Category Archives: Pub Theology

Immigration – What are THEY Saying and Doing Past and Present?

Immigration, you hear about immigration every day if you listen to the news.  We hear how it brings us crime.  We are told that we are losing jobs.  We fear that it is bringing us disease.  Do illegal aliens bring illegal, immoral and infectious things from there world lets look at what is said and what is actually being done, are you with me?

If you want to stop illegal immigration, you have to make it so that people who hire illegal immigrants won’t be in a position to hire them.  Jesse Ventura

States have had inherent authority to enforce immigration laws when the federal government has refused to do so.  Russell Pierce

For a period of several years, beginning with 1656, the records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and indeed of all of the New England Colonies, except Rhode Island, are filled with legislation designed to prevent the coming of the __________ and the spread of their ‘accursed tenets.’

The year 1717,lame, impotent, or infirm persons were prohibited from entering without providing security that the town into which they settled would not be charged with their support.

In England itself, the naturalization process required a profession of Christian faith and proof that an individual had taken the Sacrament in a Protestant church. As noted in this law for the colonies, exception was made for Quakers and Jews but specifically not for Roman Catholics (referred to in the law as Papists).

[T]he VAWA [Violence Against Women Act] provides a temporary visa and creates a pathway to legalization for undocumented immigrants who are the victims of domestic abuse.

2011, The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an Arizona law that imposes sanctions against businesses that hire illegal immigrants.  Numerous organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce, argued the state’s law was preempted by the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which forbids states from imposing sanctions for hiring illegal immigrants…

2000, Directs the Attorney General to grant refugee status in the United States to any alien (and the parent, spouse, or child of such alien) who: (1) is a national of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, or any of the independent states of the former Soviet Union; and (2) personally delivers into U.S. custody a living American Vietnam War POW or MIA.

1954, Operation Wetback originated in pressure from the Mexican government to stop illegal alien entry of Mexican illegal laborers to the United States.
1943, Bracero Program Brings 5,000,000 Mexican Temporary Laborers to Work in US Farms and Railroads in a 22-Year Period.

Feb. 19, 1923 – US Supreme Court Decides in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind That Asian Indians Do Not Qualify for Naturalization because They Are Not Considered “White”.

the specific intent of randomly killing Mexicans…solely because of their Latino ethnicity, beating up Mexicans…I advocate using extreme violence against illegal aliens. Clean your guns. Have plenty of ammunition.

David Ritcheson, 16, is attacked by racist skinheads at a house party after supposedly trying to kiss a white girl. A year later, the teenager commited suicide.  Before his death, he assisted the Anti-Defamation League in creating an anti-hate program at his alma mater, Klein Collins High School.

Gilberto Mejía, owner of the Mexican grocery store Carnicería Los Primos, is verbally assaulted by anti-immigration activist June Griffin, who barges into the store and tears down a Mexican flag. Griffin then allegedly harasses Mejía and leaves threatening phone messages, which Mejia saves for police. “It was an act of war,” says Griffin, who has unsuccessfully run for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican.

Pub Theology – Is it a waste of time?

Churches are trying to stave off decline.  The young are defying tradition and seem to find near religion in low humor and getting high, especially on beer.  Is Pub Theology a simple solution to a complex problem or just simple?  Brian Berghoef, author of “Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation and God”, explores these and similar questions in a Huffington Post blog inappropriately (but sensationally) titled, “Pub Theology Is a Waste of Time”.

Why talk when you can do?  With all that needs to be done in this world, why sit and consume alcohol when you could be out saving the world.  Instead, you sit on your considerable arse and talk about THEM.  The problem as you see it.  Well, some of those attendees ARE doing something about THEM.  If you’re only paying attention to various conversations, sidebar conversations, and event rants you might miss the point.  Genuine words from selfless people serving humanity joyfully.  You may be talking over them.  You may be looking down at their apparent lack of intellect.  If you unaware of these people in your presence at PT, you are missing out on the most important part.  The part that matters.

The one thing that you can be sure of is that a beer fest/feast put on by christian organization will attract more Buddhists, atheists, Jews and “free-thinkers” who show up to fill the twelve chairs you arranged around three tables in a small tavern on a single Tuesday night to attract new church folk.  Though the conversations may resemble the Tower of Babel at one table and a graduate lecture at another and a comedy workshop at still another, something is happening.  While some people never return, some always return, and others connect or conclude or are convinced of something.

Something is happening when the Questions of the Night are lost when the group tangents take flight.  Nothing is happening that does not have potential for group or individual reflection and consideration.  All that is happening can perhaps affect the quiet person beside you or the outspoken colleague across the slightly slippery and snack crowded surface.  All walks of life walk into this scene and each has the possibility of staying.  Every unique personality that peeks through the metaphorical curtains of Pub Theology has something to leave and may find something to take.  Talking about similar interests and diverse opinions are the solution to dissension in this divided world if each and every participant will commit to a single act: Listen.

Active listening and respectful acceptance are the doing that takes place in Pub Theology and may lead a more fully engaged individual doing, whether it be with the sponsoring church or not.  The metaphor of moist clay may be used here.  What is the harm of change triggered by beer and conversation?  Change is good when it brings people out of their shell and into the light, whatever that light is.  Intentions are important.  One may start attending PT because of stark isolation and find bountiful and good company.  Another might seek to school the silly Christians on their fallacious notions and open their own beliefs to wider understanding, capacity and reverence.

The contemplation after the event complements the noise that has just dissipated from one’s ears.  The patience and love that is carried in by one person can surely leave with another sincere soul.  No specific achievement may be reached in a single visit.  A seeker may have experience many events glean from each one.  However, the potential is there for real and renewed belief in others and in spirit and in oneself.  None of it should taken lightly and all of it can be taken with thee.

For greater benefit there must be greater discipline.  Getting more out Pub Theology means spending time contemplating it, whether that be prayer, external discussion, or even blogging.  Even though there always needs to be something it it for me, I should never forget about THEM.  Not the THEM many of us blame in our circuitous commentary on PT questions but the them who also came looking for something and listening for genuine conversation.

Stereotypes are at the greatest risk at Pub Theology because they are all seated about you and they resist, you will find, category.  The best insight you will have is seeing the world through the eyes of the outcast, the vilified and the forgotten.  What is sacred to them probably isn’t sacred to you but will be able to understand it for the first time because you listened.  Every prejudice has a story and each story has moral when heartfelt beliefs fly from another’s lips and fall on soft ears.

Something is happening in those taverns.  No one attends without intention.  We know their are barriers that keep us from others, be it churches or family members or races.  These barriers can fall and a community can be buoyed just as Pub Theology groups around the world are lifting a pint and raising self-awareness.