Dealing with Dementia. Tuesday April 23, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. An intensive workshop for family caregivers covering an overview of dementia, strategies for various challenging situations, and caregiver self-care tips. Workshop is free and includes lunch and a comprehensive caregiver guidebook. See attached flyer, and sign up at https://tinyurl.com/CaregiverClass
Presentation – Sensory Stimulation: Enhancing Memory through Interactive Technologies. Thursday April 25, 10-10:45 a.m. Join technology coach Jesse Fish to explore how interactive technologies such as virtual reality and interactive touchscreens can provide sensory stimulation for people with dementia. A free presentation. See attached flyer, and sign up at www.tinyurl.com/Memory-Friendly-Tech-Help
College basketball superstar Caitlin Clark is set to soar to new heights in the WNBA — but her rookie contract means she will pocket a fraction of the millions her male counterparts have made on the court.
Clark, the University of Iowa legend who has already made history as NCAA Division I basketball’s overall top scorer, sealed a contract with the Indiana Fever after she was selected as the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft Monday.
Under the 2024 WNBA rookie scale for the No. 1-4 draft picks, she’ll earn a base salary of $76,535 for her first year, $78,066 the second year and $85,873 the third, with a fourth-year option of $97,582.
Despite Clark’s unprecedented star power, he salary is a sliver of the eye-popping amount male athletes make in the NBA.
WNBA draft picks No. 2-4 — Stanford’s Cameron Brink, who went to the Los Angeles Sparks, South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso, with the Chicago Sky, and Tennessee’s Rickea Jackson, also with the Sparks — will make the same pay as Clark.
For comparison, San Antonio Spurs rookie star Victor Wembanyama — the No. 1 pick in last year’s NBA draft — secured a $55 million four-year contract under which he pocketed $12.1 million in his first season, according to the athlete contract tracker Spotrac.
Though Clark is likely to rake in much more through endorsements and sponsorships, outraged simmered on social media over the glaring salary disparity between the WNBA and the NBA.
Hoda Kotb, host of NBC’s “TODAY” show, said Tuesday morning: “They’ve already sold out games. She had the highest ratings, her teams and the Final Four had the highest ratings — higher than the World Series, higher than the NBA. So I was like, what is she going to get paid? Because finally, you can get a real paycheck. Then I saw it and was like, this can’t be right.”
Co-host Jenna Bush Hager added: “Honestly the gap is so jarring. … We’re talking about equal pay. That ain’t even close.”
They said things are likely to change in the future as games have already sold out and viewership, which has historically lagged behind the NBA, has soared, partly on account of Clark’s celebrity.
President Joe Biden said on social media Tuesday” “Women in sports continue to push new boundaries and inspire us all.”
“But right now we’re seeing that even if you’re the best, women are not paid their fair share,” he said. “It’s time that we give our daughters the same opportunities as our sons and ensure women are paid what they deserve.”
Male athletes also chimed in.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson shared a post about Clark’s pay on X, adding: “These ladies deserve so much more … Praying for the day.”
One user wrote on X, “To the people saying it doesn’t matter what Caitlin Clarks salary is because she will be making millions through endorsement, it actually does matter.”
Another wrote, “Presumably she’ll make bank on endorsements but Caitlin Clark’s WNBA salary is less than that of a union nurse, teacher, or cop.”
Journalist Lisa Ling wrote on Instagram: “Steph Curry makes more per game than what Caitlin Clark is making for 4 years! With the toll sports and travel take on women’s bodies, is this even a living wage? I know WNBA games have not brought in comparable numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but this is disgraceful. Do better for all of our women athletes!”
The fight for more equitable pay in women’s basketball has been a long one.
“From a salary standpoint, it’d be great for the women to be able to make more money,” WNBA legend Lisa Leslie said in a conversation with fellow basketball stars LeBron James and Draymond Green on an October 2022 episode of “The Shop: Uninterrupted.”
“It’s a lot of work — it’s a lot of hard work. I think I saw something that said one player that makes maybe $12 million on an NBA team can cover the whole WNBA’s salaries. And so that’s kind of crazy,” she added.
The WNBA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On April 4, 2024, the CDC reported 113 cases of measles in 18 states and jurisdictions. These outbreaks were consistent with a CDC survey showing that more parents are choosing religious exemptions for their children. Because measles is the most contagious of the vaccine-preventable diseases, it’s always the first to come back. It’s the “canary in the coal mine” for fraying vaccine rates.
