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‘For I Was a Stranger and You Shot Me’

Metal railing with sign of a gun pointing at viewer. The sign reads, "Never mind the dog beware of the owner!" Placencia Peninsula, Belize. Credit: Reuters/Keith Levit/Alamy.

In a nation built on white nationalism, keeping people fearful of the “other” is useful because it keeps up the illusion of law, order, and control — the foundations of white supremacy. Crime protection is now the dominant reason people own guns. Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead write in their book Taking America Back for God, that White Christian nationalists tend to want a strong military, capital punishment, and oppose gun control.

Yet again and again, Christians are commanded to welcome the stranger and be not afraid. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,” the author writes in Hebrews 13:2. “For by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

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