BlackCommentator.com June 21, 2018 - Issue 747: Jeff Sessions Uses Scripture as a Text of Terror - Inclusion By The Reverend Irene Monroe, BC Editorial Board

June 21, 2018 - Issue 747

Jeff Sessions Uses Scripture
as a
Text of Terror

"The scripture has been used as a text
of terror by miscreant thugs in power
throughout history: slave owners, Nazi
sympathizers, apartheid-enforcers, supporters
of Japanese-American internment and
loyalists opposed to the American Revolution.

Christians like U. S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions like to smugly recite biblical scripture to promulgate their self-righteous acts of discrimination. In defending Trump’s indefensible policy of separating children from their families-even a child while being breastfed - Sessions cited a passage from Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans:

“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 them for the purpose of order,” Sessions said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”

While clearly Session is no biblical scholar evident in his bastardization of Paul’s message, Session knows Romans 13 is nonetheless used as an edit to obey authority. The scripture has been used as a text of terror by miscreant thugs in power throughout history: slave owners, Nazi sympathizers, apartheid-enforcers, supporters of Japanese-American internment and loyalists opposed to the American Revolution, to name a few. Christians like Session is now trying to apply Romans 13 to present-day issues like abortion, taxes and same-sex marriage.

Our LGBTQ community continues to be clobbered with biblical texts to either scare us straight or terrorize our everyday existence.

I recently received a query from a troubled soul in our community:

"I’m a transman. One of my brothers from church asked me this: if being an LGBTQ+ is not a sin because it is part of human diversity then what is? Does that mean we are allowed to do anything that we desire like adultery, incest, prostitution, pornography (just to name a few)? I don’t know how to respond, so please enlighten me regarding this subject matter.”

If Sessions were to respond Romans 13 would be in his arsenal along with the Christian classics of homophobic scriptures, like Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-27, Matthew 19:3-6, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, to name a few.

The Bible is replete with contradictory and damning messages to all people. Determining which messages are discarded and which are upheld is not a battle about biblical inerrancy or God's will. It is an unmitigated battle of human will either to uphold justice as Jesus spoke about or to codify discrimination as Session is so fond of doing.

For example, there are two creationist myths in the Bible (Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:22). The first myth says that God made woman and man simultaneously. The second creation myth is our "rib story" in which Eve is born from a rib of Adam. Undoubtedly this story has ribbed and poked at Christian women throughout the centuries since it is the authoritative text for substantiating gender inequity in society. The Curse of Ham (Genesis 9:18-27), and Apostle Paul's edict to slaves (Ephesian 6:5-8) served as the scientific and Christian legitimation for the enslavement of people of African ancestry. The Sodom and Gomorrah narrative (Genesis 19:1-29) is one of the most quoted scriptures to argue for compulsory heterosexuality and queer bashing.

My heart aches and soul cries out knowing what’s going on at our country’s southern border. But sadly that’s not the case for many of Trump’s henchmen. To enforce, protect and cement Trump’s zero-tolerance policy of prohibiting undocumented immigrants crossing the border from Mexico into the U. S. Session's use of scripture show neither a scintilla of humanity nor a speck of hope for these people seeing asylum. To see children crying and traumatized from being separated from their parents and then held in human cages like criminals are not only an act of moral turpitude but it’s also a pox on the moral integrity of this country.

Legally, it is a universal human right to seek asylum. And, morally, governments have an obligation to come to the aid of those fleeing persecution, a minimum standard any decent government recognizes.

Is it the will of God to devalue and to dehumanize the lives of families and willfully tear children from their parents.

While it’s Session’s will to do so, his church is charging him with child abuse and racial discrimination.

Citing Paragraph 2702.3 of the 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline, 640 members of his church charged Sessions “with the chargeable offenses of” child abuse, immorality, and racial discrimination.

“As his denomination, we have an ethical obligation to speak boldly when one of our members is engaged in causing significant harm in matters contrary to the Discipline on the global stage,” the church letter states.

Session’s as our A.G. is not being held accountable for his heinous actions. But, he forgets as a Christian he will be.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, The Reverend Monroe is an ordained minister, motivational speaker and she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Rev. Monroe does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), on Boston Public Radio and a weekly Friday segment “The Take” on New England Channel NEWS (NECN). She’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, and Canada. Also she writes a column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows and Cambridge Chronicle. A native of Brooklyn, NY, Rev. Monroe graduated from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church in New Jersey before coming to Harvard Divinity School to do her doctorate. She has received the Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching several times while being the head teaching fellow of the Rev. Peter Gomes, the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard who is the author of the best seller, THE GOOD BOOK. She appears in the film For the Bible Tells Me So and was profiled in the Gay Pride episode of In the Life, an Emmy-nominated segment. Monroe’s coming out story is profiled in “CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America" and in "Youth in Crisis." In 1997 Boston Magazine cited her as one of Boston's 50 Most Intriguing Women, and was profiled twice in the Boston Globe, In the Living Arts and The Spiritual Life sections for her LGBT activism. Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College's research library on the history of women in America. Her website is irenemonroe.com. Contact the Rev. Monroe and BC.