A single-dose measles vaccine was first introduced in the United States in 1963. Before that, every year measles would infect 3-4 million people causing 48,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths. With the enforcement of school vaccine mandates and the recommendation for two doses of measles vaccine in the early 1990s, we eliminated measles from the United States in 2000. A remarkable accomplishment for such a highly contagious disease. But measles has come back. One can only hope that an outbreak in Philadelphia in the winter of 1990-1991 isn’t a window into the future.
In Philadelphia, by November 29, 1990, measles had infected 96 children; by December 7, the number had risen to 124; and by December 31, to 258. The 1990 outbreak was larger than anything the city had seen in more than a decade. Then an 18-month-old unimmunized boy from North Philadelphia died from measles pneumonia. It was the first time a Philadelphia resident had died from measles in 20 years. Then another unimmunized child in North Philadelphia died from measles. In response, city health officials asked parents to vaccinate children beginning at six-months of age.
The measles outbreak centered on two fundamentalist churches in the city: Faith Tabernacle and First Century Gospel, both of which refused vaccines on religious grounds. After another unimmunized child in the church school died, Dr. Robert Ross, Commissioner of Health for the City of Philadelphia asked Reverend Charles Reinert of the Faith Tabernacle Church to immunize his students. Reinert refused. Ross had no choice but to close the school, which did nothing to slow the advancing epidemic.
By Friday, February 15, 1991, five children had died in ten days. Philadelphia was the center of the worst measles epidemic in the United States. At Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 82 children had been treated in the emergency department and 28 had been hospitalized. At St. Christopher’s Hospital, which was closer to the homes of church members, 250 children had been treated in the emergency department and three were being hospitalized every week. Philadelphia had become a feared destination. Two nearby schools cancelled trips to the city.
On Wednesday, February 27, 1991, Mayor Wilson Goode directed the City Solicitor’s office to obtain a court order to forcibly vaccinate children against their parents’ will. Goode had crossed the line from mandatory vaccination to compulsory vaccination. With mandatory vaccination, people are asked to receive a vaccine or pay some sort of societal price, such as being excluded from work or school. In compulsory vaccination, people are vaccinated whether they want to be or not. In the history of the United States, children had never been forcibly vaccinated against their parents’ will.
On Friday, March 1, 1991, Charles Reinert asked lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to represent his church in its fight against compulsory vaccination. Because a right to refuse vaccines based on religious beliefs was afforded by state law, everyone assumed that ACLU lawyers would rush to his church’s defense. But the ACLU declined. “There is certainly a free exercise of religion claim by the parents,” said Deborah Levy, executive director of the Philadelphia chapter of the ACLU, “but there is also a competing claim that parents don’t have the right to martyr their children.”
By Friday, June 7, 1991, the Philadelphia measles epidemic had subsided. Among church members, 486 people had been infected and 6 killed by measles. Among non-church members, as measles spread into the surrounding communities, 938 people had been infected and 3 killed. All nine deaths were in children. Because they hadn’t been vaccinated, the attack rate among church members was a thousand times higher than that in the surrounding community.
Forty-five states now grant religious exemptions to vaccination. In July 2023, Mississippi became the most recent state to offer a religious exemption. In response, more than 2,000 parents in the state immediately chose to exempt their children from vaccination. It’s a dangerous game we play.
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Prominent legal experts believe that defendants who are innocent of a crime will usually do everything humanly possible to delay their trials.
Professor Davis Logsdon, who teaches a course about the behavior of innocent defendants at the University of Minnesota Law School, said that “if a defendant is strenuously trying to have his trial delayed, there is no clearer evidence that he is innocent of all charges against him.”
“Generally speaking, people who have done nothing wrong want to push the day when their name is cleared as far into the future as they can,” he said. “They will spend a massive amount on legal fees to have a cloud of suspicion hover over them for as long as possible.”
He said that there are “other signs” that a person is “completely innocent,” including “claiming immunity from all charges, defaming the judge and his or her children, and calling the trial a ‘disgrace’ or a ‘witch-hunt.’”
“If someone does all of those things, it’s so obvious he’s innocent that the case should be dismissed immediately,” he said. “The fact that such a trial is allowed to proceed is worrisome proof that our legal system is broken.”
