Tonight on News Hour a Houston reverend said:

(paraphrasing)

"I don't think Houston can take in the poor and infermed...It frightens me that we have to absorb them."

This is a man of the church!

Can you believe that? 2000 years after his religion tells him that christ was born in a manger and this guy has completely flipped and is now on the side of the innkeepers and against Jesus!

Just to jog his memory, from the 25th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel:


When the Son of Man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels of heaven, he will sit upon his royal throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. Then he will separate them into two groups, as shepherd separates sheep from goats. The sheep he will place on his right hand, the goats on his left. The king will say to those on his right: 'Come. You have my Father's blessing! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me. I was ill and you comforted me, in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the just will ask him: 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or see you thirsty and give you drink? When did we welcome you away from home or clothe you in your nakedness? When did we visit you when you were ill or in prison?' The king will answer them: 'I assure you, as often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me.'

He quoted the Bible!!!

Sue! Call the ACLU! Run in Circles! Scream and shout!

CHRISTIAN credo = Love thy neighbor as thyself.

We U.S. Americans are a bunch of phonies. Dismal failures.

themselves with the teachings of Christ.

Bush is the devil. I'm convinced.

.......they'd crucify him all over again!!

And you probably won't know because BushCo. will have dragged the Lamb of God to GITMO for a little interrogation first.

...that just executed an innocent woman.

and to know this woman is an innocent african american

the same time as their (government) murdering so many in louisiana etc

I'm fairly annoyed by comments like yours that indicate the entire state of Texas is PRO-death penalty.

Look around, please, see the large number of your fellow DUers who are residents of the Lone Star State.

We are working very hard to affect change here.

It really hurts and annoys me to be indicted and tried as a killer when I have been refused the right to sit on a Texas jury BECAUSE I am against the death penalty.

This is my native state. I was born and raised here. I'm not a Republican, not a right winger, and want all of you to know that I'm not the only one who isn't those things.

After the government tries to pay off thousands of poor people with $2,000 and a hearty handshake, where are they gonna go? Jobs aren't growing on the trees any more in Houston than they were in NOLA. The friendly hospitality is starting to fade as the tax on local services and infrastucture is going to create a long-term problem.

Those who can get up and out of the city have...and there's a quiet diaspera of blacks around this country trying to find a place to put their lives together. The poor and elderly aren't going to be so lucky. Soon the cameras will be gone, the politicians will stop using them as photo ops and these people will once again slip into the netherworld that is being poor and elderly in America.

There hasn't been any real long-term programs announced here...no plans to try to re-locate people back into the region and for its reconstruction. There's no plans to assist the survivors of this disaster beyond the next 90 days...if at all.

Speaking as a Houstonian, I know the strain the new residents may place on the fabric of our economy.

We're starting to come down from the "high" of helping. I'm hearing more rumbles of native discontent with the record influx of people.

Earlier this year, Hewlett Packard announced major layoffs - and they are a major employer in our city.

For those looking for a job, it just got a lot harder.

FYI - part of what I'm doing involves job search for new residents - and some are very well qualified, some have little or no specialized skills.

It's going to strain the job market, and social welfare programs. They've already announced longer waits for those who were already in queue for public housing - to help out Katrina survivors.

So, while I didn't hear the News Hour tonight - I have to agree - it's going to be tough here.

No one I've spoken with so far plans to go back to NOLA.

If ya'll are really interested in Christian philosophy, how about a few prayers for MY HOMETOWN - Houston!


On edit:

Don't think we don't welcome and want to help. It's just, let's get real. How hard would it be in YOUR TOWN if an estimated 25,000 - 100,000 people moved into your area and flooded the labor and housing market?

And how's about cutting the "asshole" a break? How many hours did YOU spend on your feet this week helping strangers?

I've been donating to groups that are giving money and other support services to black families that have taken in other black families...these people fall almost totally outside of any FEMA or Red Cross aid. They figure since you're under a roof everything is fine and dandy. www.blackrootsweb.org is one site that has been doing a great job in running this network. So is Tom Joyner.

We're seeing a ripple here in Chicago of families from NOLA. It's not the first time. The 1927 floods led to the infamous northern flight of blacks from the south that ended on the South side of my fair city. Local news reports upwards of 15,000 NOLA evacuees have already arrived in our area.

