"I Didn't Move; You Did" (Part 18) - The Shift Toward Accepting Unjust Scales Of Justice

My last post bemoaned the willingness of so many evangelical Christians, followers of a faith that commands us not to bear false witness, to minimize, defend, repeat, or simply stop caring about truth.

In this post, I want to look at how Christians damage the credibility of the gospel when we highlight failures of character and integrity in our opponents while finding ways to excuse it in our allies.[i]

Throughout this series, I have been returning to the same claim concerning the conservative evangelicalism in which I was raised: I didn't move; you did.  When I look at the things that increasingly separate me from American evangelicalism, I keep finding that it's because of the values evangelicalism itself taught me.

For example, I remember being raised amidst the conservative evangelical insistence that character and integrity mattered in private and public life. This wasn’t reduced to merely our sex lives. Greed was spiritually and societally dangerous. Dishonesty and hypocrisy eventually corrupt everything they touch. Having power or being popular did not excuse immorality but made character even more important, because the consequences impacted so many more people. 

The statements and declarations I have been revisiting throughout this series are remarkably consistent in warning about greed, corruption, selfish ambition, dishonesty, covetousness, the seduction of wealth, and the danger of Christians becoming too comfortable with the rich and powerful. They insist that Christian proclamation must be accompanied by Christian character unmarred by greed and corruption, because otherwise our testimony loses its credibility.[1]

“When there is no distinction in conduct between Christians and non-Christians – for example in the practice of corruption and greed…then the world is right to wonder if our Christianity makes any difference at all. Our message carries no authenticity to a watching world…”

“The proclamation of God’s kingdom necessarily demands the prophetic denunciation of all that is incompatible with it. Among the evils we deplore are destructive violence, including institutionalized violence, political corruption, all forms of exploitation of people and of the earth…”

“Our challenge to others to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Christ will be plausible only if we ourselves have evidently died to selfish ambition, dishonesty, and covetousness, and are living a life of simplicity, contentment, and generosity.

“We are called, as those who serve God and not mammon, to recognize that greed perpetuates poverty, and to renounce it."

Scripture repeatedly condemns dishonest scales, an image I think will be helpful for this post. For example:

“A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.” (Proverbs 11:1-3)[ii]

There is something profoundly unjust about having one measure for one person and another measure for someone else. It’s not just about weighing grain; it’s about measuring a fair, righteous and consistent judgment on all attitudes, words and actions.

What happens to our Christian witness when the standards we once proclaimed loudly become negotiable when applying them consistently would cost us political power?

I see a relevance here not just for individual witness (which is really important), but to corporate witness as well. To whom or what have we hitched our moral wagons? And at what cost? And is it a consistent, steady scales or a compromised, sliding one that a watching world sees the people of God using?

“I Didn’t Move; You Did" (Part 17) : The Shift Away From Defending Truth

Throughout this series, I have been returning to the same claim concerning the conservative evangelicalism in which I was raised: I didn't move; you did.

I don't mean that I haven't changed. Of course I have. My theology has changed in some significant ways over the years. I hope my character has changed too. But when I look at the things that increasingly separate me from American evangelicalism, I keep finding that many of them are values evangelicalism itself taught me.

Tell the truth. Keep your word. Admit when you are wrong. Don't bear false witness against your neighbor. Don't spread gossip. Don't excuse dishonesty simply because the dishonest person is on your side. Character matters. Integrity matters. Truth matters because God is a God of truth.

None of that was controversial when I was growing up evangelical.
And this is where this post connects with the others in this series. 

Whether I am writing about racism, violence, war,  human dignity, care for the vulnerable, or now truthfulness, I keep finding myself in roughly the same place: trying to hold onto things I learned from the conservative evangelical tradition while watching influential parts of that tradition make accommodations I was once taught Christians should never make.

This time, the issue is truth.

Every president in my lifetime has exaggerated, shaded the truth, misrepresented opponents, and sometimes simply lied. This isn't an argument that dishonesty began with Donald Trump, nor is it an argument that Democrats are uniquely truthful.