“Rosies” — including Jeanne Gibson and Marian Sousa — are pictured at the Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park’s “Riveter Days” in Richmond, Calif., in March 2023.
Rosie the Riveter Trust
A downtown Washington, D.C., hotel was buzzing with excited energy on Wednesday morning, as dozens of women wearing red and white polka-dotted shirts and scarves, many joined by caregivers, assembled in the lobby to greet each other and confirm the day’s plans.
A table downstairs displayed signs of Rosie the Riveter, the headscarf-clad, muscle-flexing icon who has come to represent the millions of women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II, filling positions previously held only by men and helping power the U.S. to victory.
But the speech bubble above her head didn’t read “We Can Do It!” as it does in most reproductions of the recruitment poster. Instead, it said, “We Did It!”Enlarge this image
A triumphant image of the Rosie the Riveter is displayed at the Hamilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Rachel Treisman/NPR
“Today’s the big day,” explains 98-year-old Jeanne Gibson, who, like many of the women in the room, has a copy of her wartime ID badge — photo, name and location included — pinned to her shirt.
“I am a Rosie, and the Rosies — at long, long last, after many, many tries — are going to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
Eight decades after their wartime efforts, real-life Rosie the Riveters are receiving the nation’s highest civilian honor from Congress — the Congressional Gold Medal.
Twenty seven “Rosies” traveled from across the country to attend Wednesday’s award ceremony, says K. Lynn Berry, the superintendent of the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California. Its nonprofit partner, the Rosie the Riveter Trust, raised funds to support their trips.
“It says something that nearly 30 women in their 90s and even up to 106 are traveling to D.C. to receive this honor,” Berry told NPR on Tuesday.
The journey itself was a celebration for many. Several of the women, flying together from San Francisco on Monday, were greeted with cheers and a water cannon salute upon their arrival in D.C.
One of them, Marian Sousa, 98, said female mechanics and machinists, wearing Rosie headwear, sent them off with a ceremony in San Francisco. On the plane, flight attendants wore red headscarves and played the Rosie the Riveter song over the speakers. (continued)
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it the “most shocking conspiracy” he has ever unearthed, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed on CNN last night that his mind is being controlled by a moron.
“I don’t know exactly how my brain is being operated remotely, by an electronic beam or microwaves or whatnot,” he told the network’s Erin Burnett. “But somehow, some way, there’s a total numbskull making me say the things I say.”
Kennedy said that he had “suspected” that his brain was being manipulated by an egregious dunce “for some time,” but when he heard himself claim that President Joe Biden was a greater threat to democracy than Donald J. Trump, “that clinched it.”
The independent presidential candidate revealed that he pinned index cards to his basement wall featuring his most ludicrous utterances about Bill Gates, Dr. Anthony Fauci, vaccines, January 6, Ukraine, and microchips, and then connected the cards with colored yarn to see if a pattern emerged.
“If I’d said one or two dumb things, I’d brush it off,” he said. “But when every time I open my mouth something irredeemably idiotic comes out, that can’t be a coincidence.”
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For a lot of Activate America supporters, historian Heather Cox Richardson needs no introduction. In the darkest moments of the Trump era, Heather emerged as a voice in the digital wilderness. She daily chronicled the madness and despair for posterity while calling us to action to resist all the ways Trump was undermining American democracy and fomenting extremism.
With the Republican Party now fully subsumed to Trumpism and with Trump once again on the ballot, her voice is needed now more than ever.
This event is not a fundraiser; we’re asking for something even more valuable: your time. Your commitment to help in the coming months can protect democracy for a generation. Are you in? Sign up TODAY!
Lou Whittaker, a patriarch of the nation’s foremost mountaineering family, who helped to make climbing broadly accessible by building a trusted guide company and creating a tourism industry on Mount Rainier, died on March 24 in Ashford, Wash., a town at the base of that mountain. He was 95.
The cause was congestive heart failure, his son Peter said.
In spite of his many accomplishments in the business, culture and sport of mountaineering, Lou was not the best-known Whittaker. That distinction belongs to Jim, Lou’s identical twin brother, who was the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in 1963, and the longtime chief executive of the outdoor gear company REI. Jim is something of an alpine John Glenn — the doer of a feat of will and skill considered transcendent in the 1960s, a friend of the Kennedy family and the subject of action-shot portraits on the cover of Life magazine.
