By Lee Fang
Amid increasing scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s hard-line
immigration policies, criticisms have been lodged against the policy of
family separation at the border by, among others, members of his own
party and otherwise stalwart Christian right
allies of the GOP. One Christian ally of the White House, though, came
out swinging in favor of taking children away from their parents:
Capitol Ministries.
Ralph Drollinger, the head of the private Christian group, which
leads Bible study sessions for Republican lawmakers and senior members
of Trump’s Cabinet, led the charge to defend the administration even as
photos and stories emerge showing children crowded into cages and
snatched from their mothers.
“No one, especially my personal friend, the kind-hearted Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, desires that a mother or father be separated from
their children,” wrote Drollinger, in a message
to supporters on Friday. But, the Capitol Ministries leader said, there
are “three classifications of people in every country, as was true in
ancient Israel in the Old Testament.” In Drollinger’s interpretation,
there are citizens, legal immigrants, and foreigners — the latter were
known as being “illegal,” he said — and the Bible only forbids family
separation for citizens and legal immigrants.
“It follows that when someone breaks the law of the land that they
should anticipate that one of the consequences of their illegal behavior
will be separation from their children,” Drollinger wrote. “Such is the
case with thieves or murderers who are arrested and put in jail.”
Sessions attracted controversy after citing a Bible verse to defend
the administration’s “zero-tolerance” border enforcement strategy. “I
would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in
Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained
the government for his purposes,” the attorney general declared during a speech in Fort Wayne, Indiana, last Thursday.
Despite the support from a right-wing Christian group that’s
especially close to the administration, other conservative Christians
are pressuring the Trump administration to change its practices. Earlier
this month, a group of evangelical pastors signed a letter harshly
condemning the child separation policy. “The traumatic effects of this
separation on these young children, which could be devastating and long
lasting, are of utmost concern,” stated
the letter, which was signed by the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, who gave an
opening prayer at Trump’s inauguration and is reportedly close to the
president, among other evangelical leaders.
Drollinger, who has become immensely influential following the 2016 election, believes Sessions correctly invoked the scripture.
“The passage the Attorney General cited, Romans 13, bespeaks of this:
there are and there should be serious, known consequences for breaking
the laws of the land — otherwise the law becomes toothless and
inconsequential and it is no longer a deterrent to harmful behavior,
which is what God designed it to be,” Drollinger wrote, citing his own Bible study on illegal immigration, published on the Capitol Ministries website two years ago.
In the 2016 Bible study, Drollinger wrote that “immigration laws of
every nation should be Biblically based and strictly enforced — all with
the utmost confidence that assurance that God approves such actions by
the nation’s leaders.” He added, “To procedurally exclude foreign
individuals who might be criminals, traitors, or terrorists, or who
possess communicable diseases is not racist in the least!”
Drollinger, a former college basketball star turned spiritual adviser
to conservative politicians, has quietly amassed power in Washington,
D.C., through his Monday evening Bible studies with conservative
lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Several Cabinet members, including the vice
president and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, pray on a regular
basis with Drollinger’s group. As the minister recently told a German
newspaper, he provides
the administration with “the high-protein diet of the Word of God.” In
the past, Drollinger bashed gay rights and called Catholicism the
“world’s largest false religion.”
As The Intercept first reported,
shortly after the presidential election, Drollinger could barely
conceal his excitement that members of his inner circle would soon
occupy the White House. He published a press statement celebrating the
fact that Trump’s appointments for his administration were drawn from
“long time sponsors of the Members Bible Studies.”
“It follows then that the sudden rise of Pence, Sessions, and Pompeo —
all men who are disciples of Jesus Christ — serve to vividly illustrate
the truth of 1 Timothy 2:1-4!” Drollinger announced, referring to a Bible verse that calls for prayer “for kings and all who are in authority.”
Drollinger’s controversial interpretations extend to other areas of
GOP orthodoxy. Capitol Ministries claims “that Islam and its Koran are
nothing more than a plagiarism of OT truths” — a reference to the Old
Testament — “and a non-chronological, sloppy one at that — topped off
with a falsified diminution of Jesus Christ.”
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