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I could be wrong about their motivations, but the impression I get from the Episcopal Church's decision is something along the lines of "The administration is aiding white people who are or might be in danger of their lives, while telling people of colour in similar danger that they are obligated to stay in their own countries and die. This suggests that the administration believes that the life of a white person matters more than that of a person of colour. This belief is a grave sin, and we refuse to be complicit in it."
Do you believe they would still make this refusal if it was any other race?
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Then why don't they say that? Instead, they say that in the interests of "racial justice," they refuse to help white Afrikaners. An old story about logs and cinders comes to mind.
The problem with steelmanning is that it so often involves replacing the real but stupid or evil with a fictional synthetic. Imagining a good argument for one's opponent is useful practice! Unfortunately, it does not mean that "the opponent" is actually the noble soul one imagines them to be.
This isn't a steelman. A steelman defends a position on its object level merits and makes no claim on the actual motivations of the supporters. But this is "they oppose this because they suspect bad motives from Trump", explicitly framed in terms of motivations.
A steelman would be "here are some arguments for a principled immigration policy that would reject Afrikaners and allow [groups the episcopalians had no objection to]". But after all, this discussion isn't primarily about the object level policy, it's about double standards/racism. "They are actually objecting to perceived double standards/racism" on the other side is a defense of the people involved.
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This is just how institutional Christianity talks nowadays. When Pope Francis changed the catechism to be against capital punishment, he didn’t say, “executions are a sin,” he said, “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Ehh, I kinda get it, Episcopalians don't want to talk about anything icky and theological like "sin," that might imply they actually believe in something numinous, but almost anything would be better than, to paraphrase, saying that in the interest of racial justice they'd rather shut down than help refugees who happen to be white.
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Which is unfortunate and significantly part of modernist Catholicism’s problem with total incoherency.
Catholics can all agree that the specific rules of the Old Testament law have been superseded, while understanding that God instituted just laws and punishments for the Israelites. So it becomes very awkward to say that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” when the everlasting God both was and is implementing death penalties.
I don’t buy sedevacantism or the idea that Francis and other modern popes have been heretics (although Francis probably skated closest to the line), but I do generally treat them like John XII or Alexander VI. Sometimes there are good Popes, sometimes you get a string of bad Popes and in the fullness of time, the damage they cause to the Church will be restored.
Alexander VI, although his personal moral behavior was quite bad probably would not make a top ten, or even top twenty, list for worst popes from a doctrinal confusion standpoint- although Francis would. Honorius I would probably go down as the worst, perhaps the original John XXIII.
It's interesting; I generally don't have a high opinion of Paul VI's handling of the magisterium but Humanae Vitae was legitimately surprising to everyone, including close confidantes of Paul VI, and I've used that as an argument against sedevacantists and Eastern Orthodox before in defending the papacy. Unfortunately even JPII and Benedict couldn't resist drowning their clarity in argle bargle and corpo speak, but from a doctrinal perspective they're probably top fifty percent of popes(remember, the median pope's theological contributions round to 0. For all his questionable decisions JPII did come in clutch on doctrine when it counted with things like the definition of the priesthood as all male) at least.
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The UN convention on refugees makes salient a select list specific traits, including race:
If Afrikaaners are in danger because of their race, and the black South Africans are in equal danger because of gang warfare or general lawlessness, then the UN convention covers the Afrikaaners, but not the black South Africans, as refugees.
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I'm no theologician, but I'm fairly certain that the New Testament espouses the sentiment that helping some people is still better than helping no people, even if those people are not the most deserving. My memory on this is fairly vague though; I hope someone better-read can correct me here.
The closest I can think of is the widow's mite. An old widow offering what little she had is considered more morally right than a wealthy man giving tons out of his abundance (but still keeping tons for himself). Luke 21:1-4
1 And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.
2 And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.
3 And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all:
4 For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.
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