Category: Christian

What Is Due Process, and Why Does It Matter for Christians?

Any first year law student knows the importance of due process as the basic structure of American law

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The news waves are buzzing with reports of summary deportations with a mixed reaction of angst and anger on the on hand and zeal on the other hand. Social media is overtaken by the reports and the opposite reactions in a vortex of swirling vitriol.

I am as guilty as the next person of the desire to post knee-jerk reactions, I realize we need cooler heads to prevail if we are going to find a positive way forward as a nation.

The same swirling vortex of reaction is evident in the Church, even in the evangelical church, which is my “tribe”, and the same need for cooler heads to prevail exists. We also need biblical grounding and direction if we are going to maintain any sense of unity in Christ.

The latest news involves the visit to the White of El Salvadoran President, Nayib Bukele. The staged meeting of the two presidents comes in the wake of the mass deportation on March 15, 2025, of hundreds of men to a notorious Salvadoran prison known for its harsh and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

The deportations happened so fast that an emergency motion filed in court and an emergency order blocking the deportation came too late as the plane rushed off the runway just as the order was handed down. The White House maintained that every one of the several hundred men were violent criminals, though about half of them had no criminal records, and none of them received even a cursory hearing.

On April 10, 2025, the matter made its way up to the US Supreme Court in lightning fast fashion (for the court system), and the Court weighed in. (See Kristi Noem, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, et al. v. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, et al.) The appeal was prosecuted by the government to overturn the trial court injunction to block the deportation.

Homeland Security insisted to the trial judge that the plane had already left the runway when the order was issued. According to the Supreme Court, however, “The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal,” suggesting that the order was in place before the plane took off.

The court found further that “[t]he United States represents that the removal to El Salvador was the result of an ‘administrative error.’” Thus, Homeland Security admits they made a mistake in deporting him. One of the reasons for “due process, which I will get into, is to avoid such mistakes.

Nevertheless, Homeland Security justifies the action taken by claiming that Abrego Garcia “has been found to be a member of the gang MS–13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and that his return to the United States would pose a threat to the public.” They maintain they have done nothing wrong.

The subject of this post is due process, so I will ignore some of the other elements of this case, such as the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the order to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, the fact that the decision was 9-0, and Donald Trump’s insistence this was a victory for him (perhaps because he got away with it with no repercussions – yet).

While the Supreme Court remanded the matter back to the trial court for clarification, the Court did weigh in on the substance of the issues in various ways. The Supreme Court said:

  • “The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
  • “To this day, the Government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia’s warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his confinement in a Salvadoran prison. Nor could it.”
  • The government is bound by a 2019 order effectively granting Abrego Garcia legal refugee status in the United States.
  • “Instead of hastening to correct its egregious error, the Government dismissed it as an ‘oversight.’”
  • The government’s request to be able to allow them to leave Abrego Garcia in El Salvador is based on “no reason recognized by the law.”
  • “The only argument the Government offers in support of its request, that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong.”
  • “[T]he Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings.”
  • “Federal law governing detention and removal of immigrants continues, of course, to be binding as well. See 8 U. S. C. §1226(a) (requiring a warrant before a noncitizen ‘may be arrested and detained pending a decision” on removal)….”
  • “In the proceedings on remand, the District Court should continue to ensure that the Government lives up to its obligations to follow the law.”

These are direct quotes from the Supreme Court ruling. As you should be able to discern easily, this is not a victory for the Trump Administration, and it is not a vindication of what they have done (and continue to do) in detaining, arresting, imprisoning and deporting people without due process.

Continue reading “What Is Due Process, and Why Does It Matter for Christians?” →

How Should We Judge Our Neighbors?

Who we judge and how we judge are keys to how we will be judged.

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Many things are said about judging, and confusion persists about whether Christians are to judge or not to judge. I wrestled through the seeming conundrum a number of years ago and came up with 8 Important Points About Judging and Judgment. I didn’t realize, then, how these principles tie into the way we should look at immigration.

In very brief summary, Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1), and followed immediately with the statement, “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” (Mt. 7:2) He was not telling us not to judge; he was telling us to be careful how we judge. This is critical.

The statements in Matthew 7 cited above are the set up for the short parable of the person with a log in his eye trying to take the speck of his brother’s eye. The parable ends with Jesus telling us first to take the log out of our own eyes; then we can see accurately to help take the speck out of our brother’s eye.

Paul riffs on this theme Jesus preached when he said, “If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.” (1 Cor. 11:31 NKJV) Paul also picks up on something I missed for years in the log and speck parable. In that parable, Jesus is talking about “judging” our brother (by helping take the speck out of his eye, after I have taken the log out of mine).

Who we judge is just as critical as how we judge. When I first discovered this, I was surprised. I and most Christians I know had it all wrong. Paul says:

 “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?”

