While delivering a speech about religious freedom in Boston, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was interrupted and confronted by two local religious leaders — apparently for his hardline stance against immigrants. Video from ABC News shows a pastor, since identified as United Methodist Pastor Will Green of the Ballard Vale United Church in Andover, reciting from the book of Matthew. “I was hungry and you did not feed me,” said Pastor Green. “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me. I was naked and you did not clothe me.”
“Brother Jeff, as a fellow United Methodist, I call upon you to repent, to care for those in need, to remember that when you do not care for others you are wounding the body of Christ,” Green continued. You can see the exchange below.
Religious leaders interrupt Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ speech: “Brother Jeff, as a fellow United Methodist I call upon you to repent, to care for those in need.”
Sessions: “Well, thank you for those remarks and attack but I would just tell you we do our best everyday” pic.twitter.com/NUq5HSZZMg
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 29, 2018
“Well, thank you for those remarks and attack but I would just tell you we do our best everyday,” Sessions retorted.
Following Green’s words, Pastor Darrell Hamilton of the First Baptist Church in Boston rose to give a second speech, but was drowned out by boos and heckling. As he was escorted out, you can hear him accuse the audience of being “hypocrites.”
Neither Green nor Hamilton said what they were explicitly accusing Sessions of, but the Attorney General has drawn criticism for assisting in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which a recent study revealed has led to a 43 percent drop in the number of Christian refugees admitted to the U.S.
Sessions has defended his endorsement of President Donald Trump’s family separation policy by referring to Romans 13’s injunction to “submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.” That argument has drawn some controversy — from this very site, as a matter of fact.