Something different has happened, though. Donald Trump's (lack of) relationship with truth is extraordinary in its frequency, brazenness, and persistence. Even more troubling to me has been the willingness of so many evangelical Christians—people formed by a faith that commands us not to bear false witness—to minimize, defend, repeat, or simply stop caring about truth.

That change matters to me, because I remember when we said truth mattered.

"I Didn't Move; You Did" (Part 16): The Shift Away From Honoring The Imago Dei In Everyone

One of the things evangelical Christianity taught me was that every human being bears the image of God. Probably everything in this series references this is some fashion: the help of the poor, the care for the immigrant and refugee, the rejection of racism and unjust discrimination, the interest in alleviating global poverty, the concern for the environment so that deadly pollution is curbed, the rejection of war as the preferred way to solve conflict, the importance of honoring the autonomy of people, etc. 

All these things were embedded in the evangelical creeds that formed my life and my evangelical church community for decades.

That conviction helped make me "pro-life" (though these days I prefer the term "whole-life".) I believe human life should be protected and honored from the moment it begins until the moment it ends. But honoring life means more than keeping someone physically alive. It means treating people with dignity, justice, mercy, kindness, and love.

The unborn child bears the image of God. So does the immigrant at the border. So does the prisoner. So does the person with a disability, the elderly person, the poor person, the Muslim, the atheist, the political opponent, the transgender person, the Republican or Democrat politician...the list goes on.

Human dignity cannot depend upon whether someone looks like me, votes like me, worships like me, shares my citizenship, or seeks my approval. If the image of God means anything, it means that human beings possess a dignity we did not give them, and we cannot take away.

That is why the last decade has been so disorienting for me.

Something has changed in significant parts of American evangelicalism. Language and behavior that Christians once would have recognized as cruel, vulgar, degrading, or dehumanizing are increasingly excused—and sometimes celebrated—when they come from the right political leaders.

We seem to have lost something more fundamental than civility. We have lost some of our capacity to walk in another person's shoes—to do and say unto others as we would have them do and say unto us. We have lost not only sympathy, but empathy.

Perhaps it shouldn't surprise us. Charlie Kirk famously said that he couldn't stand the word empathy. Books with titles such as The Sin of Empathy and Toxic Empathy have found receptive audiences in conservative Christian circles.

Of course, empathy can be misguided. Feeling another person's pain does not require agreeing with everything that person believes or does, and it doesn't mean we have to avoid truth and confrontation.

Yet the Christian tradition that has often spoken about orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right action) has an underused third "ortho" -  orthopathy (rightly ordered affections). It asks. "What kind of heart am I cultivating? Or, more simply: am I learning to feel about people the way Jesus does?

I am concerned that conservative evangelicals will win political battles while losing something far more important: empathy. We can become the kind of people who no longer recognize dishonor and cruelty when we see it - or, even worse, when we do it.

So, let’s look at how the administration that evangelicals have put into office twice is doing in the areas of orthopraxy and orthopathy when it comes to viewing, treating, and speaking about everyone as image bearers of God.

"I Didn't Move; You Did" (Part 15B): The Shift Toward Christian Nationalism And The Abandonment Of Character

In the first part of this series, I spent a good deal of time looking backward. I revisited the statements, declarations, and public witness of the evangelical movement that shaped me. Again and again, I found leaders insisting that Christians must care for the poor,  pursue justice, tell the truth, defend the vulnerable, practice humility, and maintain enough distance from political power to speak prophetically to it. And we would do all of this not just personally but corporately. We were called to build a society that valued these things as well as reflected in leaders and laws.

Then I turned to the present. I have been asking a simple question: What happened? Why have so many voices that once challenged immoral presidents and unjust policies now defend and even applaud them? To look at this, I have been chronicling various areas in which a profound shift has taken place and explaining how it reveals the conservative evangelicalism I was raised in moving from solid Kingdom foundations of orthopraxy to shaky Empire foundations of power, violence, callousness and idolatry.

In the previous post, I argued that Christian nationalism changes the church in predictable ways. First, it encourages the nation to borrow God's authority for the empire's actions. We saw that in the way war can become wrapped in the language of divine mission, turning national victories into God's victories and military power into an instrument of God's kingdom.