The problem Houston faces is the people who now share your city have the same skills as the most competitive jobs...hotel/motel, food service and dock workers. With a shrinking economy and higher fuel costs, even those jobs aren't too stable.

It's still too early for anyone to really gauge what's happening here as far as the massive transfer of people, manpower and brainpower from that region. Also what it's effect will be on the economic and social future of this country.

At least we're helping here. We're not trying to "let someone else do it"...or throw money to make a problem go away. The saving grace here is the tremendous support I've seen for the black community among Democrats and that I suspect it's solidfying a strong long-term relationship for another several generations.

They may fall outside of FEMA - but they do not fall outside of Red Cross. After Red Cross verification they get the full reloc package from the local Red Cross.

I know - the local chapter is a block away - and I have been a volunteer "social worker" since FEMA stopped by New Orleans deployment.

in some ways, as we face the reality of what is ahead, it's going to be a tough road. A long road.

In the Chron, yesterday or today, there was an article about the medical services. At one of the main shelters, they reported that something like 40% of the people had a history of drug and/or alcohol abuse and mental illnesses who are also burdened with the stress, dehydration and a whole lot of other illnesses, to add to it. There are drug addicts who because of circumstances had been forced to go cold turkey and now they're dealing with getting them into drug rehab and methadone (sp?) schedules to help them cope and realistically, we don't have the extra resources available and the question is, can we get the resources and do it VERY quickly. Plus the problems of alcoholics who were drinking up to the time of the hurricane and the problems they faced. Then there are the alcoholics who had stopped drinking and were doing well, until the stress of these weeks have set them back. Then there are people with a variety of mental and emotional issues.

The fact is, we don't have the facilities and counselors to treat the influx on a long term basis, and this isn't fair to these people who are really hurting and if ever they needed gentle and understanding care, this is the time.

This is not to mention the many pregnancies, especially the ones that are first and second trimester. What kind of special care will it take to bring these pregnancies to term safe and healthy.

Almost all of the evacuees are going through a stress now that may not show for weeks and months. Are we able to handle it here in such great numbers? Our first reaction was just to do "something", but now we need to look beyond the next few months. As the adrenalin wears off, the reality is daunting.

will go back to being what they were but now they have no home and hood to go to for that couple of bucks to get them by. the future is no longer a science fiction movie it has become reality.
i agree there is no plans in a nation that was built on dreams

politician. I'm shocked to hear it from a reverend.

The use of the word "fear" or "scared" was especially disgusting.

Jesus didn't fear lepers.

...is a cheap huckster with a collar and a congregation...

i think we all ready have...the world has seen just how this country treats those who have nothing. that will never be forgiven

Of course, Bush is about as much a Christian as Osama bin Laden

"If you don't work then...staaaarve." The bible told him so, he claims.

I read a book of his about "prophecy" (read: Armageddon) and Israel. And no, I will not get into it here.

Hagee is, in my humble estimation, a flaming nut job. Evidently, though, God loves him a great deal. That much my momma taught me...

I am beginning to understand, however, how Christ was compelled to throw the moneychangers out of the temple. If I go that far, I can't help but remember the Pharisees and their complete self-righteousness. The song "Losing my Religion" by REM has never made more sense to me than it does these days. :scared:

Hypocrite! How disgusting! Some part of me is glad my grandfather isn't here to witness this disgustiness (he was an elder/preacher of his church for twenty-seven years and would be so disgusted).

Sorry, but we have waaaaaay more evacuees up here in Dallas and I don't see *anyone* from Dallas on national TV complaining. Cry me a river, dude. :eyes: What a jackass.

(Source: http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl090705evacuees.36290e06.html )

And I am NOT kidding.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/149/149_think_wise_new_orleans.html

“This is an open letter to the man sitting behind me at La Paz today, in Nashville, at lunchtime, with the Brooks Brothers shirt:

You don't know me. But I know you.

I watched you as you held hands with your tablemates at the restaurant where we both ate this afternoon. I listened as you prayed, and thanked God for the food you were about to eat, and for your own safety, several hundred miles away from the unfolding catastrophe in New Orleans.

You blessed your chimichanga in the name of Jesus Christ, and then proceeded to spend the better part of your meal – and mine, since I was too near your table to avoid hearing every word – morally scolding the people of that devastated city, heaping scorn on them for not heeding the warnings to leave before disaster struck. Then you attacked them – all of them, without distinction it seemed – for the behavior of a relative handful: those who have looted items like guns, or big screen TVs….

