While Donald Trump thrilled crowds during the election campaign with his pledge to build a “great wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions - who Donald Trump has picked to be his Attorney General - cited the Old Testament story of Nehemiah to make a defense of the president-elect’s plans.
Scripture scholars and religious leaders — including many conservative evangelicals —widely agree that Old Testament's unmistakable message to the Israelites is to protect and defend the stranger.
In the New Testament, Jesus radically expanded the definition of neighbor in the parable of the good Samaritan, praising the Samaritan (whom Israelites despised for being foreigners) for stopping to help a man wounded by the side of the road while the respectable of society — a priest and a Levite — passed him by.
When George W. Bush, a self-styled “compassionate conservative” and "born-again Christian," pushed a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2007 that was supported by many business and law-enforcement officials, Sessions railed against what he called the “no illegal alien left behind bill” and led the charge against the failed effort. Sessions is also opposed to increases in legal immigration, and his views are well outside the mainstream.
Sessions might want to find fodder in the Bible for his reactionary positions, but the fact is he is isolated and out of step with more than a millennium of Christian thought and discipleship.
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