But there is a second consequence, one that may be even more damaging to the church itself.

Once the church becomes closely intertwined with a political movement, it gradually abandons the call to speak prophetically to those in power. Instead of holding leaders accountable, it begins protecting them. Instead of confronting sin wherever it appears, it starts making exceptions for "our side." The result is not simply political compromise. It is moral compromise that deals a devastating blow to the public witness of the church.

I think nowhere is that shift more visible than in the evangelical movement's dramatic reversal on the question of character.

" I Didn't Move; You Did" (Part 15A) Christian Nationalism And The "Sacrament" of War

In the first part of this series, I spent a good deal of time looking backward. I revisited the statements, declarations, and public witness of the evangelical movement that shaped me. Again and again, I found leaders insisting that Christians must care for the poor, pursue justice, tell the truth, defend the vulnerable, practice humility, and maintain enough distance from political power to speak prophetically to it. (My previous post looked at the kind of global responsibility the evangelical movement once took seriously.)

Then I turned to the present. I have been asking a simple question: What happened?

Why have so many voices that once challenged presidents now defend them? Why have leaders who once insisted that character matters decided it suddenly doesn't? Why has the movement become so comfortable with nationalism, partisan identity, and political power?

I don't think there is only one answer. But I do think one answer explains much of the shift. It is the growing embrace of Christian nationalism, a danger we were constantly warned about for the past 50 years. Here are some excerpts from the declarations I posted.

We must resist the temptation to make the nation and its institutions objects of near-religious loyalty.

God has ordained the two co-existing institutions of church and state as distinct and independent of each other with each having its own areas of responsibility (Rom. 13:1-7; Mark 12:13-17; Eph. 4:15-16, 5:23-32).

All too often we have abandoned our Lord’s concern for those in the shadows, the twilight, and the deep darkness of the world, and become cheerleaders for those in power and the naïve sycophants of the powerful and the rich…

…The other error, made by both the religious left and the religious right in recent decades, is to politicize faith, using faith to express essentially political points that have lost touch with biblical truth. That way faith loses its independence, the church becomes “the regime at prayer,” Christians become “useful idiots” for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form. Christian beliefs are used as weapons for political interests...

Christians from both sides of the political spectrum, left as well as right, have made the mistake of politicizing faith…Whichever side it comes from, a politicized faith is faithless, foolish, and disastrous for the church – and disastrous first and foremost for Christian reasons rather than constitutional reasons...

Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality. In our scales, spiritual, moral, and social power are as important as political power, what is right outweighs what is popular, just as principle outweighs party, truth matters more than team-playing, and conscience more than power and survival...

The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness. The saying is wise: “The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.” The Evangelical soul is not for sale. It has already been bought at an infinite price...

We repent of our failures to condemn and restrain violence by remaining silent, by promoting nationalism, or by unjustly supporting conflicts through deficient theological justification.

We lament that some Christians have looked to the state rather than the gospel as the key means for bringing about God’s intentions for the world. This takes an especially regrettable form when wed to nationalism—here defined as the belief that every state should have a single, national culture and no other—or ethnonationalism—which is the belief that every ethnic group should have its own state. This is a great evil in our world.

We lament that many Christians have been sadly complicit in it, as well as in the claims of ethnic and racial supremacy it fosters. Against this, we assert that no modern state is able to claim or will ever be able to claim to be the special agent of God’s saving rule.

I read Francis Schaeffer back in the 80s and 90s. I taught the How Should We Then Live video class to high schoolers. Though Schaeffer had some unfortunate influences (#rushdoony), he had some good insights that were spreading throughout the evangelical world.

“There is no New Testament basis for a linking of church and state until Christ, the King returns. The whole "Constantine mentality" from the fourth century up to our day was a mistake. Constantine, as the Roman Emperor, in 313 ended the persecution of Christians. Unfortunately, the support he gave to the church led by 381 to the enforcing of Christianity, by Theodosius I, as the official state religion. 

Making Christianity the official state religion opened the way for confusion up till our own day. There have been times of very good government when this interrelationship of church and state has been present. But through the centuries it has caused great confusion between loyalty to the state and loyalty to Christ, between patriotism and being a Christian.

