Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. On Tuesday's show, the day before Passover, we talked about how divided American Jews are over how Israel is conducting the wars in Lebanon and Gaza. For example, a recent Washington Post poll found basically a 50/50 split among American Jews on Gaza, and we cited several local synagogues mentioned in a New Yorker article where the congregations are clearly and sometimes emotionally divided. Well, it's also Easter week, and in Christian America, there are deep divisions too, and probably on no issue more than immigration and the mass deportation campaign right now.

Here's one example. Last year, while Pope Francis was still alive, he specifically criticized the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in a paper letter that he released, and Trump's Border Czar Tom Homan, also citing his Catholicism, pushed back. The audio on this 30-second clip is not great, but I think you'll get it.

Border Czar Tom Homan: I’ve got harsh words for the Pope. Pope ought to fix the Catholic Church. I'm saying this as a lifelong Catholic. I was baptized Catholic, my first Communion as a Catholic, confirmation as a Catholic. He ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work, and leave border enforcement to us. He wants to attack us for securing our border? He's got a wall around the Vatican, does he not? He's got a wall around to protect his people and himself, but we can't have a wall around the United States. I wish he'd stick to the Catholic Church and fix that and leave border enforcement to us.

Brian: Border Czar Tom Homan putting his Catholicism up against the Pope's in what he himself, in that clip, called harsh words for the Pope. With Good Friday and Easter upon us, now we ask, how can Christians citing Christian values be so politically divided if they're all asking themselves some version of the question, "What would Jesus do?" We'll play a J.D. Vance clip that addresses the question from his point of view, coming up.

Christian listeners, how would you answer this question for yourself? How can Christians citing Christian values be so politically divided if they're all asking themselves, "What would Jesus do about immigration and other political issues where there are deep divides right now?" 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call, or you can text.

With us now with his take and his Christian practice is Lutheran minister, Reverend Juan Carlos Ruiz, pastor at Good Shepherd Church in Bay Ridge, known for actively ministering to immigrants, including those not in the country legally, among others. Pastor Ruiz, thanks for your time on what I know is often the busiest week of the year in your profession. Welcome to WNYC.

Pastor Ruiz: Thank you, Brian. It's great to be here.

Brian: Would you start by talking about yourself and your own immigration and spiritual journeys a little bit? I see you were born in Mexico. Was it to an observant Lutheran or other Christian family?

Pastor Ruiz: No, I was brought up Catholic for most of my life. I became an ordained priest in the Catholic Church here in the States. I came to the States because, as an unaccompanied minor, my family was here out of status, so I came to join them, and I joined the flow of undocumented immigrants here in the country back in the 1980s, late 1980s. That has really marked the trajectory of my life and ministry, and that really spills out in terms of the praxis that I have as a Christian witness and as a Christian leader.

Brian: Unaccompanied minor, you say you were still a teenager when you came to the United States to reunite with other members of your family, right?

Pastor Ruiz: Yes, my whole family was here undocumented at that point in the 1980s. I became also undocumented after I joined them, and ever since, I've been here on this side of the border.

Brian: What made you and them want to live in this country?

Pastor Ruiz: Basically, we were forced out because of the economic downturn in the '80s. Back in the day, the peso was devalued. My father, who had often come and go, the border has always been porous for us Mexicans, and we just jump back and forth. My father came in the 1980s because we had borrowed money in dollars, and we woke up one day owning millions, millions of pesos instead of the 200,000 pesos we had borrowed because of the currency depreciation back then.

That forced us to look for a better place, and my father, who knew the routes, he came across the border. He was a peasant. He's a peasant, great man, great worker. He came and work and work to pull us through. We are six siblings in the family and my mother.

Brian: You just use the words "porous border." Most Americans, according to the polls, say they support immigration, but they don't support being here illegally and don't support a porous border when it's put in terms like those. The border should be controlled tightly as we debate what our immigration rates should be. Do you disagree with that, and is it rooted in your Christianity in any way?

Pastor Ruiz: I do not disagree with controlling the border. We have to remember, the border has been overmilitarized as of previous administrations. I think what we have seen nowadays is over-militarization of the border. For that, the policies of immigration against every sector of our lives has been weaponized against the most vulnerable in our communities. That not only includes immigrants, but the LGBTQ+ community and other minority groups that are being kind of--

With these almost unbalanced, tilted enforcement policies that we have in place, that has really bulldozed people, that has really sent us back and deteriorated the civil rights that we had acquired via the civil rights movement in our city. I think part of this immigration overpolicing is really sending us back and deteriorating the democratic values of our society.

