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Sarah Thebarge

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Make America Kind Again.

Make America Kind Again.

Last updated on: June 20, 2018 at 6:41 pm by Sarah Thebarge

Make America Kind Again. 2018-06-20T18:41:01+00:00 Sarah Thebarge

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It’s World Refugee Day.

There are more displaced people today than there have ever been in the history of the world.

It’s World Refugee Day.

People are fleeing unspeakable violence, starvation, genocide, rape, mutilation, bombs…

It’s World Refugee Day.

People are leaving their homes and communities and neighborhoods and keepsakes behind, just to stay alive.

It’s World Refugee Day.

Families are fleeing to the U.S.’s southern borders begging for asylum. And instead, their kids are ripped from their parents’ arms and locked in cages.

It’s World Refugee Day.

In the harbor of the U.S., there’s a statue engraved with, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

But it’s World Refugee Day and instead of opening our arms, we’re closing our borders and building walls and turning people away, literally sending them to their deaths.

Knocked down that statue if you don’t mean it, America. Erase those precious words if they’re no longer true.

It’s World Refugee Day.

And the U.S. just left the U.N. Human Rights Council, to which Afghanistan and Pakistan and United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia still belong. Saudi Arabia — where women fight for the right to drive and the government kills people in public and people are executed for drug possession — Saudi Arabia has higher standards of how to treat human beings than we do.

Lord have mercy.

Seriously. Jesus, have mercy on our hard-hearted, hate-harboring souls.

It’s World Refugee Day.

In our Judeo-Christian faith tradition, we remember that Abraham and Moses and Daniel and Jesus were refugees. But in the name of that same faith, people are justifying locking screaming children in cages, using innocent kids as political pawns to advance a megalomaniac’s maniacal agenda.

It’s World Refugee Day and —

No, sorry, I’m not over this yet. They’re kids, for God’s sake. They’re kids. And you’re letting mean, narcissistic, cruel, lying men with a stunning lack of empathy pick on them. Abuse them. Terrorize them. Traumatize them.

It’s World Refugee Day.

Our Bible says to welcome the stranger, to practice hospitality, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, to go out of our way to love our friends and our enemies alike, to treat every person we encounter as we would treat Jesus himself.

It’s World Refugee Day.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say to turn away immigrants, to deny those seeking asylum, to declare that spousal abuse doesn’t count as a reason to receive refuge, to build a wall, to demonize strangers.

It’s World Refugee Day.

Jesus said that at the end of days, we’ll be judged not by what political party we affiliated with or how we voted every 4 years or how many hours we sat sitting in pews. We’ll be judged by how we treated the least of these. How’s that going for you, America?

It’s World Refugee Day.

If today were judgment day, America’s leaders and many of those complicit to their actions would be going straight to hell.

It’s World Refugee Day.

Evil men cannot lead their countries to greatness. They can only lead their followers straight to destruction, willing accomplices in horrific crimes.

It’s World Refugee Day.

Today, refugees will die and thousands of children will be terrorized because of millions of American “Christians”‘ selfishness, shortsightedness, hypocrisy, bias, descrimination and hate.

It’s World Refugee Day.

A day to mourn how far we’ve fallen, a day to stop claiming to be a nation founded on Christian principles until we actually emulate the God we claim to follow.

It’s World Refugee Day.

A day to realize that America doesn’t need to be great again. America needs to be kind again. Or maybe, if you talk to Native Americans and immigrants and people of color and LGBTQ+ communities and innocent toddlers locked in cages in Texas screaming for their parents…

maybe America needs to become kind for the very first time.

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