Who’s Poisoning Who?

Warning: This post contains some harsh words which may be suitable for some who call themselves Evangelicals.

The share of those who say they think undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the U.S. (Survey of 5,352 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 16 to Sept. 4, 2024 by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute)

To all non-Christians, an apology

Let me begin by apologizing to all who are stumbled by this startling poll that says 60% of over 5000 Americans living in all 50 states who identify as “White Evangelicals” agree with the statement that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the U.S. On behalf of all those who self-identify as Christ followers, I’m truly sorry.

Candidate Trump not only repetitively lies about immigrants eating house pets, violent undocumented criminal gangs taking over cities, and that some migrants have bad murderous genes. This trope about “blood poisoning” is one of his most despicable claims. This, he’s preached repeatedly, and it didn’t fall out of some cumulus cloud. It clearly links to something called “the replacement theory,” and is a direct reference to the phrase’s original architect, Adolf Hitler.

(I’m keenly aware of the risk of referring to the German Führer as though drawing a straight line from him to our former president. I am not. Mr. Trump is dangerous, but not that dangerous. Not yet anyway. But he is the one who keeps quoting Hitler, not to mention showering praise on other authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Viktor Orbán.)

Trump either read the concept of “blood poisoning” in Mein Kampf, the blueprint for a “pure Aryan” Germany and the genocidal removal of Jews plus anyone else Hitler despised enough to murder. Or he picked it up from one of his close white supremacist allies such as Nick Fuentes or Stephen Miller.  

“All great cultures of the past,” Hitler wrote, “perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.” He went on to say that when Jews and white Christians intermarry, the Jew “poisons the[ir] blood,” and therefore must be eliminated.

To my non-Christian friends: I am so very sorry that even one person who identifies as a follower of Christ would believe such a heinous thing, let alone 60% of us white evangelicals! Please don’t hold genuine Christ followers, who are not racist, liable for the false ideas of those who either don’t know what “blood poisoning” refers to or don’t care. We’re not all neo-Nazi white nationalists like those who chanted in Charlottesville, “Jews will not replace us!” Thankfully, many of those kooks or their buddies are in prison for their part in the January 6 insurrection.

To the so-called 60%, a rebuke

It’s possible that you either didn’t know what “blood poisoning” means or where it comes from. Now you do. And I urge you to disassociate yourself with such a wicked premise.

Or maybe you don’t actually know what an Evangelical is. The term comes from the Greek word euangelion, which means “good news” or “gospel.” It was first coined in the 1940s to describe Christians who wanted to identify themselves with the good news about Jesus and to distance themselves from the not-so-good news of the fundamentalistic Christianity of the time. It refers to someone who has been born again, is living their life the best they know how for Jesus, believes the whole Bible, and shares it through evangelism and good work in the world. According to the National Association of Evangelicals, “Our distinctives and theological convictions define us—not political, social or cultural trends.”

So, are you actually an Evangelical? If you are, you simply can’t believe that immigrants (documented or not) are poisoning the blood of Americans! You can’t seriously think that because their pigment is darker than yours and their cultural mores differ from yours that they are therefore inferior to you and their being here is categorically poisonous to our so-called “American blood.” If you do, you provide a grotesque caricature of the Jesus of the Bible and of those who love him.

You do not represent us. You will not replace us!

Evangelical is just a word––a label, like Christian––that, when co-opted or redefined on one’s own terms becomes pointless. We don’t need labels to truly follow Jesus.

I’m NOT an advocate of “open borders,” nor do I claim to have a simple solution to the migrancy crisis, not just at our borders, but all over the world. I’m simply saying that Christ’s true followers should be able to recognize the image of God where they see it, and treat all humans as neighbors, not as poisonous vermin.

That said, who is poisoning who?