The Episcopal Church, long a beacon of progressive virtue, has publicly shown its true colors.
In a shocking move, it’s severed a decades-long partnership with the U.S. government over refugee resettlement, all because it can’t stomach helping white Afrikaners from South Africa. This isn’t compassion — it’s discrimination, plain and simple.
Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s Monday letter laid it bare.
The feds recently told Episcopal Migration Ministries to resettle Afrikaners classified as refugees. Rowe’s response? A sanctimonious refusal, citing “our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice.”
Translation: white refugees need not apply.
The relevant portion of the letter is below:
“Since January, the previously bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in which we participate has essentially shut down. Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff in resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain.
“Then, just over two weeks ago, the federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.
Are you glad Trump granted refugee status to these South African farmers?
“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step.”
This is anti-white racism, full tilt. The church, which has resettled nearly 110,000 refugees, suddenly drew a line when the refugees were white. What Bible verse justifies picking and choosing based on skin color? None. This is woke ideology masquerading as faith.
Rowe’s letter dripped with hypocrisy.
The church boasted of aiding refugees from Ukraine, conveniently ignoring that Ukrainians are also white. Why the exception? Because Ukraine is a bizarre darling of the left, elevated above the “wrong” kind of white people — like Afrikaners.
The Episcopal Church’s ties to the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, which opposed apartheid, are also trotted out as moral cover. But apartheid ended in 1994. Using it to justify discriminating against white Afrikaners today is a cheap tactic, not any sort of moral principle.
President Donald Trump’s February executive order granted Afrikaners refugee status, citing “unjust racial discrimination.”
South Africa’s government has denied this, but the church’s refusal to even consider their plight reeks of prejudice. It’s not about evidence — it’s about politics.
Vice President J.D. Vance perhaps nailed it best: “Crazy.”
Crazy https://t.co/Q85m57uMPm
— JD Vance (@JDVance) May 12, 2025
The senator’s one-word post on social media platform X captures the absurdity of a church abandoning its mission over skin color. When a supposed moral authority picks refugees based on race, it’s called bigotry.
The church’s decision may even skirt federal law. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race in programs receiving federal funds. EMM’s $50 million annual grant could be in jeopardy if it’s found to be cherry-picking refugees by race.
Those legal concerns have been echoed by online critics:
the reason given by Episcopal Migration Ministries for refusing resettlement of white South African refugees appears to be a serious civil rights crime in and of itself, and a confession that their entire program has been in violation of civil rights laws all along pic.twitter.com/450fTXSxJB
— Virginia Project (@ProjectVirginia) May 12, 2025
Rowe claims the church will still support refugees through non-federal means. But this feels like a face-saving gesture. Winding down EMM’s federally funded services by September 2025 guts its capacity to help anyone meaningfully.
The irony is rich. The Episcopal Church, which preaches inclusion, has excluded a group based on the very racial lens it claims to oppose. This isn’t reconciliation — it’s reverse racism, dressed up in clerical robes.
The church’s selective compassion exposes its priorities. Ukrainians get a pass because they’re politically fashionable. Afrikaners, backed by Trump, are persona non grata. It’s placing narrative above human lives, and it’s vile.
This move also betrays the refugees the church claims to champion. By halting its federal partnership, EMM is abandoning countless others waiting in camps worldwide, all to make a political point. How noble.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s anti-apartheid legacy, led by Desmond Tutu, is invoked to justify this stance. But Tutu fought for equality, not selective charity. He’d likely be appalled by this race-based gatekeeping.
The church’s logic crumbles under scrutiny. If “racial justice” means refusing white refugees, what’s next? Quotas by skin tone? This is a horrific regression to tribalism.
Rowe’s letter mourned the “preferential treatment” Afrikaners are receiving — ignoring the urgency of the situation for South African farmers, who have been attacked and sometimes killed and had their property seized with increasing frequency in recent years.
In making his announcement Monday, Trump called it “a genocide … a terrible thing that’s taking place. … White farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated.”
However, the church is more concerned with its own bias, preferring refugees who fit its ideological mold. That’s activism playing the role of ministry.
The Episcopal Church’s decision is a stain on its legacy. It has chosen dogma over duty, alienating those it claims to serve. Faith should unite, not divide by race.
This isn’t just a misstep — it’s a betrayal. The Episcopal Church owes Afrikaners, and all refugees, an apology. Until then, its moral posturing rings hollow.
Shame on them.
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