en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/685682 Comments by merely http://www.ky3.com/news/local/64174547.html#IDComment38751918 I am a part of a church community that is not affiliated with any denomination. I have been profoundly impacted by a perspective that is conveyed very well in the sermon series at the following link: <a href="http://www.whchurch.org/content/page_726.htm" target="_blank">http://www.whchurch.org/content/page_726.htm</a> There are also many other messages/series on the same web site in which this perspective is discussed further - that is, that our job as Christians is to imitate Christ, that our one allegiance is to be to him, and that it is only through displaying the beauty of Christ and his kingdom -- a kingdom that doesn&#039;t look like anything else in this world -- that people are transformed. I have been fortunate to meet a number of others who have also been deeply impacted by this perspective - what some might call the &#039;two kingdoms&#039; perspective (referring to the kingdom of God, which always looks like Jesus, vs. all of the &#039;kingdoms&#039; of the world). I&#039;d encourage you to check out those messages at that link - they have changed my life and my approach/thinking about what we are called to do/be as followers of Christ, and how amazingly more beautiful this is than the way the world (and often, unfortunately, much of the Church) operates and thinks. Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:43:10 +0000 http://www.ky3.com/news/local/64174547.html#IDComment38751918 http://www.ky3.com/news/local/64174547.html#IDComment38671104 Just for the record, immigration law is not criminal law, it is administrative law. So while it is breaking the law, entering or staying in the U.S. illegally does not make someone a criminal, any more than breaking any other non-criminal law does. Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:31:28 +0000 http://www.ky3.com/news/local/64174547.html#IDComment38671104 http://www.ky3.com/news/local/64174547.html#IDComment38670585 I am happy to see the NAE at least show some consistency here when it comes to talking about the importance of family -- whether that family includes immigrants here legally or not. There are plenty of other people and organizations who talk endlessly about the importance of family, but when it comes to issues like this (or many others), suddenly it seems the impact on families is of little concern to them. It&#039;s pretty clear from the Bible that Christ was not about pushing a political agenda or promoting any nation over another -- and he certainly did not promote &#039;taking care of our own first&#039;, however deeply inclined we may be to do that ourselves. He made no distinction in who we as his followers are to love selflessly -- to the point of being willing to lay down our lives down for them -- including even our &#039;enemies&#039; (though the New Testament tells us our real enemies are not flesh and blood anyway). I pray that those of us who claim to follow Christ would examine regularly in what ways our thinking and our actions line up with what Christ demonstrated, versus simply thinking and acting like the world in general thinks and acts. We have too often fused our picture of Jesus with political and nation-centered thinking, when the Jesus of the Bible looks radically different than this (and beautifully so). Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:29:18 +0000 http://www.ky3.com/news/local/64174547.html#IDComment38670585