OK, so if you’re new to the constitutional crisis on the Texas-Mexico border, then there’s probably some fill-in that’s necessary. Texas put Operation Lone Star into effect back in March 2021. Its purpose is to utilize Texas Guardsman and police to arrest illegal immigrants and repel border crossers before they cross the border. Along with that OLS is responsible for bussing migrants to the sanctuary city of their choice—which we’ll talk about momentarily.
Part of OLS was putting razor-wire barriers on and near the river. The Biden Administration allegedly instructed Border Patrol to cut holes in the wire—and there is video evidence of Border Patrol cutting the fence from back in July. Lately the Biden Administration sued Texas to force them to remove the floating barrier on the Rio Grande because the state of Texas did not get the proper permits from the Army Corps of Engineers to obstruct a navigable waterway. A Federal Judge ordered Texas to remove the barriers, but an appeals court has allowed Texas to keep up the barriers in a temporary stay, and this case will likely go to higher courts.
The reality is that Texas probably did violate the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899.
However, as Abbott and others argue, while the Constitution DOES reserve the authority to protect and govern borders to the Federal government, Article 1, §10, clause 3 states:
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit delay.”
Abbott claims that they ARE being invaded. And it’s hard not to agree, when you look at the sheer unfathomable volume of people illegally crossing the border who are felons, human traffickers, drug smugglers, mafioso, and, by the way, they are ALL criminals as they are ALL engaged in a crime.
Texas deals with almost 2 million illegal immigrants in their state. In New York they are unable to handle 110,000 asylum seekers! Texas has hundreds and thousands per day.
And what happened to New York? Well, Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul now want to make the city not be a sanctuary city anymore. Now, Hochul is a liar saying that their Right-to-a-Bed law was about homeless men and families in distress. She’s pretending that the city hasn’t been virtue signaling for literally decades. And when I say decades, I mean since I was in Kindergarten!
So, no, New York does not get a free pass on this. New York is not more sinned against than sinning. New York has aided and abetted illegal immigration, its congressmen and senators have voted to keep the illegals coming for decades, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. They are now getting a taste of their own medicine and they have decided they don’t like it! And New Yorkers, in particular don’t like it. As 82% of New Yorkers say that it’s a serious problem and 58% want to stop the influx of new migrants!
It would appear that virtue signaling, like so many things in life, is only fun when it’s free!
But now we have a problem.
And it’s a problem that anyone with eyes can see. And that’s that states are now in conflict with the federal government—and this is nothing new. States and the feds sue each other all the time. There is a never-ending power struggle between them. And whether your default is to the federal government or to the states, or your state, is largely indicative of your overall political philosophy. But that’s another story for another day.
What interests me, and what has PROFOUND theological implications is the justification that Abbott uses, and which Hochul and Adams in New York are attempting to use. And that is that you behave differently in an emergency than you do in normal times.
Or more specifically, our values and principles change in an emergency. Or, perhaps our values and principles remain the same but we prioritize different values and principles depending on the needs of the day.
Because here’s the thing, in both the Texas and the New York issue we have either values changing or priorities changing. In Texas, we see that the normal priority to defer to the federal government in issues dealing with the border is not being subordinated to the value or preventing what Texas Governor Abbott calls an invasion. In New York the value of being loving and welcoming to illegal immigrants is becoming subservient to the basic financial realities of the city and state. In New York City, Mayor Adams predicts that the illegal immigrants will cost the city $12B!
And if you were wondering, yes, $12B is a lot of money. According to one site, using 2014 and 2015 city budgets, the $12B NYC will spend on illegal immigrants is more money than any other city’s total budget in the entire United States! To put that cost in perspective, in 2014/15 the NYC budget for illegal immigrants will cost more than the budget of 5 states! Or, in 2014/15 the four biggest-budget cities in Ohio, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Toledo had a combined budget of $3.3.
New Yorkers have had enough. And I’m not certain whether it’s their values changing or merely their priorities, but the sheer cost of reality has forced Gothamites to desire a change.
And, again, this tendency for emergencies to change how we act and how we think and how we believe is extremely relevant to Christianity. Because it is certainly true that emergencies change how people think and act and what they believe. And this is not always for the better.
