Baptist leader Moore goes off the tracks with heretical attacks on Donald Trump, immigration

Yazidis give us a clue to the appearance of ancient Jews.

    Neo-liberation-theologist Russell Moore, who is doing his best to turn the Southern Baptist Church into a Communist-front organization, has declared that true Christians shouldn't support Donald Trump for president. Moore is president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.
    Oh, and in a New York Times article Moore declares of Trump supporters that, "A white American Christian who disregards nativist language is in for a shock. The man on the throne in heaven is a dark-skinned, Aramaic-speaking 'foreigner' who is probably not all that impressed by chants of 'Make America great again.'"
    For the record I don't consider either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton to be particularly Godly people. I was, and still am, a Ted Cruz supporter, but I vote for my candidates on the basis of their political positions, not on their religion. As a strong supporter of religious liberty, I certainly thought Cruz would have been a far better candidate than Trump. But it is apparently not to be. On a personal level, I don't like Trump, but I support some of his policies.
    If you Google Moore's statements over the past couple of years, what you'll find is there isn't a leftist cause he doesn't like; this blog post doesn't allow time to refute it all, so I'll limit myself to Moore's comments on Donald Trump.
    First, Moore blasts Trump's "Nativism." The first Google definition of "nativism" is "the policy of protecting the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants." I think a more accurate definition, particularly to describe nativist thought in the current election, is "The policy of protecting the interests of citizens against those of non-citizens or illegal aliens." Given this definition, I am a proud nativist, and I would hope most American Christians would be as well.
    Jesus is recorded in Mark 12:27 instructing that we should show fealty to our earthly sovereign: "And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him."
    We American's don't have a Caesar; we have no king, no emperor, no ayatollah, no pope. We The People are sovereign, and our fealty is owed to our fellow citizens, pursuant to Christ's command. Moore's assertion that favoring citizens over non-citizens is somehow wrong is in direct conflict with the instructions of Jesus Christ. It is heresy.
    Moore has repeatedly criticized Trump for his statements concerning "immigrants." Of course, when Moore says Trump has made these statements he is bearing false witness, because Trump's comments have been directed almost entirely at illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants. There's a big difference.
    Let's look at some of Trump's "objectionable" statements concerning immigrants:

As has been stated continuously in the press, people are pouring across our borders unabated. Public reports routinely state great amounts of crime are being committed by illegal immigrants. This must be stopped and it must be stopped now.

We're going to bring people in, but we're going to bring people in legally.

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. . .They're . . .sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting.

    Here are the facts: Central America, the source of the bulk of illegal immigration, used to send us their best and brightest, who were often denounced as traitors for leaving their home country. No more. We now get far more people likely to end up on welfare.  Immigrant households use welfare at twice the rate of native-born citizens, and illegal aliens with children have an even higher welfare rate. If we were getting the best and brightest, as we used to get, the immigrant welfare rate would hover around zero.
    The crime rate of illegal immigrants is a major problem, as the left-leaning Atlantic pointed out in a July 29, 2015 article. As that article reports, in 2011, there were an estimated 42,000 robberies, 70,000 sex crimes, 81,000 auto thefts, 95,000 weapons offenses, and 213,000 assaults committed by illegal aliens in this country.
    So let's get this straight. Moore bore false witness against Trump by indicating that his comments were against all immigrants and not just illegal aliens. This is a direct violation of Exodus 20:16, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."
    Even worse, Moore has criticized Trump for telling the truth. And yet Jesus advocated the telling of the truth: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32). To attack trump for making a statement without first addressing the veracity of the statement is a direct, frontal assault on the teachings of Christ.
    When it comes to racial issues, Moore is no less obsessed than a Klan Kleagle in reverse. Thus we get Moore's claim that Christ "is a dark-skinned, Aramaic-speaking 'foreigner'."
    I don't believe Christ is going to have a skin color in Heaven, but I do think it's important to address the poison that Moore is spreading. We really can't know what Christ looked like; but we can make educated guesses. In all likelihood he didn't have long hair as always shown in the paintings, as men didn't wear their hair long in that time.

Bashar al-Assad

    But the people of the Middle-East are not necessarily dark in complexion. Some have light skin and deep, blue eyes, such as Syria's Bashar al-Assad (A clue, a clue!). And many Jews have blond or red hair; their skin is not particularly dark (A clue, a clue!). It is quite possible that many people who now live in the Mid-East may have dark skin due to intermarriage with other groups. I visited with a  newscaster for Al-Arabya some years ago, and in conversation he described a "true Arab" as having blond hair (his hair was not blond).
    The most endogamous group in the Middle-East is quite possibly the Yazidis, an Aramaic(!) group that lived directly to the northeast and east of the Roman-recognized state of Israel. Yazidis only marry each other, and therefore give us a clue (A clue, a clue!) as to what Jesus might have looked like. Yazidis often have fairly light skin tone and blond or reddish hair; sometimes they are darker.

Another clue as to Christ's appearance!

    With all of this said, even if Christ should have had a darker skin tone (and given exposure to the sun, he would have had a very deep tan regardless of his genetic makeup), what does it matter? Does Russell Moore really think it matters to anyone? Most of us have friends who are Lebanese, Syrian, Greek, Italian, and Hispanic. Many members of these groups have the type of darker skin that Moore is insisting that Christ had. So? Jesus is Jesus, regardless of what He looked like, so Moore just needs to stop race-baiting.
    I do agree with Moore that Donald Trump is a pretty awful person morally. I feel the same way about Hillary Clinton. As much as I dislike Trump, his political views are the most consistent with my own of the two likely major-party candidates, and I intend to vote for him if he is the Republican nominee.
    The most Christian thing any American voter can do is to vote for the candidate who will show fealty to our earthly sovereign, the citizens of the United States. I'm going to vote to elect a president who will best serve the interests of my fellow citizens, not a Sunday School teacher.