Brian: What made you want to become a minister?

Pastor Ruiz: Because I thought and I think I could contribute to my people and to the people of this country. This is a nation of immigrants, with all respect to the Indigenous people of this country, but this is a nation also of immigrants, and I want to contribute to this society. I also know because of the prophetic tradition that I have been fed and grown into, I think the power of this country has to bend to the needs of the people, and especially to those who are most vulnerable among us. That's what we celebrate nowadays.

We begin this Holy Triduum, which is the Passover for us, by Jesus radically changing the roles. Here is the master, here is the healer bending down and washing the feet of the disciples, and taking the role of a slave practically. To teach us that it is via humility is how we work and how we do the work as we engage the powers of the world.

Brian: Listeners, with Reverend Juan Carlos Ruiz, pastor at Good Shepherd Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, we are inviting your calls on the question, "How can Christians citing Christian values be so politically divided if they're all asking themselves, what would Jesus do?" 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. Kathy in Ossining, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kathy.

Kathy: Hi. In terms of what would Jesus do, I look at his life, and I also look at readings from the Bible, and two things stand out. It was written that whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me. I think that speaks to what's happening to immigrants who are not murderers or drug dealers, just normal people who are poor and are hungry and were taught to feed the hungry and help the poor.

Secondly, Jesus walked with the lepers, people who were condemned to a valley because of their illness. He walked with those people. Back in the day, when there was so much hatred towards people who had AIDS, that's what led me to understand that people get sick for all kinds of reasons. For His time, Jesus walked with those people. To me, how can you say what would Jesus do? He's already shown us what He's done and what He believes.

Brian: What would you say to the Tom Homan clip we played, and we're about to play a J.D. Vance clip, both of them citing their Catholicism in the context of having very different politics than it sounds like you have. How do you understand it all coming under the same Catholic umbrella?

Kathy: I would tell them to go to the Bible that Catholics read.

Brian: Well, they're Catholics.

Kathy: That's right. In a letter, I forget who it was to. It was from Matthew, citing the Lord saying, "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me."

Pastor Ruiz: It is Matthew 25, yes.

Kathy: That's in our scripture.

Brian: Kathy, thank you very much. Let me leave it there and get to some other folks and that J.D. Vance clip. We have another listener, Pastor, citing Matthew 25 in a text. Listener writes, "As a Christian, I believe in Matthew 25:34-47, if you are not feeding the hungry, you are not going to heaven." That listener cites Trump ordering a shipment of food from USAID to be canceled. "Caring for the sick," I think, continuing on Matthew 25, "decreasing Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, comfort the imprisoned."

There's a relevant passage that several people are citing. Let me play this clip of Vice President J.D. Vance, also a strong believer in Catholicism. He says he converted to it. Obviously, quite politically different from you and our first caller, Pastor, you will hear in this clip how he argues that the political left gets one of Jesus teachings backwards.

Vice President J.D. Vance: There's this old school, and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. Then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society.

Brian: Pastor Ruiz, your reaction to that?

Pastor Ruiz: If you put two or three people in a room, you'll have five different opinions. I think it's primary to see that the value that Jesus places in the power of love, how you exercise that love and that praxis to protect the most vulnerable, to really create platforms and spaces, and to really use that power for the well-being of the least. It will cover all bases. I have to remember that there are people who don't think the way I do.

The driving force in Jesus life that took Him to His death was the deep conviction and understanding that He would rather take on the violence against Him that continue to do this cycle to continue to do that violence onto others. When Jesus was being presented to the governor at that time, Pilate, they said, "There is a tradition. Do we liberate Barabbas today, or do we liberate Jesus?" Barabbas means son of the father, the same that Jesus was proclaiming that He was the Son of the Father.

People were kind of brainwashed, manipulated by the high priest, and they basically asked for the liberation of Barabbas. It's the same question that is asked of us today: how do we use power nowadays, the power that is given to us? What is love for us? This love that takes us to take on the violence on our bodies, on our lives, to redeem and to work for the well-being of others.

