By Natasha Lindstrom, Trib Total Media.
Screen grab of the Pittsburgh Presbytery web site.
Alarmed by calls to keep Muslim refugees out of America, a Presbyterian body representing 145 congregations across Western Pennsylvania issued a statement in support of welcoming Syrian refugees fleeing their war-torn homeland.
“What we are wanting to say is that our Christian faith leads us to welcome the stranger,” said the Rev. Sheldon Sorge, general minister of the North Side-based Pittsburgh Presbytery. “That is unqualified and unconditional, and to the extent that we’re being asked not to do that, we betray our faith.”
Nearly 200 people voted unanimously to support and promote the one-page statement during last week’s quarterly meeting of the Pittsburgh Presbytery at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church. It invokes words etched on the Statue of Liberty and emphasizes that Jesus “himself was a refugee very soon after his birth.”
“We modern-day followers of Jesus struggle with making sense of the enormous reality of international refugees,” the statement read. “There are currently over 60 million displaced human beings. Four million have fled from Syria, and 6.5 million are displaced there internally.”
The Presbyterian group represents leaders serving more than 30,000 churchgoers in Allegheny County.
Pittsburgh Presbytery’s A Declaration on Welcoming Refugees
14 Comments. Leave new
God is the Father of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. We must learn how to respect each other. We have a lot to learn about each other.
I’m all for helping out, but these people need to be vetted before letting them in the US.
@james H
Since the 1980′ about 25,000 people from Ireland immigrated to the US. No one called for them to be vetted. And in fact some of them were terrorists. I spy a double standard. And yes they should be vetted. What is happening in Syria is a disaster and Pittsburgh Presbytery showed compassion. Good for them.
Dear Robert,
Two of your statements are axiomatically true, and one of your statements is clearly nonsense.
“We have a lot to learn about each other.” Of course. All people have a lot to learn about other people.
“We must learn how to respect each other.” Of course. All people must learn how to respect other people.
“God is the Father of Muslims, Jews and Christians.” Pure nonsense. The personal, relational term “father” is almost totally absent in Islam’s understanding of God, while it is absolutely central in Christianity. If you are a Muslim you are “Abdullah,” the slave of God, not his child. Muslims do not use Christian language when they speak of God because it would be ridiculous for them to do so. So why do you?
I’m afraid, Robert, that you need to decide whether you believe in the Christian God (who is a monotheistic trinitarian deity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit revealed in the Bible) or in the Muslim God (who is a monotheistic unitarian deity revealed in the Qur’an), and then use language that appropriately reflects what you believe. To do otherwise is simply to create nonsensical gibberish.
No, James. Passing a resolution that doesn’t actually cost anyone anything is not showing compassion. It is moral posturing, and nothing more. And empty moral posturing is one of the PCUSA’s favorite pastimes.
James the only problem with your statement is that it’s not the Irish going around killing innocent at random in the name of jihad.
Dear Brother in Christ Donnie Bob:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. It is apparent to me that you love our Lord and His church very much.
May you and your family have a Christ centered Christmas and a Christ filled new year.
Please also accept my warmest wishes to you and to your family as we celebrate together during this Christmas season the wonderful news of God’s great love for us in and through his Son Jesus.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ….” I Peter 1:3 ESV
Gratia vobis, et pax vobiscum.
Lets go back in the “way back” machine to 2011 at the start of the Arab Spring and all liberal hopes for Jeffersonian democracy to come forth from the Middle East. By 2012 Assad was already gassing his own people, barrel bombing hospitals and causing 2 million displaced in the camps. Keeping with its neo-Quaker, Pacifist sensibilities the PCUSA passed resolution after resolution decrying the use of force against Assad, and the rising ISIS response. Then you had the “Red Lines” of Obama and we know the rest.
So now you have a Presbytery which is comatose and non-functional across many metrics of viability passing more resolutions telling other people how they should think, act and believe. They closed 3 churches this year, they will close more in 2016 and more after that.
The real job of ministry is hard work, church planting, evangelism is hard, hard work, sacrifice required. Pittsburgh Presbytery chooses none of that, leave that to the Assemblies of God or the Hispanics and pass a resolution, very easy, done and done. At least they feel good and positive about themselves, which is the whole point.
Well said Donnie Bob! Robert’s comments are of the “feel good” variety. As you properly pointed out, Our Christian God is simply not the Father of those people who represent the “Lost” of this world! Salvation is only possible by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior!
Once Assad is out of the way, Obama and the Washington left have cleared the way for the Moslem Brotherhood to move in.
Presbyterian “quits and leaves” do not account for the “never were,” the “looked around and said, ‘no way,” or, the many so influenced by family, members, and friends to take another option. Now the Presbyterian “main” is preaching a soft approach to Islamic immigration. Only other leftists could be interested.
Islamics have Stockholm surrounded. Now going door to door, posting notices to convert, pay the dhimmi, or die, now. Sweden is unraveling. We have been warned. Obama sends Christmas blessings from Hawaii — more taqyyia.
A commenter at World Net Daily new had this to say.
The U.S.A. should ban (permanently) all members of any group that:
Kills you and/or enslaves your wife and children if you refuse to join it.
Kills you if you criticize it or its founder
Kills you if you leave it or are caught trying to leave it.
Practices slavery today
Well said, Donnie Bob. In my new Evangelical home, the pastor solicited brief comments on the subject. Wouldn’t you know, predictably, the first came from a woman who sits near the music. She said that the issue was an extreme faction with anger problems. The thought failed to make it around the chapel
Memo to Pittsburgh Presbytery: By All Means, welcome those folks into your homes, hearts and lives. Welcome them especially into your neighborhoods! Support them with your tax dollars and your tithes.
But do NOT lecture the rest of us who choose to do other things with our homes, hearts and lives. Do NOT confiscate our money through taxation to support your personal walk by faith with those you welcome. Do NOT wrap yourselves in self-righteousness because you choose to invite murderous strangers into your community while we choose to protect those we love first.
How about walking this walk before you lecture the rest of us what your god requires?