Evangelical Leader: St. Cloud Times Article Distorts Scripture to Falsely Justify Refugee Resettlement
Originally posted on The Minnesota Sun:
A prominent evangelical Christian leader tells The Minnesota Sun in an exclusive interview that a recent article in the St. Cloud Times , which is owned by the media giant Gannett, distorts Biblical scriptures to falsely justify the massive refugee resettlement that has taken place in that community over the past two decades.
Kelly Monroe Kullberg, founder of the Veritas Forum at Harvard, is a spokesperson for the new American Association of Evangelicals. She served as a missionary in seven countries and is a passionate advocate for advancing the Christian gospel to go forward in every nation.
The article, written by health and social issues reporter Stephanie Dickrell, was entitled “Welcoming the Stranger: Refugees are part of interfaith discussion, exhibit.”
Refugees resettled in Minnesota by the federal government “have become politically divisive topics at every level,” Dickrell wrote, adding:
Consider St. Cloud City Council member Jeff Johnson’s resolution last year to pause resettlement locally. It’s also become an issue in the Minnesota governor’s race. Republican candidate Jeff Johnson has expressed a similar desire, to pause resettlement in the entire state.
What often gets missed in these discussions are the actual humans these decisions affect. John Merkle hopes the human aspect will be a major part of the discussion at an interfaith, multi-media event at the College of St. Benedict this week.
He is the director of the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at St. John’s University, which is organizing the event.
On Wednesday, “Exile, Memory and Welcoming the Stranger” will celebrate the opening of an art exhibit that focuses on themes of exile and migration found in Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
“The main emphasis will be on ‘Welcoming the stranger,’ ” Merkle told the St. Cloud Times.
“That’s a biblical phrase. We picked that right up from the Bible,” he added.
The St. Cloud Times failed to note that this “Welcoming the stranger” theme highlighted by Merkle to justify refugee resettlement comes straight from the far left playbook of billionaire George Soros.
Kullberg notes that “the ‘I Was a Stranger’ campaign was begun to pass the Schumer-Rubio bill, and other amnesty projects.”
“It is a political project funded by the National Immigration Forum of globalists Soros, the Ford and Rockefeller foundations who do not seem to care about the church, faith or American sovereignty. It’s not about love,” Kullberg says.
Kullberg points out the left wing activist organizations “demand that Americans ‘welcome the stranger,’ but rarely do they teach, or likely even know, the whole counsel of biblical teaching on migration and citizenship.”
“You’ll likely never hear them talking about the story of Nehemiah and Ezra, helping Israel rebuild its faith, culture and walls – with both weapons of protection and tools of construction. They won’t quote Isaiah 1:7, in which aggressive migration is seen as a curse, ‘Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by strangers,’ ” she adds.
“There are four Hebrew words for ‘foreigner.’ The ‘ger’ are resident aliens like Ruth and Rahab, who come lawfully, as converts to the faith of the Hebrew people and are to be embraced as citizens. Two words indicate temporary guest workers or visitors, to be treated hospitably. One word, the ‘nekhar,’ is someone who does not come lawfully as a blessing and to assimilate, and that person is not be welcomed,” Kullberg notes.
Professor of Old Testament, Dr. James Hoffmeier, wrote on this subject in his recent book, The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens & the Bible.
“Interfaith liberals conflate these four words into one, the one meaning they want. Imagine where this leads over the course of twenty or thirty years. It’s unwise and unloving to Minnesotans and to all Americans,” Kullberg continues, adding:
In the Bible, we do not find the teaching of open borders, sanctuary cities as currently defined and illegal migration. In the Bible, we find respect of borders, nations, laws and customs – we find wise welcome. We are also taught to advance the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, which the “interfaith” orgs rarely if ever do. More typically, they advance Islam and diminish Christian faith and culture. While their work might look and sound nice, it is not loving. As Sharia supremacy grows, women, children and non-Muslims suffer.
