“This is a secular state, not a church,” Jeff Sessions told a crowd in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a couple days ago, “and I am a law enforcement officer.”
Amen, brother.
Only…why, at the same event, did he “take a little bit of digression” (see the video, above) and explicitly invoke the Christian Bible as the (shaky) foundation for a (shakier) moral philosophy?
There’s an obvious, and even good, answer to that question, of course. Religious organizations, including many evangelical groups, have been raising a ruckus (here’s a group letter some evangelical Christian leaders sent to Trump). Hell, even Franklin Graham calls it disgraceful (though he says that it’s not Trump’s or Sessions’s fault). And since this is, in large part, Trump’s base, it’s a good rhetorical move to address the critics in their own terms—in this case, to answer the objections of religious leaders (“our church friends”) with an answer from the Christian Bible.
What Sessions chose to “cite you to” makes a lot of sense, too: we should, he argued, follow the apostle Paul’s “clear and wise command,” found in Romans 13, “to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.” This of course plays directly—one might even say panders to—what that evangelical base has already been arguing: Trump’s presidency is ordained by God.
Of course, the Bible has a few things to say about disobeying the law.
For example, would anyone criticize the prophet Daniel for praying to his God in defiance of a king’s decree otherwise (Daniel 6)?
Would anyone criticize Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s refusal to bow down to an idol, again in defiance of a king’s decree? (Daniel 3).
How about Shiphrah and Puah, the midwives who refused the Pharoah’s instructions to kill Hebrew boys at birth (Exodus 1)?
American history has a few things to say about disobeying laws, as well. Indeed, our country is founded upon such disobedience; what is the Declaration of Independence, if not a reasoned demand to be “Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown”—that is, a refusal “to obey the laws of the government”?
And don’t let’s get started on the ways that this passage was used to support slavery.
My point is that Romans 13 can’t be used to justify obedience to a law simply because it exists. We have the right, and the responsibility, to call out injustice, legal or otherwise.
I’m not Christian; I don’t “value” “family” the same way that Christians profess to (often less than convincingly). But even I—godless atheist that I am—know that this law, especially with its current “zero-tolerance” enforcement, is immoral.
Which leads me to make one last point. In rhetoric, there’s a logical fallacy called begging the question. This is where you assume as a premise the thing that you’re supposed to be proving. (To those who already knew what it means, my apologies, but it’s so often misused that I want to be sure we’re all on the same page).
Sessions begs so many questions it hurts. But the one I find most angering appears at the end of his “digression”:
Consistent, fair application of law is in itself a good and moral thing and that protects the weak; it protects the lawful.
Set aside for a moment the question of how consistently and fairly we apply our country’s laws—I’m sure African Americans would have some cogent analysis on this point. But no one is arguing that consistent and fair application of the law isn’t a good thing (“in itself”—how deliciously Kantian, Mr. Sessions). Rather, we—religious right and godless atheists alike—are arguing that the innocuously named “separation of families” is not a consistent and fair application of the law.
Further, the current application of this law does not protect the weak. On the contrary, it targets the weak.
Look: I’m not a big fan of quoting religious texts to justify the actions of our (as even Sessions admitted) secular society. But if you’re going to quote religious texts, how about focusing on the parts that talk about treating our neighbors with love and respect?
Oh, and remember that Jesus’s definition of “neighbor,” as expressed in the parable of the Good Samaritan, doesn’t let you get away with claiming that these immigrant families aren’t our neighbors.