We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. To say it another way: "We should not wrap our Christianity in our national flag.” ― Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto

The late Billy Graham, Christianity Today’s founder, gave us a loud warning in an article he wrote for Parade Magazine in 1981, when he said: 

“I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”[1]

Historically, evangelicals advocated for a prophetic distance from power, especially wealth and political authority, from which they could freely speak truth and righteousness to those in power. They had a stated suspicion of nationalism and “near-religious loyalty” to the state.[2]

Today, in practice and teaching, it endorses proximity to power[3] and defense of leaders regardless of character, often openly embraces Christian nationalism, and seeks to merge faith with political identity.

"I Didn't Move, You Did": A Musical Interlude

I collaborate with Chat GPT and Suno to put my ideas to music. I was an English major, so I do work on the lyrics, but I am not a musician, so Suno helps me out in that area. Here is a link to the song, if you care to listen: https://suno.com/s/JKyLwNpuWdwD4D42

"I've Seen The Things You Applaud"

The way I see life, it makes you so angry 

But I see what kind of things make you smile 

So I’ll stick with my side of history 

Even if it makes me an exile 

And I hear how you think I’m flawed, 

but I have seen the things you applaud, 

and it’s an Empire-style façade, 

because it doesn’t look at all like God. 

You nod when kids get ICED at school

 Like dignity is something they’re beneath 

Laugh at the nicknames and public shaming 

I guess cruelty trumps kindness on TV 

Leaders wave a Bible over words of violence 

Call war crimes “protecting liberty”

 But the man who said, “love your enemies” 

Sounds nothing like these wannabe kings 

 

The way I see life, it makes you so angry 

But I see what kind of things make you smile 

So I’ll stick with my side of history 

Even if it makes me an exile 

And I hear how you think I’m flawed, 

but I have seen the things you applaud, 

and it’s an empire style façade, 

because it doesn’t look at all like God. 

You dedicate golden statues with pious prayers 

While our bombs kill school children in Iran 

The poor get buried under mountains of debt 

While the wealthy get tax breaks from the man

They slash the bread lines, gut programs in schools 

Tell refugees their welcome has ceased 

Then quote a verse about “God blessing nations” 

Like Jesus never said we should care for the least. 

The way I see life, it makes you so angry 

But I see what kind of things make you smile 

So I’ll stick with my side of history 

Even if it makes me an exile 

And I hear how you think I’m flawed, 

but I have seen the things you applaud, 

and it’s an Empire-style façade, 

because it doesn’t look at all like God. 

You target drag queens and profanity 

While abusers boast behind white house doors 

Excuse the sins of the wealthy and strong 

The victims of Epstein are the one you ignore 

You say immigrants are poisoning our blood 

You say they’re animals, thieves, and snakes 

But every face you’ve learned to vilify 

Bears an image God Himself made.

 

The way I see life, it makes you so angry 

But I see what kind of things make you smile 

So I’ll stick with my side of history 

Even if it makes me an exile 

And I hear how you think I’m flawed, 

but I have seen the things you applaud, 

and it’s an Empire-style façade, 

because it doesn’t look at all like God.

And yes I’m flawed like you keep saying 

Surely I don’t always see things right 

But I know the fruits of fear and power 

don’t look anything like Christ. 

The way I see life, it makes you so angry 

But I see what kind of things make you smile 

So I’ll stick with my side of history 

Even if it makes me an exile 

And I hear how you think I’m flawed, 

but I have seen the things you applaud, 

and it’s an Empire-style façade, 

because it doesn’t look at all like God. 

I Didn't Move; You Did" (Part 14) - The Shifting View On Global Responsibility

Earlier in this series, I shared extensive excerpts from major evangelical statements and declarations spanning the past fifty years. Together they paint a remarkably consistent picture of the kind of people evangelicals believed Christians were called to be.