I think there is a distortion of power, and we really have to be careful because Christianity nowadays, there is this leaning of Christian nationalism that equates power with being superior and exercising that power to submit, to make less others, to sacrifice the quality of life, safety. We need to remember that safety for Jesus is found in community, is found in the power of love, and how that love transforms enemies, how that love transforms all relationships to ourselves and to the world.

That's what's being righteous nowadays, to know our place. That's why this Holy Triduum, this Passover, it begins with the washing of the feet to the disciples. Now we continue to do that, the washing of feet of the most vulnerable among us, the ones that are barefoot because their dignity is being taken away by weaponizing policies that really do not help at the long run, but it's a waste of our resources and of our money.

Brian: I guess J.D. Vance was saying in that clip that mass immigration could be a threat to some communities that are already here, and the communities that are already here should be the first priority, rather than the concern for people who are coming from elsewhere.

Pastor Ruiz: If it was so, Brian, we have a balloon budget that is justifying the criminalization of immigrants, as you have seen. I have in my small church, like 20 families have been affected directly, because by complying with the law, they've been going to the immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza. They've been taken in, and this is just by complying with the law because there is this kind of probation monitoring that you have to do as they apply for asylum. They've been doing what the law tells them.

They go in, and they are taken in illegally because they are complying. Not only that, Brian, we have to remember we have about 20% of our families in the nation that have a mixed status here in this country, which points to the need of humane immigration reform. It's been long. Many of our communities have been living in the shadows for 20 years, 30 years. There is no legal remedy. There is no line anymore because there is such a backlog of cases.

When you weaponize the courts, when you weaponize justice against people who are seeking to be protected, we got to remember, there is a message that is being carried out into our home countries that this is a place where you can enjoy some freedom, that you can live in dignity. This is kind of the backside or the backhanded message that is being passed on over and over. That's a credit to who we are as a country, but we have weaponized that lately.

This has happened in previous administrations. I think what our president is doing is evidencing a system that is really rooted in an injustice and that victimizes those who are seeking refuge and protection from the complicity of our government in our own government's home countries that have created conditions that have displaced massive amounts of people.

Brian: Tom in Manhattan, I think, wants to pick up on something that you just said in that last answer, Pastor. Tom, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Tom: Hello. Thank you. I don't need to speak for what would Jesus do. I think the pastor has done a wonderful job in citing a real Christian attitude, especially toward immigration. What I want to point out is that Christian nationalism is not Christianity. That J.D. Vance, when he misquotes Aquinas and that particular quote was condemned by the Pope after Vance said it, the one that you played. Those people, they're not Christian. Christian nationalism is a heresy.

It creates an idol, which it worships, which is power, and it does not listen to the teachings of Jesus. It totally forgets about them. It can pick and choose in the Old Testament to find places where people have wars and fight each other, and Psalms where people talk about their shields and their swords. The heart of Christianity is the teachings of Jesus, and that is the teachings of peace and care for the poor and for justice. It has nothing to do with what the Christian nationalists are going around shouting.

Brian: Tom, thank you very much. Viola in Kew Gardens, you're on WNYC. Hello, Viola.

Viola: Hello. Tom said it perfectly, and I thought he was going to take it that one step further so that I wouldn't have to say what I was going to say, which is Christianity is about supporting all of humanity. You don't turn people into enemies, much like in Judaism, where you're supposed to welcome the stranger. In Matthew 26:52, when Jesus says those who live by the sword die by the sword, He told that to one of his disciples. Jesus is going to call out one of His disciples and say, "Put the sword down, Peter. This is not what we do." I don't see how we can misconstrue that as being pro-war, which is what Christian nationalism does. Thank you very much.

Brian: Thank you very much. Let's go right to John in Park Slope. You're on WNYC. Hi, John.

John: Hey, hi. Happy Passover to you and your family. I wanted to just bring out the fact that in the Triduum and also the three holy days of Christianity, of Catholicism in particular, I know Catholicism because I'm a Catholic and also of Jewish descent, and Passover, that a lot of Catholics or a lot of Christians don't know the Old Testament that well.

I just wanted to tell your audience, although I think everybody covered this before with great insight, that Jesus was a Jew, and He mentioned that the stranger should be welcomed because we were once strangers in the land of Egypt. This is a very important concept for all our people to understand. I just wanted to bridge the two important dates in our calendar and bring that to the forefront.

Brian: Thank you.

John: Everybody who mentioned, and pastor said Matthew 25, absolutely true. Thank you very much, Brian.