“Your God is one who you sincerely believe gives a flying fuck about your lunch. Your God is one who you seem to believe watches over you and blesses you, and brings good tidings your way, while simultaneously letting thousands of people watch their homes be destroyed, and perhaps ten thousand or more die, many of them in the streets for lack of water or food.

Did you ever stop to think just what a rancid asshole such a God would have to be, such that he would take care of the likes of you, while letting babies die in their mother's arms, and old people in wheelchairs, at the foot of Canal Street?

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar…”

hypocrites

Welcome to DU Spartacus :hi:

I miss all those Fundies and Evangelicals who came out to support one brain dead woman, and not a peep of outrage for those thousands of misplaced humans on the Gulf Coast.

Oh, the irony!

I saw last night he went on to talk about a 'welfare state' and other things that are in a goofy right wing article being e-mailed around. I told my husband he sounded like he went to the Barbara Bush school of compassion.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html

If it was the third segment, then the realaudio isn't available.

step up to the plate to meet it... as we are directed by our faith to do?

Oh, those would be the words of someone following the actual teachings of Christ, rather than the current trent of "Christ-idolization" where Christ becomes a one-dimensional figure only meant to give words to for a ticket to heaven, but obliging no real understanding nor adherence to his actual teachings.

the refugees wanted to stay in Texas.

it's just being a little frightened once the victims have been moved to your town.

Not sure what her thinking was.

Churches and Houston, remember we have absorbed hundreds of thousands of the poorest of the poor. Churches have stepped up to the plate....all denominations (Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Sikh, Jew, Buddhist) and we had volunteers , more than we knew what to do with. People have opened their homes and hearts. Our ER's and medical services have been slammed hard. We did not have enough public clinics for our population size as other large metro areas so we will be hit there too.
Will we get some FEMA or medicade/medicare money to offset the large number of evacuees that will permantly relocate here. You tell me? The average Houstonian have welcomed the newcomers and with a few exceptions, gone out of their way to help (guess that is why so many have decided to stat here). We know we are in for the long haul on this and we will have growing pains until all is settled.

how you don't have to help the poor if your government doesn't have the social services to accomodate them.

Like I said, I expect arguments like this guy's from accountants and Republican politicians, but not from men of the cloth.

Real Christians need to slap guys like this down. With words, of course. Real Christians believe in peace.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html

It was either the 2nd or 3rd segment. If it was the third segment, they don't have realaudio for it yet.

It looks like they have realaudio or video for every story eventually, so it would be unusual if they let this one fall down the memory hole.

I think they said this guy's congregation has 31,000 members (so you know his church is loaded). I don't know if that helps ID him. Maybe lots of Houston churches have 31,000 members.

History will continue to repeat itself on this one.

brought us the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act months later.

sanctimonious "goats" and the eternal destiny awaiting them...

Not everyone who calls me, "Lord, Lord... but he who does the will of my Father..".

Houston's population was nearly two million before Katrina.
Baton Rouge's population was under 230,000.

Houston's concerned about absorbing under 100,000 people (estimates vary). A whopping 5% increase.

Baton Rouge has to absorb between 200,000 and 250,000 people.
http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/112694871315240.xml&coll=3

When Houston doubles its population overnight, then they can start whining.

Meanwhile, that 'reverend' should be Ashamed of himself for being so lacking in charity.

There are a few loudmouths--such as the minister (who remains unidentified.)

How are things in New Jersey?

Maybe it frightens him that Houston has to absorb so many people into a city that

* does not have enough affordable housing available for the evacuees.
* had a higher unemployment rate than the national average before the evacuees arrived.

I didn't see the show, I didn't hear it, but Katrina was a disaster of Biblical proportions. It IS a scary development for people of faith in Houston, knowing there is much out pouring of support now, but worrying about how long the goodwill will last. You can't hold this minister responsible for every Houston resident who doesn't contribute to the evacuee relief by volunteering time, money, and housing. This guy is probably a realist. No city in America could absorb this many people all at once under such stressful conditions.

I don't remember the parable in the bible where Jesus says that we should care for the lepers so long as we have the hospital beds available, or that we should help the poor so long as there are jobs for them, and that if there are no beds and no jobs they should go back to Egypt, or the desert or wherever.

