes.
But wait, there’s more. Dr., you trot out the canard that you are for immigration, but it has to be legal. This fundamentally ignores the legal reality that there is NO WAY for most people who might want to immigrate to do so. Yes, we do allow about 600K spouses, parents, or minor children of US Citizens in a year. And yes, we let another 366Kish in based on the quotas. But the reality is that these numbers are highly restrictive.
If you look at these numbers, what you immediately see is that there are about 40% of them dedicated to employment based immigration. For the most part, the base criteria to even be considered for such a visa is a four year college degree. The Census Bureau on April 2017 said that 33.4 percent of Americans had a four year degree. That means that nearly 2/3 of Americans would not even qualify to immigrate somewhere else with our rules. For most of the world, a four year degree is something only the richest and most elite can aspire to. So, clearly, coming as business based immigrant legally is going to be a non answer for nearly everyone in the world.
That leaves us with the remaining quarter millionish for family based immigration. These categories are highly restricted. A US Citizen can sponsor their adult children or their siblings. A Permanent Resident can sponsor their spouses or their unmarried children. And each of these categories takes years, if not decades of waiting in line for a visa.
And if you do not have one of these qualifying relatives, your only chance is literally that. A chance that your name will be picked out of the hat for the 50K Diversity Visa Lottery visas. About 20 million applied last year, so you have about a .0025% chance of success, and even then you must prove you have a high school education. Which for most of the world is virtually unattainable. Oh, plus, t’s only for countries with historically low immigration. So, if you come from a country with higher immigration rates over time, you can’t even apply (Can you say, no thank you to Mexicans, among others)
All of this is to say that the “legal path” simply does not exist for most people who would like to come.
But even more egregiously, Dr. Grudem, you fundamentally ignore that many of the people trying to come to the U.S. at the southern border are literally fleeing for their lives. Guatelamala, Honduras, and El Salvador are a cesspool of violence and death where drug cartels routinely murder people who have the temerity to say no to them. Untold numbers of them have already been raped and terrorized and had close family members maimed or killed. The response of build a wall ignores this reality and treats our obligations to offer protection to people seeking asylum as superfluous. Such a response is particularly dangerous when what we are doing as we speak is routinely meeting people on the bridges and telling them that even though they are following the law and are presenting themselves to seek asylum, we are refusing to allow them to do so. When we finally do allow people to do so, we are locking them up and treating them like criminals while they plead their case. Or, if they are so desperate that they come in irregularly, then, we not only are locking them up we are charging them with a crime, even when they do ask for protection.
This entire, “building the wall is morally ethical” argument seems to ignore the forest for the tree. It misses the larger ethical picture of demanding that the law itself is just. It misses the picture that we have a moral obligation to save life, not harm life. It misses the larger ethical picture that God judges a culture by whether the laws, leaders, and the people defend the defenseless and protect the weak and vulnerable. This is not a new issue. The author of James put it this way: if a person comes to you and lacks food or clothing, and you say to that person, be warm and filled, but you do nothing for them, what is the good of that? You have a dead faith.
Finally, to finish up. Somehow, I have a hard time hearing Jesus say to these people: “Oh, you are fleeing violence and death and destruction. Good for you. Papers, please. Oh, you don’t have them, well, good luck, be safe on your trip back and good luck. Next.”
A fine response from Hicks. There’s way too much eisegesis of Scripture these days, not to mention straw men arguments. Too many speak with forked tongues. Sad but too often true, especially lately.
It’s all yours today…
prayer request….
thinking about writing my experience over my life, but not sure i should do so………
Em,
Why not?
Start writing and see where it goes…
I love life stories – gritty but not stories of victimization necessarily
Agree with Michael!
Many people over the years have said that I should write my story. To give it context, however, I’d have to write about my mom’s parents who died almost 20 years before I was born and she adopted me at 2.3 years old. I don’t think it would be right given that many family are still out there. Some I’ve never met but for Facebook, and others I haven’t seen in person for 40 years. I’m not Pat Conroy in writing gifts, nor apt to write barely fictionalized stories of family abuse, tragedy and mental illness.
Moving from 1983 to living as if in 1883 literally overnight from ciry to forest (but with cars) would certainly be colorful though. Dumpster diving, homelessness and quasi-homelessness, working my mom’s puppy mill (basically), Hoarding, my birth mother s tragedy being taken from the reservation, my disability, severe childhood bullying due to that… so much more but I’ll stop there.
I’ve never thought of myself as a victim, being a Gen-X Latchkey kid, doing what i has to do. I live despite, not because.
Em, write for you!
hanks, all
still pondering the idea….
hanks? nope “thanks”
Em, Tom Hanks? 🤪😆
CK – ha ha
it is a conundrum as i do not have any leading from God at this point….