“In cities where foreign law and customs are valued over American laws, we naturally see escalating crime, overwhelmed healthcare and welfare systems, domestic abuse and political chaos,” Kullberg says.
“And while ‘interfaith, non-profits speak of care for foreign persons, they don’t seem to care as much about justice and kindness to American citizens. That is not biblical. God teaches wisdom for flourishing societies, and that requires reading the whole Bible, not cherry-picking verses for politics and money,” Kullberg adds.
In 2016, Dahir Adan, a Somali refugee living in St. Cloud, stabbed nine people at the St. Cloud Mall before he was shot and killed.
John Gilmore, writing at AlphaNews, provided more details of the problems caused in St. Cloud by refugee resettlement.
“Saint Cloud has been disfigured and in many ways ruined by refugee resettlement,” Gilmore wrote, adding:
The beneficiaries of these programs have little to offer the community, are welfare dependent and proudly seek not to integrate into America but to replicate the cultural conditions of their failed, backward cultures. In the teeth of this, local residents are told by the Regressive Left that it is they who have to change, not the newly arrived. . .
Oddly enough, I wouldn’t expect these organizers to get favorable coverage if they prominently promoted say, oh, Leviticus when supporting traditional marriage. No, their biblical acumen ceases when any sort of actual morality is involved. It’s a sham and everyone knows it, including themselves.
As for Kullberg, her views on immigration are deeply rooted in her Christian faith.
“God loves refugees as he loves us all. The Church has served ‘the least of these’ in every nation. But why was the definition of “refugee” broadened by the U.N., and why are so few refugees remaining closer to their home regions where they naturally want to be?” Kullberg asks.
Kullberg points out that non-Christian globalist foundations have learned to use “faith” fronts to facilitate mass migration, or what they call “rented evangelicals.” (see the video at AmericanEvangelicals.com).
She points out that if you want to understand the motivations behind the push for refugee resettlement in the United States, follow the money.
“Globalist billionaires like Soros want ‘open societies’ which means the decline of sovereign nations in Europe and America. The weaker individual nations become, the more power Soros’s circle has. So, they fund open borders, immigrant voting schemes, drug legalization, non-life-giving sexuality fads, anything to weaken us, ” Kullberg says, adding:
Non-profits like Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, Catholic Charities, World Relief, Church World Service and “interfaith” orgs profit financially at the expense of many well-meaning citizens of Minnesota. It’s a lucrative industry that might be valuing short term profit over long-term chaos if it is welcoming and resettling people who have no intention of submitting to American laws and values. For example, most Muslims will tell you, if asked, that they will honor Sharia law over the U.S. Constitution. That should concern us.
“Over the 17 fiscal years beginning in FY 2002 and continuing up the FY 2018, year-to-date, the federal government has resettled more than 40,000 [primary] refugees in Minnesota,” The Sun reported previously:
More than 35 percent of these refugees–a little more than 16,000–are from Somalia.
Under the George W. Bush administration, more than 8,600 Somali refugees were resettled in Minnesota during four consecutive years –2,214 in FY 2004, 2,083 in FY 2005, 3,222 in FY 2006, and 1,569 in FY 2007.
During the last three full fiscal years of the Obama administration, from FY 2014 to FY 2016, more than 3,000 refugees from Somalia were resettled in Minnesota, an average of a little more than 1,000 per year.
Those numbers have dropped precipitously under the Trump administration.
In FY 2017–when 3 months and 20 days were under the Obama administration and 8 months and 11 days were under the Trump administration, 812 refugees from Somalia were resettled in Minnesota.
With only 21 more days left in FY 2018, the Trump administration has resettled only 80 refugees from Somalia in Minnesota this fiscal year.
The issue of whether or not the federal refugee resettlement program should continue in Minnesota is one that will continue to be a focus of the gubernatorial contest between the GOP’s Jeff Johnson, who says he wants to take a pause in the program, and Democrat Tim Walz, who strongly supports its continuation.