Lou’s sons, too, have become prominent climbers: Rainier Mountaineering Inc. (RMI), the guiding company that Lou co-founded, is now run by Peter and employs his brother, Win, as a veteran guide.
The originals of the Whittaker line shared not only a height of 6-foot-5 and a shoe size of 13 but also impeccable timing. Lou and Jim rose to prominence and success right as the nation took an interest in mountaineering as a death-defying sport for pros and a pastime for tourists and rich adventurers.
Lou Whittaker, left, his twin brother and fellow mountaineer, Jim, in around 1950. The brothers grew up climbing together and followed similar paths until they grew apart as adults.Credit…via Whittaker Mountaineering
After being confused for each other even by acquaintances into their 30s, the twins led increasingly independent lives. Jim grew to be the reserved hero of a past era: Four decades after reaching Everest’s summit, he described the experience as “the high point of my life” to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Lou, conversely, was the toast of the town: an institution-building entrepreneur and voluble drinking buddy known for wearing loud turtlenecks, cracking ribald jokes and eating like a barn animal. (continued)
If you’re reusing glasses from a previous solar eclipse, it’s important to double-check that they are still in good condition. NASA warns against using glasses that have any marks or scratches on them. This damage can diminish the protection they offer.
On April 12, 1951, Lieutenant John W. Hodgkin, age 42, a pilot stationed at McChord Air Force Base, flies his ski-equipped Piper J-3 Cub from Spanaway Air Strip to the top of Mount Rainier (14,410 feet), establishing a new world record for a high-altitude landing. However, when Hodgkin prepares to leave, the engine will not start in the rarefied air and he is forced to spend the night on top of the mountain, huddled in the Cub’s cockpit. The next morning, Hodgkin will push his airplane down the snow-covered face of Nisqually Glacier, glide, without power, to frozen Mowich Lake, at the 5,000-foot level, and land safely on the ice. With the help of a National Park Service ranger and 20 gallons of gasoline, dropped from an Air Force rescue plane, Hodgkin will take off again and return safely to Spanaway. He will be charged in federal court with landing a private aircraft in a national park without permission and be fined $350. Hodgkin, whose escapade captures newspaper headlines for four days, tells reporters he undertook the flight to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of using light aircraft for high altitude rescue work and mountain warfare.
Pilot with a Passion
John Wilfred Hodgkin (1909-1989) was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, attached to the 14th Troop Carrier Squadron, 61st Troop Carrier Group at McChord Air Force Base in Pierce County. Stationed at Thule Air Base in Greenland during World War II (1941-1945), Hodgkin had been reactivated during the Korean War (1950-1953) to fly Douglas C-54 Skymasters on the polar route to Japan, providing airlift of personnel and supplies for United Nations forces. The 61st Troop Carrier Group also flew combat missions into North Korea, carrying ammunition, supplies, and equipment to besieged UN forces and returning to Japan with wounded personnel and evacuees.
Hodgkin, an experienced mountain climber, glider pilot, and photographer, had a passion for landing his small Piper J-3 Cub at high places. With photographs, he documented numerous landings on slopes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including Mount Whitney and Mount Shasta, and wrote an article for national magazine titled “I Land Anywhere.” His goal was to establish the world record for a high-altitude landing and he had been planning a quick trip to the top of Mount Rainier (14,410 feet) for several weeks.
His Piper Cub
The Piper J-3 Cub is a light, single-engine aircraft, manufactured from 1938 to 1947 by the Piper Aircraft Corporation in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. The fuselage, made of welded tubular steel, and the wing assembly, made of aluminum, are covered with fabric. The small, unpressurized cabin has accommodations for only the pilot and a passenger, sitting in tandem. The Cub uses a tail-dragger configuration with a fixed landing gear. The wheels can be easily removed and replaced with skis for landing on ice and snow, or with pontoons for water landings. Used extensively by the military during World War II for intelligence gathering and artillery spotting, the Cub, designated the L-4 “Grasshopper” by the Army, had the well-deserved reputation for being able to land anywhere the pilot dared to go.
