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Immigration raid in Iowa

Peter Menkin

06/22/08

It’s the largest immigration raid in United States history, occurring May 12, 2008, whose repercussions continue Postville as the Iowa religious community continues its reaction. It’s also a raid on the largest employer in Northeast Iowa, and the largest kosher meat packing plant in America. One church leader calls it a “human-caused disaster.”

According to The Washington Post, the meatpacking firm founded by Aaron Rubashkin is “the largest” producer of glatt kosher beef, made to strict kosher standards. The plant produces under brands such as Iowa Best Beef, Aaron’s Best and Rubashkin’s.

The New York-based Orthodox Union, which certifies kosher facilities, says the plant supplies 50 percent of the nation’s highest-kosher chickens, and a third of its meat products.

The raid, conducted in the town of 2600 in Postville, Iowa, despite its diversity, is primarily Lutheran. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America Bishop, The Reverend Doctor Steven L. Ullestad, says in an email to Religious Intelligence:

“Service providers are working day and night to provide care for children with no food, babies in need of diapers and families in need of homes.  Non-immigrant children are grieving the loss of friends and fearful that ICE will come and take their parents as well.  The school and businesses have been gutted.  One lifelong citizen of Postville asked, ‘Why did the government decide to destroy our town?’

“We must work so that the United States government never again does this to entire community.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has declared the ICE intervention in Postville a human-caused disaster.  This commits our church to the long term recovery of the community.”

According to the Des Moines Register, The U.S. attorney’s office said there were criminal warrants for 697 people in the case. There were 389 arrests, including 306 on criminal charges. That meant more than 300 warrants remained outstanding. Charges include use of false identification documents and false use of Social Security numbers.

Some economic statistics on illegal immigration:

(1) eliminating the estimated 8.1 million undocumented workers in the United States would cause $1.757 trillion in annual lost spending,

(2) and $651.5 billion in lost output.

(3) Iowa’s economy would lose $4.4 billion in annual spending if all undocumented workers were exported from the state.

(4) There are approximately 25,000 illegal workers in Iowa.

Many of those arrested were Guatemalan, and the Catholic Church provided respite, and solace to them. “It is my privilege to serve the needs of these people,” says Sister Mary McCauley, who is St. Bridget’s Catholic Church pastoral administrator. “[but] I don’t know why they have left it to the faith community alone,” Time magazine reports. The Catholic Church was most prominent in their direct help of all the denominations. One illegal immigrant named Veronica was quoted as saying, “We can’t work. We can’t provide for our kids. God bless the church,”

“Leaders in the Roman Catholic community, as well as many other religious leaders, have called for comprehensive immigration reform…” says Archbishop Jerome Hanus of

Dubuque, Iowa.

Through its Jewish Telegraph Agency, a news service, the Jewish community, response included the statement, “As Jews, it is our obligation to advocate for fair treatment of the 390 detainees in Postville and the millions of other undocumented workers nationally, who are “strangers in a strange land. As a nation, it is time for us to return to the core values forged by the teachings of our great religions and fundamentally reject our current illegal immigration system.”

The Episcopal Church Diocese of Iowa on its website made the statement, “…the Christian communities especially in the north east, including our own Episcopal community in Waverly are active in providing for the families in Postville.”

The Episcopal Church in Iowa says it is a sanctuary Diocese, “…granting places of safety for those who have traveled here as immigrants… We are seeing how important such a place has been for the Hispanic community in Postville who were able to gravitate to the Catholic Church in Postville for sanctuary.”

Lutheran Church sums up the church position with, “Immigrants being detained in public jails is a sign of a broken system, which is why we as a church must strengthen our voices to call on our country for a just immigration policy.”

Conventional political wisdom has it, according to newspaper reports, the present administration is following a policy of raids so that businesses and Congress will support the immigration changes sought by President Bush, including a temporary-worker program and earned legalization.

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Obama leaves his Church

By Peter Menkin

06/18/08

Considered a man of faith, Barack Obama, the American running for nomination for President of the United States, has left his Church. For reasons of political controversy due to its pastor, The Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Senator Obama left membership in Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), Chicago, Illinois after 20 years. (The church website proclaims: “We are a congregation which is unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian…”)

Trinity United Church of Christ occupies a tan brick building on West 95th Street across railroad tracks from a public housing project, reports The Christian Science Monitor.

The Senator said about leaving, “Too much press harassment, people couldn’t’ worship in peace.” That wasn’t his reason for leaving, but a complaint on the news media attention. The reason were politically controversial remarks by Trinity’s pastor, Reverend Wright.

Wright’s comments contradicted one of Obama’s campaign’s central messages — that the candidate can transcend past divisions such as those involving race.

The impediment to the African-American’s campaign is highlighted by Wright’s widely reported sermon remark: “God Damn America” (for its racism}, and blaming the September 11 terrorist attacks on US foreign policy. He has also blamed the U.S. government for the spread of the AIDS virus. Mostly, Wright is seen as anti-white and a racist.

On Bill Moyers Journal, Wright says we are unashamedly Black. His philosophy embodies, “Use the culture of which we are a part.” He preaches there is hope, that life has meaning, and that God is still in control. “We can change. We can do better.” Black Liberation theology is Wright’s UCC message. It is a UCC message he offers, since he is a UCC minister who studied under Martin Marty. Martin E. Marty, distinguished Lutheran Pastor, teacher, and writer who has been on the University of Chicago faculty since 1963.

Grounded in the history of the African-American, Black theology is powerful stuff. He is little sorry about his comments, but in Bill Moyer’s interview, Reverend Wright does appear sorry he made the comment “God damn America” in the Pulpit—if only for a few moments. But it wasn’t one remark, but a string of them that caused the significant distancing between the candidate’s spiritual advisor and candidate.