As I've argued throughout this series, what has changed in the conservative evangelicalism of my youth is not the orthodoxy. It's the  orthopraxy. The orthodoxy has remained largely intact - which I applaud. The orthopraxy - the lifestyle conservative evangelicals support with their lives and their voices -  has not. Increasingly, the evangelical votes, voices, support of policies, and causes for celebration reveal a very different understanding of what a faithful expression of right beliefs about God and the world look like.

So far we've looked at the shift in my lifetime in regards to the poor and the vulnerable, racism and discrimination, environmental stewardship, violence and war, and immigrants and refugees. Today I want to consider another area where that shift has become painfully visible: whether Christians should care about suffering beyond our own borders

“We must attack the materialism of our culture and the maldistribution of the nation's wealth and services. We recognize that as a nation we play a crucial role in the imbalance and injustice of international trade and development. Before God and a billion hungry neighbors, we must rethink our values regarding our present standard of living and promote more just acquisition and distribution of the world's resources.”

“We affirm that we must demonstrate God’s love visibly by caring for those who are deprived of justice, dignity, food, and shelter. We affirm that the proclamation of God’s kingdom of justice and peace demands the denunciation of all injustice and oppression, both personal and structural; we will not shrink from this prophetic witness.”

“Among the evils we deplore are destructive violence, including institutionalized violence, political corruption, all forms of exploitation of people and of the earth, the undermining of the family, abortion on demand, the drug traffic, and the abuse of human rights. In our concern for the poor, we are distressed by the burden of debt in the two-thirds world. We are also outraged by the inhuman conditions in which millions live, who bear God’s image as we do.”

“True mission should always be incarnational. It necessitates entering humbly into other people’s worlds, identifying with their social reality, their sorrow and suffering, and their struggles for justice against oppressive powers”.

“We further believe that care for the vulnerable should extend beyond our national borders. American foreign policy and trade policies often have an impact on the poor. We should try to persuade our leaders to change patterns of trade that harm the poor and to make the reduction of global poverty a central concern of American foreign policy. We must support policies that encourage honesty in government, correct unfair socioeconomic structures, generously support effective programs that empower the poor, and foster economic development and prosperity. Christians should also encourage continued government support of international aid agencies, including those that are faith based.”

“Especially in the developing world, extreme poverty, lack of health care, the spread of HIV/AIDS, inadequate nutrition, unjust and unstable economies, slavery and sexual trafficking, the use of rape as a tool of terror and oppression, civil war, and government cronyism and graft create the conditions in which large populations become vulnerable. We support Christian agencies and American foreign policy that effectively correct these political problems and promote just, democratic structures.”

“We must follow the model of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, engaging the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness, by promoting reconciliation, encouraging ethical servant leadership, assisting the poor, caring for the sick, and educating the next generation…”

“We urge those who share our dedication to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed to join with us in working to bring care, peace, justice, and freedom to those millions of our fellow-humans who are now ignored, oppressed, enslaved, or treated as human waste and wasted humans by the established orders in the global world.”

“We love the world’s poor and suffering. The Bible tells us that the Lord is loving toward all he has made, upholds the cause of the oppressed, loves the foreigner, feeds the hungry, sustains the fatherless and widow… God holds responsible especially those who are appointed to political or judicial leadership in society, but all God’s people are commanded…to reflect the love and justice of God in practical love and justice for the needy.”

“Such love for the poor demands that we not only love mercy and deeds of compassion, but also that we do justice through exposing and opposing all that oppresses and exploits the poor….We give ourselves afresh to the promotion of justice, including solidarity and advocacy on behalf of the marginalized and oppressed.”

“We affirm that every modern state is accountable to the divine demand for the just and merciful treatment of both the individuals and peoples over whom it exercises sovereignty as well as those of its neighbours.”

Historically, there was a sense that the U.S. had a global responsibility for justice and poverty alleviation. Christians supported this and worked toward its implementation. Today, in practice, it has retreated into “America First” priorities with diminished concern for global suffering, with deadly consequences.