Brian: Thank you, John. Tying together Christian and Jewish teaching relevant to Passover as well as Easter. Here's a text that brings Islam into it. Similarly, listener writes, "Finding this conversation so interesting, we have this concept in Islam when giving zakat. We begin with the nearest circle of influence." This is relating to the J.D. Vance clip where he said you're supposed to care for your community first. "We begin with the nearest circle of influence, showing care by giving to those in need, and the priority of who we should give to is defined by similar circles of influence, familiar, then community, then global."

"The question to me," writes this listener, "is what kind of care and love that Vance is assuming people should show to these circles. The circles of influence matter because of the possible impact for improvement, not because we seek to exclude others and hoard for ourselves." So interesting that caller and that texter relating Jewish concepts and Islamic concepts to what we've been talking about regarding Christianity. Pastor, tell us about your congregation in Bay Ridge. Who are your congregants generally, demographically speaking, and how do you minister specifically to immigrants, including those who are undocumented in this climate?

Pastor Ruiz: It has been really unsettling, to say the least, and really tragic for many of our families, given the fear has been politicized and weaponized. As I said before, about 20% of our families are mixed status. Many of them, given that some of their brothers and sisters have disappeared, are really very much living on edge, are really stressed out. It has affected the attendance in our community. We have a great deal.

The majority is a Latinx community coming from all over the global south, from Venezuela to Colombia to Mexico. We live next to Sunset Park, just a few blocks away. We get a lot of the spill of people who have been here living in the shadows for 20, 30 years, and they haven't seen any attempt to regularize their status by the politicians. That's what I said. I think this president has evidenced a really unjust system that blames those who are already being persecuted and exploited in our midst.

I think for us as a church, the lesson from us from the pandemic is how do we become our neighbors? How do we become neighbors to our neighbors? How do we become a church that is really deeply entrenched in the prophetic teachings of Jesus? The hallmark is radical hospitality. These days, for us, is remembering those liberation stories that many of our community members have experienced in their own lives, and remembering so that we can be remembered into one body, into the unity of this body here on earth.

Now that our bodies, our psyches, our souls are really at risk, given the dehumanizing forces that we are facing, I think we take heart with this story of the Passover of liberation, but we are reminded that we are not free until everybody is free. That's why Jesus came, and that's what the movement of Jesus has-- He began over 2,000 years ago, and I think we are trying to be in solidarity and in part of this movement for peace and justice.

Nowadays, where the sounds and the noise of war seems to be stronger, we Christians believe that the humble gestures of service that is seeking the justice that has been denied for many of our people, that can really break open new ways of understanding and relating to one another. It begins by being highly localized, but it doesn't stop there. I think love has that quality of transcending walls, transcending communities, and really making us one in unity. Despite having diverse opinions, I think that the quality of love has the power to unite us.

Brian: On the diverse opinions, one more text. Listener writes, "I've always seen religion and scripture as a Rorschach test. You bring to it your values and confined interpretations that support them." Do you agree with that? If so, what does religion even mean?

Pastor Ruiz: Religion has a lot to reconnect. It's supposed to reconnect ourselves to our divine origins, but by doing so, this is a human journey. At least in my view, religion really brings out the best in us, but it can be used for misuse and weaponize. I remember this man that used to come to my church and had these leather-bound Bible that was so worn out. The cover of the Bible, only the words that were vanishing rapidly. It used to say TNT, the New Testament, but it was just because of the theory. I said, "Well, that is explosive."

We have seen that happening in El Salvador back in the '80s. The Bibles were being banned because they said that it fed this mentality of revolution or overthrowing the dictatorship back then. I think it can be really explosive. That's why we need to really be careful and have in mind and in our hearts that the driving force for Jesus and Jesus followers is first of all, love, love and a nonviolent love and a praxis that really teaches us mercy at the heart of it. That mercy moves us to compassion, and that compassion moves us with the power of love to forgiveness and to really commit ourselves to make of our corner of our world a better place.

Brian: Reverend Juan Carlos Ruiz, pastor at Good Shepherd Church in Bay Ridge. Again, thank you for giving us some time on what I know is so often the busiest time, the busiest week of the year for people who are pastors and priests. Thank you very much for this, and happy Easter to you and your entire flock.

Pastor Ruiz: Thank you. Thank you, Brian.

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