Tea at Trianon: Christianity and the Migrant Crisis

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, January 15, 2018

Christianity and the Migrant Crisis

From The Mad Monarchist:

Since the Bible does not say you must let any and all people into your country as they please, the people who favor this have to come up with something else and it usually comes down to only two or three verses that they repeatedly refer to. I cannot resist pointing out that there are more verses in the Bible that command people to obey kings and princes but I shall try to stay focused here. One of the most cited comes from very, very far back in the Bible, indeed almost to the book of Genesis which, by the way, pretty much all of these people believe to be completely fictions but I am speaking of Exodus 22:21 which says, “You shall not wrong a stranger (aka foreigner) or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” That is pretty simple, calling to mind the trials the Jews suffered in Egypt, it says do not treat others the way that you were treated. Do not oppress foreigners. The Jews, of course, were enslaved by the Egyptians and I don’t think anyone is arguing for the enslavement of foreigners. They want to keep the strangers out which, if they do, will certainly make it impossible to oppress them. (Read more.)