There’s an old saying that I’m sure you’re familiar with—before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. And there’s certainly a lot of wisdom to this adage. What it means is that before you can assess someone’s character you not only need to consider his perspective but ask yourself how you would behave if you were in his position. However, our broader culture tends to ignore the crucial first part which is: before you judge a man. It’s not saying never judge a man. The expression is not to just say all behavior is OK. It’s to simply point out that before you can weigh in on someone you ought to consider his perspective. And this is the logic that we see in the Bible. Proverbs 6:30–31 say:
30 People do not despise a thief if he steals
to satisfy his hunger when he is starving.
31 Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold,
though it costs him all the wealth of his house.
And when we consider this, we see that there is empathy—people are able to sympathize and understand the perspective of the hungry man. But that doesn’t mean that we condone thievery. Solomon is saying that nobody will look at the starving thief and say, “oh, what a scumbag!” No. People have a basic compassion and comprehension that being very hungry tends to outweigh our morals. But that still doesn’t make stealing right.
And this principle of understanding perspectives and being willing to change your beliefs when you experience new things has both positive and negative effects. On one hand, I’m sure that any Christian could tell you story after story of men and women who were merrily rolling along through life living without God and without hope in the world until some emergency came and changed the way they viewed life and the world. People realized that their godless life left them cold and unsatisfied and they sought after God and found Him—because He’s never far from any of us!
And yet, we also have scores of Christians saying that they used to be against the homosexual lifestyle and homosexual marriage until they learned that one of their children was a homosexual and now their whole perspective has changed. And I’m here to tell you that that’s not all that different from the person who finds Christ in the gutter. It’s the same mechanism. It’s the same effect. A crisis event forces people to confront their own beliefs and leads to a paradigm shift. Which is a fancy way of saying that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
And the reality is that all of us believe wrong things. All of us do. Including me. The problem is that I don’t know what things I believe are wrong!
But life has a way of challenging what we believe. And the truly wise are able to allow the circumstances of life to be the prod whereby the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth. Or, again, to put it more simply—we’re able to learn from our mistakes. We’re able to change our minds.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are things we should never change our minds about. I’m not saying anything goes. I’m not saying it’s all up in the air. I’m not saying that we should be radical skeptics. No. We have the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We have the Bible. We have the apostolic faith preserved in the Creeds of the Church. We have church tradition that helps guide us. We have the revelation of God’s truth in nature that is so complete that men are without excuse.
We can and should have certainty about a whole lot of very important things.
But a wise man or a wise woman knows the difference between something that is certain and something that is uncertain.
But wise people know more than that. Wise people know that life is full of challenges to our moral vision. And if you want a Biblical example of this then Jesus gives us two very obvious examples.
When being accused of violating the Sabbath Jesus points out that the priests offer sacrifices on the Sabbath and that a child is circumcised on the Sabbath and that animals are rescued on the Sabbath. He points out that people have enough common sense to know when one law supersedes another. Jesus points out that the law of the Sabbath is subordinate to the law of circumcision. He points out that values and ethics have a priority. And Jesus gives us a rule of thumb about this which is that it is lawful to do good and save life on the Sabbath.
Jesus’ point is that the Pharisees who wanted to obey God and keep the Sabbath were right to do so because that was God’s law. But they were missing the weightier portions of the law. Indeed, and I probably quote this passage too much, but Jesus tells the Pharisees that giving a tithe of their garden herbs is good! Yes, it’s exacting. Yes, it’s minutiae. Yes, it seems silly to come to the temple with a little handful of dill. But Jesus doesn’t despise their desire to obey God. He celebrates it! His point is that they neglected the weightier matters of the law. Which is more than just a pun about weighing out herbs and spices.
Jesus is saying that some parts of the Law were more important than others. There were some parts of the law that you obeyed even if it meant violating other parts of the Law. And this is what I would call changing priorities. Those who have a homosexual child and go from opposing same-sex “marriage” to celebrating it have had a change in values. Those who recognize that sometimes we have to violate a lesser value to hold to a greater value is a change in priority.
In normal times Texas obeys all the Waterways acts and gets permitted by the Army Corps of Engineers. In normal times Texas recognizes subsidiarity. But these aren’t normal times and when the federal government is derelict in its duty Texas attempts to fulfill what it views as its higher duty. Abbott believes that he has an obligation for Texas to be subsidiary to the federal government, but a higher duty is to the safety of the citizens of his state.
Christians, we are not living in normal times and our values and our priorities are being challenged. And whether you agree with Texas or not, you must recognize that Jesus himself teaches us that we need to prioritize values and sometimes even change them. That requires wisdom. And wisdom comes from God. We need to ask for it.