As a child i was intensely disliked, so ……..
P.S. I hope tomorrow is a celebration for all here….
HAPPY 4th of JUly
Wayne Grudem wrote a hit piece in 2018 on immigration and Scott Hicks wrote this response.
“I post this for everyone, even though it is an argument based on Scripture from a theologian. I do not have time to go into a full rebuttal, but feel compelled to point out a few things.
I will not really go into the Scripture argument, other than to note this reads much more like eisegesis (reading into the text what you want it to say) than exegesis.
But what really irks me is the use of straw men to make the case. Much of the piece, once you get past the theology, is arguing against open borders.
Dr. Grudem, the United States has not had open borders in about 140 years. Literally, we have hundreds of pages of laws and regulations detailing who is allowed to come and who is not and what keeps you out or gets you kicked out. There are literally at least five Federal Agencies who oversee this, DHS, DOJ, DOS, DOL, and and HHS, with multiple agencies and branches within each of these involved.
But wait, there’s more. I have been professionally involved in this area since 1995. I can not name a SINGLE person who seriously argues that we should have no regulation or control over who comes to this country. I’m sure they are out there. But to act as if this is a mainstream argument is ridiculous. So, you make your main argument against a position that no one seriously is arguing for, or those that do are on the fringes.
But wait, there’s more. Dr., you trot out the canard that you are for immigration, but it has to be legal. This fundamentally ignores the legal reality that there is NO WAY for most people who might want to immigrate to do so. Yes, we do allow about 600K spouses, parents, or minor children of US Citizens in a year. And yes, we let another 366Kish in based on the quotas. But the reality is that these numbers are highly restrictive.
If you look at these numbers, what you immediately see is that there are about 40% of them dedicated to employment based immigration. For the most part, the base criteria to even be considered for such a visa is a four year college degree. The Census Bureau on April 2017 said that 33.4 percent of Americans had a four year degree. That means that nearly 2/3 of Americans would not even qualify to immigrate somewhere else with our rules. For most of the world, a four year degree is something only the richest and most elite can aspire to. So, clearly, coming as business based immigrant legally is going to be a non answer for nearly everyone in the world.
That leaves us with the remaining quarter millionish for family based immigration. These categories are highly restricted. A US Citizen can sponsor their adult children or their siblings. A Permanent Resident can sponsor their spouses or their unmarried children. And each of these categories takes years, if not decades of waiting in line for a visa.
And if you do not have one of these qualifying relatives, your only chance is literally that. A chance that your name will be picked out of the hat for the 50K Diversity Visa Lottery visas. About 20 million applied last year, so you have about a .0025% chance of success, and even then you must prove you have a high school education. Which for most of the world is virtually unattainable. Oh, plus, t’s only for countries with historically low immigration. So, if you come from a country with higher immigration rates over time, you can’t even apply (Can you say, no thank you to Mexicans, among others)
All of this is to say that the “legal path” simply does not exist for most people who would like to come.
But even more egregiously, Dr. Grudem, you fundamentally ignore that many of the people trying to come to the U.S. at the southern border are literally fleeing for their lives. Guatelamala, Honduras, and El Salvador are a cesspool of violence and death where drug cartels routinely murder people who have the temerity to say no to them. Untold numbers of them have already been raped and terrorized and had close family members maimed or killed. The response of build a wall ignores this reality and treats our obligations to offer protection to people seeking asylum as superfluous. Such a response is particularly dangerous when what we are doing as we speak is routinely meeting people on the bridges and telling them that even though they are following the law and are presenting themselves to seek asylum, we are refusing to allow them to do so. When we finally do allow people to do so, we are locking them up and treating them like criminals while they plead their case. Or, if they are so desperate that they come in irregularly, then, we not only are locking them up we are charging them with a crime, even when they do ask for protection.
This entire, “building the wall is morally ethical” argument seems to ignore the forest for the tree. It misses the larger ethical picture of demanding that the law itself is just. It misses the picture that we have a moral obligation to save life, not harm life. It misses the larger ethical picture that God judges a culture by whether the laws, leaders, and the people defend the defenseless and protect the weak and vulnerable. This is not a new issue. The author of James put it this way: if a person comes to you and lacks food or clothing, and you say to that person, be warm and filled, but you do nothing for them, what is the good of that? You have a dead faith.
Finally, to finish up. Somehow, I have a hard time hearing Jesus say to these people: “Oh, you are fleeing violence and death and destruction. Good for you. Papers, please. Oh, you don’t have them, well, good luck, be safe on your trip back and good luck. Next.”
A fine response from Hicks. There’s way too much eisegesis of Scripture these days, not to mention straw men arguments. Too many speak with forked tongues. Sad but too often true, especially lately.