The press in the United States spends a lot of time and space talking about Senator Obama’s faith, his church, and how he is a Christian—the Senator says he is Christian himself, and that is also news. Religion in the campaign makes news, despite separation of Church and State. Time magazine says more voters see Senator Obama as a strongly religious person than they do every major presidential hopeful but Mitt Romney, the Republican former governor of Massachusetts. Romney’s Mormonism drew extensive news coverage.

U.S. Senator Obama was married in Trinity church. His children were baptized in the church, and also like the wedding, Reverend Wright performed the solemnizations. The Senator said on leaving the church, “Trinity was where I found Jesus Christ, where we were married, where our children were baptized. We have many friends among the 8,000 members…” It is a church where he was moved many times. When Wright preached one Sunday about the sustaining power of hope in the face of poverty and despair, Obama says he found himself in tears.

He says in one speech:



“For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change… Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.”



It is the claim of Reverend Jeremiah Wright that Trinity is a church of Black theology. The Reverend Doctor John Cone, the Harvard Professor and African-American theologian interviewed on American Public Broadcasting System (PBS) by commentator Bill Moyers says on the PBS website:



“As we examine what contemporary theologians are saying, we find that they are silent about the enslaved condition of black people. Evidently they see no relationship between black slavery and the Christian gospel. Consequently there has been no sharp confrontation of the gospel with white racism. There is, then, a desperate need for a black theology, a



theology whose sole purpose is to apply the freeing power of the gospel to black people under white oppression.”

Cone says:



The Cross is the same as the lynching tree for the Black American in a Harvard Speech. The Christian Reverend Cone wants to start a conversation on this subject. He offers that lynching was terrorism that “worked to a certain degree.” This includes spectacle lynchings where 5,000 would gather to watch.

Religion is one place where you have an imagination that no one can control.” Black Churches are a place of the spirit… (even though you are living under the shadow of the lynching tree).” … There were 246 years of slavery, and 100 years of segregation and lynching.

America does not see itself as “not innocent,” according to Cone. “No human being is innocent.”



Reverend Cone is ordained in the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. which is one of the city’s largest black churches and not far from Obama’s home in the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park.

Apparently the Democratic candidate for his party’s nomination is not turning his back on Black theology, per se, since Sunday, June 15, 2008 he spoke from the pulpit at that same mega-church in Chicago, which has 20,000 members and is also considered a Black American church.

It is the history of the African American church in the United States that it is a center of Black community life speaking to the needs of the church and larger community in social and political ways. But not in so partisan a manner as was recently ascribed to the theology and preaching of the Reverend Wright. So the perception became. But he still associates himself with the African American church in general.

Senator Obama spoke of the role of Black fathers and their responsibilities, perhaps more a campaign speech than sermon from a “religious” man whose campaign motto is “Change That Works for You.” After all, he is running for President of the United States—or its Democratic Party nomination more accurately. He gave his talk from the pulpit of the “20,000-member Apostolic Church of God…a short walk from the Obamas’ home. The church’s pastor, Byron Brazier, is an Obama supporter,” reports The New York Times.

It is from the Black Church that Senator Obama learned many things about hope. Can he really take himself out of the African-American church ethos, as he has known it? Perhaps the Reverend Wright thinks not, though he is not saying. His official press release remark on Senator Obama and his family’s leaving was, “…We are saddened by the news …”

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Thanksgiving Day is coming soon on Nov, 26th. It is a day for expressing thanks for the good things in life, especially family and friends. For many Christians, they may go to the church and express thanks to the God. Prayer of Thanksgiving is very important in any and every Christian’s relationship with God.



If you are a pastor or a person authorized to conduct religious worship in church, and happened to be the person who is appointed for making the arrangement of the Thanksgiving prayer, an announcement DVD/video or one to accompany the prayer will help you solve lots of trouble. Here are some main benefits of exhibiting such DVD/videos:

1. Create an atmosphere for Thanksgiving with DVD/videos play continuously on TV or through a projector

2. Tell people clearly about the arrangement of activities on Thanksgiving

3. In case someone forget about the Thanksgiving prayer, a DVD/video with prayer and background music in it can help people remind more

4. Any other warnings can be displayed out

You might think that making such a streaming church DVD/video is going to be very expensive by asking others to do it, or it may require complex computer skills and lots of time. But believe it or not, with the right way and tool, such a Thanksgiving DVD/video can be created in mainly two steps. Here you can see it.

What you will need: PowerPoint and a PowerPoint to DVD or video burning tool

Step1: Choose a proper PowerPoint template or background

The PowerPoint background can be set either for Thanksgiving or Christian. Here you can find some free Christian PowerPoint backgrounds.

Step2: Create contents for the DVD/video in PowerPoint

Thanksgiving activity arrangement details, events, Thanksgiving prayer, poem and etc can all be displayed in PowerPoint. To make the video more dynamic, you can add various animations. Besides, tables, pictures, clipart, and SmartArt are all available. The picture showed above is just a sample.

Step3: Insert music files to the Thanksgiving presentation

Suitable background music can make the atmosphere more comfortable.

Step4: Set the presentation to run automatically

As the duration of each slide may different, so it’s necessary to set up the time that each slide appears. To do this, you can reference this article: How to Advance Slides Automatically in PowerPoint.

Step5: Convert the PowerPoint you made to DVD or video

This is the last step of creating your Thanksgiving video for church use. To finish it, all you need is just a conversion tool that can help you either convert your PowerPoint to DVD or video. Here, you can try this PowerPoint to DVD converter. After the conversion, you can directly play the output DVD or video at the waiting room or foyer for people to view.

Being thankful is probably what Thanksgiving is all about. So, treasure what we have now, and enjoy the Thanksgiving Day.