1 corinthians 5:12

Jesus only talked about judging our brothers, and Paul makes it clear this means people in the church. We have no business judging people outside the church. “God will judge those outside.” (1 Cor. 5:13) (This is why we need to preach the gospel to them!)

One take away from this is that any time we feel compelled to judge someone else, we should always first examine ourselves. We should always be careful how we judge, because we how we judge others is how we will each be judged. We should never judge people outside the church – because Jesus came not to condemn, and neither should we; he came to save them.

Notice these themes that Jesus preached:

  • We will be shown mercy as we show mercy to others (Matt. 5:7)
  • We will be forgiven as we forgive others (Matt. 6:15); and
  • We will be judged as we judge others (Matt. 7:2);

Consistent with what Jesus preached, the themes of judgment and mercy are tied together by James:

 “{J]udgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”  (James 2:13)

When James adds that “mercy triumphs over judgment,” he is highlighting a standard that is based on God’s character. God desires mercy and not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6); God desires mercy, which is why Jesus came to call sinners to himself (Matt. 9:13); and God desires us to be merciful as He is merciful. (Luke 6:36)

So many people view God as an angry God who is full of wrath and judgment. Nothing could be further from the truth. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 103:8) “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.” (Lamentations 3:22)

God is just because he is merciful! Biblical justice is characterized by mercy. Thus, justice without mercy is not biblical justice:

“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” 

Isaiah 30:18

But what does this have to do with judging neighbors? Why did James ask the rhetorical question: “Who are you to judge your neighbors?” This question ripples back to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” The context in which God told us to love our neighbors is a good place to start with answers to these questions.

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What Is the Evidence of the Person Who Claims to Have Faith But is Only Deceived?

We are created by God to bear good fruit.

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One thing about God’s Word is that it is deadly serious. God’s Word is a double-edged sword. It cuts, as it is designed to do, like a scalpel. Paul says poetically that “it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow,” and “it judges the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

If you let it do its work in you, it will save your life, just as a surgeon’s scalpel saves lives. It isn’t often comfortable, but it is necessary, and it brings healing to our condition.

In the first chapter of James, he warns, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22 NIV) This is a sober reminder of what Jesus said about building a house on sand and trees that do not bear good fruit.

The person who hears the words of Jesus and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand (Matthew 7:24-27), and trees that do not bear fruit are cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 7:19)

We are created by God to bear good fruit. He plants His seed in us with the hope and the intention that we bear good fruit. If we are truly connected to the Vine (Jesus), we will bear good fruit.

God has a purpose and a design for the world, and he created us to engage Him to be an active, fruitful part of that purpose and design. So, how do we do that?

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The Backstory to the Parable of the Good Samaritan – A Lesson for These Times

“Who is my neighbor?”

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The Parable of the Good Samaritan has a backstory in Hebrew Scripture I previously didn’t know, and it relates to our present times. Specifically, it relates to the issue of immigration.

The context of the parable is a question put to Jesus by an expert in the law: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus turned the question back on the expert, asking, “What is written in the law? … How do you read it?”

It’s interesting that Jesus does this. Maybe he wanted the legal expert to think it through for himself, rather than repeat what others have told him.

The expert answered, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Jesus affirmed his response, and said, “Do this and you will live.”

But, the expert in the law wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” This is where the backstory begins. To understand the backstory, we need to know where in Scripture the law expert was pulling his answers from and what he (and Jews of his time) likely thought about them.

Continue reading “The Backstory to the Parable of the Good Samaritan – A Lesson for These Times” →

Wolves, Weeds, and the Way of Jesus

We may be sometimes fooled into listening to the voices of wolves, rather than the voice of the Good Shepherd.

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I went to bed last night concerned I was getting things wrong. Specifically, I have been critical of Donald Trump and what he has done since he took office again, and I have been getting push back from many people. It isn’t the many people that concerns me, but my brothers and sisters in Christ who are calling me out on this.

It seems so obvious to me that the things being done are wrong, and the way they are being done is wrong, but other Christians are not seeing it. I prayed to God last night, “If I am wrong, please correct me.”

This morning my daily reading included this verse:

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16

I was doubting myself last night, so my first thought was to check the context, even though I know it. Sure enough, it was what I remembered:

“These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. ‘” Matthew 10:5-6 

I have read this passage dozens of times, probably, since I became a Christian over 40 years, but I didn’t realize the context of the sheep among wolves statement made by Jesus until the last year. When I read that passage recently, I said to myself, “Wait a minute! Jesus said that to his disciples when he sent them out to his own people – the Jews.” What!?