You've found them jobs and childcare?

No one is an island, including this minister. He personally cannot house, feed, and employ everyone living in the George R. Brown building. As Hillary might say, it takes a village to help out during a natural disaster.

I drove an RV from Denver to Houston to give to a surviving family, & I worked on the ground for the Red Cross in Houston for a week. Houston is overwhelmed, and volunteers are dropping like flies from what they call "compassion fatigue" and just the hard fact that they have their own lives (jobs, families, etc.).

Since you disabled your profile, I don't know where you live, but for you to judge what's happening on the ground in Houston from your living room armchair is patently unfair.

BTW, I'm a minister. As such, I know the Bible also says

"Judge not, that you not be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get." Matthew 7:1-2

"Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven." Luke 6:37

"If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I <Jesus> do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world." John 12:47

bragging about your good deeds and your christianity give you the right to criticize other people. (Which is why I don't think it's important for me to start comparing generosities to see whose is bigger.)

However, I do remember Habakkuk which says that when you see injustice, write it down. Watching a man of the church say that he doesn't think his community should have to endure the burdens of caring for the downtrodden seemed wrong to me.

If it sounded like casting stones, I didn't mean it. But I do think it's fair for me to remind people who have faith that there are some alternative interpretations of chrisitaning that contradict what this guy was saying.

I'm a minister, but not Christian. I'm a Unitarian Universalist.

Secondly, I told you about my experiences so you would understand that I was actually down there, I worked with evacuees and Texans of faith (many denominations) so I might have insights into the situation that you don't have sitting in your living room.

Thirdly, I went to the Newshour website and watched the clip. I still believe you have it all wrong about this minister. His church got 40,000 volunteers together to work with the evacuees. He was saying that he's scared that whatever stop-gap housing is put in place will in the end amont to another low-income ghetto, he's worried that we'll put people into substandard housing, pay them substandard wages even if they can find employment. It's an honest assessment of the problems and a scary thing indeed.

If you read through the posts in your own thread here, you'll see that I'm not alone in thinking you're condemning this man unjustly. Most of the others who agree with me are also on the ground in Texas. Yet you've taken exception with my response to you and no one else's. Why is that?

Almost verbatim.

I will happily check that video to see if I overreacted to his quote.

referring to tax cuts as that seems to be what they value most.

Houston is, ineed, already stretched - and they have taken in A LOT of people. I think he's just addressing the situation honestly.

And if my community suddenly had to take in a huge number of refugees, I, too, would be very frightened as to whether we could absorb them.

It's a frightening situation - where's the crime in admitting it?

And where's the crime in admitting that you aren't sure if your community can handle a sudden influx of people? And not even people with jobs and homes - it's people who have nothing.

Now, maybe he is a racist and a jerk, but just by his words, that conclusion CAN NOT, in any way, be made. To do so is irresponsible and unethical. We need much more information than this one sentence before we condemn the man.

That passage isn't about helping the poor. It is about helping Christ's "brothers". "as often as you did it for one of my least brothers..." Since Mary remained a virgin until she died, Jesus did't actually have any brothers, so it's more of a hyperthetickal.

Another one I see taken out of context a lot is that one "it is easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven". You have to remember that back in those days the needles were REALLY, REALLY big. They didn't have any machine-made needles, see, and needles were carved by hand from bone & stuff. Plus, they didn't have animal steroids then, so the camels were really QUITE SMALL (probably about the size of a dachsund or so). Also, Christ had just told the rich man to "sell all your possessions to the poor" - he meant the poor in spirit, of course- "and follow me, and the man walked away with a heavy heart."

If the rich man had just agreed to pay Jesus the money and HAD FOLLOWED Jesus, then he wouldn't have been in trouble. Problem was that he walked away from Jesus. It didn't have anything to do with him being rich and all.

Then theres that whole thing about the sermon on the mount. What people don't know -although it is in the context- is that Jesus had just eaten a bunch of fish, about five thousand or so. There's nothing in the context that says the fish was cooked. So after eating a bunch of raw fish, he was probably pretty dang sick to his stomach. The statement "therefore when you do your alms don't sound a trumpet before thee so that all men may hear..." was written in the context of Jesus having a bad headache and upset stomach. Would YOU want trumpets blowing if you felt like that? I didn't think so.

Glad I could clear that up

-brother Rove.