The original Piper J-3 Cub was equipped with an air-cooled Continental 65-horsepower engine, with a service ceiling of 11,500 feet. In order to reach higher altitudes, Hodgkin replaced this with a Continental 85-horsepower engine, giving him a service ceiling of 15,000 feet. The Cub lacked an electric starter-motor, therefore the engine had to be hand-started by spinning the propeller. The plane also lacked a two-way radio. (continued)
FLORIDA (The Borowitz Report)—With abortion rights on the ballot this fall, the fight to control the state’s 11 million uteri is being helmed by a vocal coalition of men with small peni.
Harland Dorrinson, an organizer of the coalition, said that he formed the group because “men like us are tired of being invisible.”
His group’s volunteers have been fanning out across the state with the goal of recruiting like-penised men, he said.
“The good news is, there is no shortage of men with small peni in Florida,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of luck at gun shows.”
In addition to defeating the abortion rights measure, the tiny-membered men hope to increase turnout for the indicted businessman Donald J. Trump. “He’s one of us,” he said.
By David B. Williams (son of resident Jackie Williams)
Thanks to Mary M.
As maps go, it is not terribly spectacular. No gilt margin, terra incognitum, or fanciful sea monsters. The cartographer has included two ships but they look more like pea pods than anything sea worthy. Drawn in pen on paper, the map depicts less than a square mile, with land making up about half the map, water about a third, and the title, legend, and white space the rest. Thomas Phelps, in service on the navy sloop of war U.S.S. Decatur—one of the pea pods—drew the map to illustrate the events of January 26, 1856, Seattle, Washington Territory.
Original version of Phelps’ map.
Within the dab of habitation, Phelps drew in Henry Yesler’s mill, Seattle’s first startup business, and largest employer. Like many more modern startups, Yesler employed a mix of locals, or Native people, and newcomers, or settlers. Behind the mill, low, flat land was where Yesler’s employee, Dutch Ned, dumped wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of sawdust from the mill, and where Yesler built a small house. South of the Sawdust the “Neck” connects to the broad side of a lemon-shaped peninsula, where the majority of the town’s buildings stand, including what may be Seattle’s first hen house.
Carefully drawn in the center of the peninsula is a grid of streets, which looks a bit like a pitch for a planned community. A lone building lurks on the southwestern edge of the street grid. Phelps has labeled it as Madam Damnable’s, a reference to a boarding house that he later wrote was run by “a terrible woman, and a terror to our people, who found her tongue more to be dreaded than the entire Indian army recently encamped in our front.” Reputation holds that the building was thronged with women of ill repute. No other buildings on the street merited a name.
L: Best known version of map, updated by Clarence Bagley to include street names. R: Little known version by Robinson and Jackson. (no clue when or why)
I cannot get this singular map out of my head. It shows my hometown in a manner unlike any I know, or even imagined. The map is the first that shows Seattle, not just the land that would become the city, but the layout of the infant village, of what would become the area that modern inhabitants know as Pioneer Square and First, Occidental, and Second Avenues, and Main and Jackson Streets. Like most people, I am used to the modern map of my hometown and its infrastructure. I see the roads that I regularly bike and drive, the home I now live in and the one I grew up in, the bridges that carry me over lakes and canals, and the parks where I run and walk. I see restaurants, theaters, bookstores, and places I have worked. I see where we spread my father’s ashes, where I kissed my first girlfriend, and where my wife and I regularly walk.
Each of these layers forms the map of my home. It is a multidimensional picture made not simply of the visual aspects of the urban infrastructure but also of memories, aromas, sounds, and emotions. I neither see nor can imagine any of this in Phelps’ map. When I look at the scattering of buildings in that tiny dot of Seattle, it makes me think of seeds in a garden. And like a seed, there is no guarantee that it would grow and thrive. We know from writings of the Denny party that they thought it was their destiny to establish a town that would develop into greatness, but how many other specks of urban optimism on large maps had the same aspirations?
In 1856, there would have been little reason to think Seattle would survive. An earlier cartographer had labeled the lands above what would become the settlement “Thickly Timberd.” Dominated by towering conifers, and an impenetrable understory, the timbered land stretched for hundreds of miles to the north, south, and east, making one of the greatest and densest forests in North America. The nearest city of any size, Portland with around 2,500 people, was eight days away by schooner. The one positive aspect was that Seattle was located on the water, with a good harbor for shipping the great timber that engulfed it.