I have two examples that illustrate the shift clearly. [1] 

I Didn't Move; You Did (Part 13): The Shifting View On Immigrants and Refugees

In a series of previous posts, I've tried to let evangelicalism speak for itself. I reviewed a number of evangelical statements, declarations, and manifestos spanning more than fifty years in order to look at the orthopraxy to which we were called: Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern (1973); Lausanne Covenant (1974); The Manila Manifesto (1989); The Amsterdam Declaration (2000); The Health Of Our Nation (2004); An Evangelical Manifesto (2008); The Capetown Commitment (2010); For the Health Of The Nation 2014; and the Seoul Statement (2024).

Across decades, evangelical leaders consistently taught that Christian discipleship includes caring for the vulnerable, defending human dignity, pursuing justice, and loving our neighbors in tangible ways. Those themes weren't occasional side notes. They were presented as central implications of following Jesus.

Previously, we looked at conservative evangelicalism's shifting moral landscape in regards to war and violence, environmental stewardship, racism and discrimination, and the care for the impoverished. 

The plight of immigrants and refugees is another crucial place where those convictions meet the real world.

“The vulnerable may include not only the poor, but women, children, the aged, persons with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, minorities, the persecuted, and prisoners. God measures societies by how they treat the people at the bottom.” 

"Because men and women are made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, colour, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he or she should be respected and served, not exploited…"

"The gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another, but evaluates all cultures according to its own criteria of truth and righteousness, and insists on moral absolutes in every culture..."

"God identifies with the poor (Ps. 146:5-9), and says that those who “are kind to the poor lend to the Lord” (Prov. 19:17), while those who oppress the poor “show contempt for their Maker” (Prov. 14:31). Jesus said that those who do not care for the needy and the imprisoned will depart eternally from the living God (Matt. 25:31-46). The vulnerable may include not only the poor, but women, children, the aged, persons with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, minorities, the persecuted, and prisoners. God measures societies by how they treat the people at the bottom."

"Ethnic diversity is the gift of God in creation…[it]reflects God’s promise to bless all nations on earth and God’s mission to create for himself a people drawn from every tribe, language, nation and people. We must love all that God has chosen to bless, which includes all cultures… Such love for all peoples demands that we reject the evils of racism and ethnocentrism, and treat every ethnic and cultural group with dignity and respect, on the grounds of their value to God in creation and redemption." 

"The Bible tells us that the Lord is loving toward all he has made, upholds the cause of the oppressed, loves the foreigner, feeds the hungry, sustains the fatherless and widow… God holds responsible especially those who are appointed to political or judicial leadership in society."

"Vast numbers of people from many religious backgrounds, including Christians, live in diaspora conditions: economic migrants seeking work; internally-displaced peoples because of war or natural disaster; refugees and asylum seekers; victims of ethnic cleansing; people fleeing religious violence and persecution; famine sufferers – whether caused by drought, floods, or war; victims of rural poverty moving to cities. We are convinced that contemporary migrations are within the sovereign missional purpose of God, without ignoring the evil and suffering that can be involved."  

"We encourage Church and mission leaders to recognize and respond to the missional opportunities presented by global migration and diaspora communities, in strategic planning, and in focused training and resourcing of those called to work among them....We encourage Christians in host nations which have immigrant communities and international students and scholars of other religious backgrounds to bear counter-cultural witness to the love of Christ in deed and word, by obeying the extensive biblical commands to love the stranger, defend the cause of the foreigner, visit the prisoner, practice hospitality, build friendships, invite into our homes, and provide help and services..."

"The vulnerable include not only the poor, but those with less power, such as women, children, the aged, persons with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, minorities, the persecuted, prisoners and victims of human trafficking."

"...concern for the plight of refugees, with churches and ministries to continue welcoming, resettling and assisting in the integration of refugees."

Historic evangelicalism consistently spoke of immigrants and refugees as vulnerable neighbors deserving dignity, protection, and compassion. Today, many evangelicals defend rhetoric that portrays migrants primarily as invaders, criminals, or threats to national purity. [1]

Christians can reasonably disagree about border policy, visa systems, levels of immigration, and how laws should be enforced. Those are prudential questions. But before they are political questions, immigrants and refugees are moral realities, because they are people made in the image of God.

Policies may be debated prudentially, but fear-based dehumanization and fear-mongering is fundamentally opposed to the biblical concern for the stranger and sojourner.