Country music artist John Rich pushed back on fellow musician Jelly Roll’s recent remarks tying Christianity to criticism of border enforcement, arguing in a conversation with commentator Benny Johnson that the biblical command to “love thy neighbor” should extend to migrant children and women harmed during border crossings.
Johnson opened the discussion by questioning whether Jelly Roll had alienated the country music audience that built his career. “It does seem like a perilous time right now for artists themselves, and a time when, like, artists should appreciate the people who brought you here,” Johnson said. He added, “my opinion is that Jelly Roll betrayed his the base country music artist, and I’m not sure that what he said is a really great reflection of Christianity, to be perfectly honest.”
Rich then asked to respond directly to the religious argument Jelly Roll had made, which cited the New Testament teaching that the second greatest commandment is to love one’s neighbor as oneself, offered in the context of a discussion about the border.
“Okay, there are hundreds of thousands of kids still missing within the borders of the United States of America this very second that were trafficked across that border. There were thousands of women raped coming across that border. Are they not your neighbor? Are those people not your neighbor?” Rich said.
Rich also invoked a New Testament passage on the treatment of children. “And then if you go look at what Jesus said about kids, you’d be better off to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast into the sea than to ever harm one of these little ones,” he said. “And now there’s hundreds of thousands of little ones scattered throughout the United States that a lot of them will never be recovered.”
He argued that those children and women belong in the category of “neighbor” that Jelly Roll’s argument invoked. “I think those are our neighbors, and so because what we allowed to happen down there at the border allowed the mass carnage of humanity, women and children mainly, those are our neighbors,” Rich said. “So I find it interesting that Jelly Roll forgot that part when it comes to love thy neighbor.”
Johnson broadened the critique, citing other scripture he said Jelly Roll had overlooked. “He’s forgotten verses in Deuteronomy about not letting foreigners come in to command your nation. He’s forgotten verses in Romans about submitting to the authorities and law enforcement, and he attacked ICE,” Johnson said. He argued Jelly Roll had “used Christianity as some type of a manipulative level of Christianity as some type of shield” for his criticism of immigration enforcement.
Asked to close out the exchange, Rich returned to the same theme. “I just think love thy neighbor is quite a statement, and I think children and women being abused and carried across our border, they are the neighbors we should be concerned about,” he said. He tied the harm directly to border policy, saying, “we allowed that to happen by collapsing our border and allowing these people to monetize that.”
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