Anyone who takes the title of Reverend should instantly become suspect. The article goes in on this delusional “Reverend”, but the worst part from the video is when he tells the audience “that you’ve been created Holy in the image of the divine”…”whatever gender, whatever orientation” which betrays his lack of understanding with the scripture and holiness. Consequently, what ICE is doing is upholding the law for people that illegally entered our country when you can take the time to apply and immigrate legally. Governments entrusted to uphold the law and our civil society don’t hold the sword for nothing, so when you break the law yourself you can fall by that sword, especially if you threaten those officers with injury or death. And there is no scriptural basis for resisting the government authorities carrying out their God ordained duty in upholding our law which is just in this case. So you’d have to conclude that he’s of his father the devil, doesn’t know God, and why when he talks to the Christians he doesn’t seem to include himself. And lesbian Renee Good is not in heaven as a practicing homosexual, who God said would not inherit the Kingdom of God while also being an abomination, also with her homosexuality being part of the judgement of God as laid out in Romans 1. Furthermore, the Episcopal church is trash if they make a guy like this a bishop.
The Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, has issued a stark warning to the clergy in his diocese. He told them they need to get their affairs in order and prepare for the possibility of martyrdom while protesting ICE and its efforts to enforce immigration laws and stop illegal immigration, along with other acts of injustice.
Speaking to attendees at a candlelight vigil for Renee Nicole Good—the woman fatally shot by an ICE agent after she drove her vehicle toward him—Bishop Hirschfeld declared her a martyr for the cause and warned the Christians in the crowd that they might need to prepare themselves to do likewise.
I’m also coming to an awareness that the times of statements and the times of our eloquent words have reached a kind of limit, sadly. As someone who is a man of profound historical privilege, as one who has made statements that I have to say have been really good and eloquent, but have not moved the needle one bit, I want to speak briefly primarily to the Christians among us.
We are now engaged in a horrible battle that is eternal, that has gone on for millennia. As soon as the Christian church became linked to the empire by Constantine in the year 325 or so, the church immediately became corrupt. And the message of Jesus’s love, compassion, and commitment to the poor, the outcast, was immediately compromised.
And we have lost that voice, and we are now, I believe, entering a time, a new era of martyrdom. Renee Good being the last of note of those martyrs.
Hirschfeld lists several people who have died as marytyrs recently, including “New Hampshire’s Jonathan Daniels, a man of also white privilege, stood in front of the blast of a sheriff in Hayneville, Alabama to protect a young black teenager from a shotgun blast.”
I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness. And I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.
And it may mean that we are going to have to in a new way that we have never seen in our, perhaps in our lifetime, except for these remote stories that I’ve just cited, to put our faith in the God of life, of resurrection, of a love that is stronger than death itself.
He notes that Renee Good is in heaven with Jesus now:
If we truly want to live without fear, we cannot fear even death itself, my friends. And that is the stark truth of my faith. If I want to live and live with the fullness that God intends, I have to trust that God will always protect me and raise me as God, I believe, is bringing Renee Good to glory right now. And I see that face of that glory among all of us who are here on this cold, dark night
Before concluding with a prayer:
You have been created wholly in the image of the divine. Whatever race, whatever gender, whatever orientation, straight, queer, trans, you have been made in the image of the divine. God has always and will always protect you no matter what happens. So live in that fear. God supports you, protects you, and loves you with a power and a presence that is stronger than death. That is how we live free or die. Amen.