Phelps’s map illustrates another threat to Seattle’s long term survival. What Phelps cannot show but what early Seattleites describe, is that the peninsula where most of them lived periodically became an island. At very high tides, water would cover the Neck and completely isolate the high ground of the peninsula from the mainland. But the settlers’ optimism and drive overcame their topographical and hydrological challenges. They covered up, cut down, and filled in the undesirable, and unprofitable, parts of the city, creating a landscape that would be good for business, and a landscape where the past was little present. In doing, they also started to erase the signs of those who have lived here for millennia and have long held a very different view of the place. To the Native people, the land provided and continues to provide an abundance of food and resources for shelter, as well as good transportation routes.
Seattle’s earliest citizens brought a far different set of expectations and desires. The city they envisioned was one of straight and level streets, large homes filled with non-local luxuries, abundant industries, and trade with a world wide network. All of which would require change. They were so successful that little remains of the landscape illustrated by Phelps.
In his social media account, our former president, has been railing about this blog. He notes that nearly all residents at Skyline are lefties and really old–so they’re obviously out of it. In blasting social security he notes that the old parasites here are sucking up treasury dollars and trying to bankrupt Medicare treating every ailment as an emergency. Worse yet some of us are foreign born, some are gay and even more worse yet, some are liberal college professors who’ve written books.
“What a joke these people are,” said Trump as he hawks his “God Bless the USA” $59.99 bibles. “These liberal seniors should get out of the way so why not pull the plug and make room for the young Republicans who understand how to create wealth by lowering taxes, electing oligarchs, and buddying up to Putin.”
Finally, Trump is suing to place a gag order on the outlandish content found here.
Ed note: I hope on this April 1st that you will stand up for skyline725.com
God’s welcome of foreigners has inspired our congregation in Indiana to welcome refugees and immigrants in our community.
by Jeff Schultz in USA Today
Social media was buzzing this Holy Week with a video of former president and the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump selling a “God Bless the USA Bible.” For $59.99, Americans can have what I believe, as an evangelical pastor, is the inspired Word of God – but also the texts of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and the chorus to a Lee Greenwood song.
I sincerely hope the former president is not just endorsing the Bible but also reading it – especially as it relates to how God calls us to treat immigrants, because there are important messages there for all of us.
Immigration is a significant theme throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word “ger,“ best translated as “immigrant,” appears 92 times. And we’re not just to welcome immigrants but to also love and care for them, as well as seek justice on their behalf.
God calls us to emulate his love for people who are made in his image. The Israelites are repeatedly told to remember their history as mistreated foreigners in Egypt in a way that builds empathy for others. As a people descended almost entirely from immigrants, that is an important message for Americans as well.
Immigrants have important roles in the Bible
Many of the heroes in the Bible were immigrants. Abraham left his homeland on a divine promise then crossed borders again, fleeing famine.
Moses fled Egypt to live in Midian and named his first son Gershom, which means “a foreigner there.”
Ruth, a Moabite immigrant in Israel, became part of the lineage of King David and ultimately, Jesus.
Jesus, of course, was the most important immigrant in history. Carried by Joseph and Mary, he escaped violence in his homeland and found refuge in Egypt – an experience similar to that of more than 35 million refugees around the world today who have fled their homes because of persecution. As Jesus’ followers, we are called to see ourselves as strangers who’ve been welcomed in by God’s kindness.
God’s welcome of foreigners has inspired our congregation in Indiana to welcome refugees and immigrants in our community. But we’re not unique: More than one-third of evangelical Christians say they’ve been involved in immigrant ministry.
That doesn’t mean we all agree on the best public policy solutions.
The Bible never tells us what the ceiling on annual refugee admissions should be. It doesn’t prescribe how to both ensure order and safety and protect the vulnerable from injustice.
Evangelicals say immigration policy should reflect biblical values
But more than 9 in 10 evangelicals agreed in a recent poll by Lifeway Research that U.S. immigration policy should reflect the biblical convictions that immigrants are made with dignity in the image of God (not “animals,” as the former president has labeled some.)
I have reservations about a president profiting from the Bible, especially when the Bible is bundled with foundational national documents in a way that suggests they are equally inspired by God. I’m thankful to live in this country, but if we really want God to bless the USA, we should read the Bible carefully, reflect God’s concern for immigrants and pursue policies consistent with its teachings.
Jeff Schultz is the co-lead pastor of Faith Church in Indianapolis.
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