He said, don’t go to the Gentiles, and don’t even go to the Samaritans; go “the lost sheep of Israel.” He would later send them to the Samaritans; and he ultimately sent his followers to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Of course, he sent them to the lost of sheep of Israel. Maybe not all the people of Israel were lost sheep. Maybe the wolves were only among the lost sheep of Israel.

Surely, the people in the church today are not the lost sheep. The church is filled with the elect. The church is filled with sheep who hear the shepherd’s voice. I believe that is true!

At the same time, I think it is safe to say that not everyone who goes to church is a child of God. The old adage that parking yourself in a garage does make you an automobile is true. Jesus said it this way: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat….” (Matthew 13:24-25)

I am sobered by this. I don’t think that Jesus was saying that all God’s people at that time were wolves. Maybe the wolves weren’t even people. Sometimes, we can take a metaphor too far. He was telling them to be careful, to be circumspect, to remember what he taught them, and not to be lead astray – even among God’s people. We may be sometimes fooled into listening to the voices of wolves, rather than the voice of the Good Shepherd.

This is the story of God and His people. God sent His prophets to His people again and again, and they did not listen. (Jeremiah 26:5) When God commissioned Isaiah, He told Isaiah that the people would hear, but not understand, and they would see, but they would not perceive, and this would continue until the land was in ruins and only a remnant remained. (Isaiah 6:1-13)

Of course, I am not the Prophet, Isaiah. I am a sinful man saved by the grace of a loving God. I have my own faults and biases and sinful tendencies, and I could be wrong. I am acutely aware of this.

Last night before I went to bed, I listened to a pastor talk about the triumphal entry in Luke, and I remember it this morning. I wrote about the triumphal entry last year with some new insights I had gained from a podcast. He hit on the same insights.

Jesus was entered Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey around the time Pontius Pilate entered Jerusalem from the opposite direction, from Caesarea. Picture the incongruity of a full grown man sitting on a colt of a donkey with his legs dragging the ground under the poor little beast. Then picture the Roman ruler of the land came from the opposite direction in a mighty procession with banners and fanfare and a show of force with all the military show of Communist China.

Jesus was coming to die on a cross, but the people greeted him like he was a king who would ascend the throne of David and overthrow the Roman government. They shouted, “Hosanna!” (Save us!) They waived palm branches to herald the Messiah they believed would save them from the Romans like a hammer, and they laid their garments down in submission.

The people didn’t understand that Jesus came to die on a cross. The poignancy of this incongruence is understood best by how the story in Luke ends:

“As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.'”

Luke 19:41-44

Those people would have said they did recognize the time of God’s coming, right?! They got it right: he was the Messiah! They recognized that Jesus was God’s Messiah promised of old.

In that general sense, they did get it right. Jesus was/is the Messiah, but their expectations of what that meant and what he would do was wrong. They thought he came to conquer, but he came to die.

By the end of that week, the people who waived palm branches and laid their garments down had changed their tune. They wanted Barabbas released, not Jesus.

As discussed in the conversation linked below in the video, they wanted the way of Barabbas – the sword – not the way of Jesus, the cross. They didn’t want a suffering Messiah; they wanted a conquering Messiah. They didn’t want the Lamb of God; they wanted the Lion of Judah.

We aren’t much different than they. For all of our Bibles and bible apps, we don’t even know Scripture as well as they did! Lifeway Research reports that only 36% of Evangelicals read the Bible every day, and only 32% of Protestant, read the Bible every day.

We have our own expectations of the way God should do things, and we tend to lean back into what someone recently called the default stance of the flesh – the appeal of power and influence. But, that isn’t God’s way. Jesus showed us God’s way, and he invites us to follow his way as he followed the Father’s way in this present world.

Paul reminds us,

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are….”

1 Corinthians 1:27-28

We need to be careful not to be hearers who don’t understand and seers who don’t perceive. We need to be careful to choose God’s way, which is not our way. We need to carry our crosses and not swords.

Does any of this make me “right”? No. But, I am seeking God. I am trying to be true, to know Him, and to be like Him. That is my heart’s desire. I am trying to recognize and honor God in these times and to reflect His heart and character as best as I can understand it.

The lesson of the words of Jesus to be careful of the wolves among the sheep, the lesson of the prophets, and Paul’s reminder that God shames the wise and the strong by choosing what seems to be foolishness and weakness means that I need to resist the default position of the flesh (to rely on power and influence). I need to be grounded in God’s Word and not everything that anyone who is a Christian says. I need to be aware that weeds grow among the wheat and wolfish things appear among the sheep.

Though every man be a liar, yet God is true! (Romans 3:4) The heart of a man is deceitful above all things. (Jeremiah 17:9) This is true of me and my heart if I am not careful and do no guard it. We need each other, and we need to hold each other accountable, not to political ideologies and cultural ways, but to the Word of God and the way of Jesus.