The Republican Party lie about Haitian immigrants eating family pets in Springfield, Ohio, is another test for Christian America, according to Russell Moore.
Moore, editor of Christianity Today, wrote an op-ed for The Atlantic about the false claims of Donald Trump, JD Vance and other Republican influencers that an influx of Haitian immigrants has threatened the peace and safety of a small Ohio town. These incendiary lies have led to bomb threats and harassment in Springfield.
Speaking on CNN Sunday, Vance admitted the story is a fabrication generated to make a political point: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
Russell Moore
Moore, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics agency, said Trump and Vance are creating a “web” of lies.
“The rhetoric evokes racist tropes about ‘savages’ who do not conform to our civilized Western world. There’s also a religious angle: the idea that Haitian refugees are voodoo occultists who might be worshipping the devil,” he wrote. “As an evangelical Christian who actually believes in the existence of Satan, I agree that we can indeed see the work of the devil at play here, only it’s not on the menu of the Haitian families but rather in the cruelty of those willing to lie about them.”
The truth about what’s going on in Springfield is not in dispute, he said, and the Republican candidates obviously have fabricated a hellish scenario to scare voters worried about immigration. But that alone is not the issue.
“If this were just about the readiness of some Americans to believe grifters who want to keep them angry and scared, we could perhaps ignore it, putting it into the category of the friend from high school whose Facebook posts claim to have ‘the receipts’ on the alien corpses the government is hiding from us in Roswell. This falsehood, though, was given voice by a former and perhaps future president of the United States in a televised debate and afterward. And the real-world consequences are chilling. The mayor of Springfield confirmed to reporters that elementary schools were evacuated in his town this week because of threats directly tied to lies about the Haitian community there.”
Christians who support and spread such lies are as culpable as the politicians, Moore asserted. “When we are willing to see children terrorized rather than stop telling lies about their families, we should step back, forget about our dogs and cats for a moment, and ask who abducted our consciences.”
Cruelty to Haitian immigrants and incitement of potential violence are not debatable issues, he concluded. “Christians do not need to struggle to figure out what Jesus would have us do here. If we see children sheltering at home because they fear violence, we know that’s wrong. And when we see that this fear comes from the incitement of hatred against those children because of where their parents came from, surely we can smell the brimstone.”
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