In 1902, Synod sent yet another memorial to both the House and Senate, protesting the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

We . . . respectfully represent that all men, irrespective of race or color, are endowed with certain natural and inalienable rights, among which are the rights to travel in any land they may choose to visit, to make their homes in any country they may prefer, and to have their wives and children with them under the same roof.

But of these and other rights the Chinese people who come, or wish to come, to the United States, are unjustly deprived by the operation of the Federal law known as the Chinese Restriction Act. . . .

Third. The Golden Rule is applicable to nations as well as to individuals. If any European government would shut us out of their territory, we would complain bitterly. . . . Even Confucious said: “Do nothing to another that you would not be willing that he should do to you. . . .”

For these and similar reasons, we, your petitioners, do respectfully and most earnestly ask you either to repeal or make such amendments to the Chinese Exclusion Act as the law of humanity, as well as divine law, requires.

Defending basic human rights, Synod also denounced the persecution of Jews in 1903. “The Synod . . . expresses its sympathy with the persecuted Jews of Eastern Europe. As a part of the Church of Christ, we declare that the spirit of Anti-Semitism is not the Spirit of Christ.”

William J. Edgar, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America 1871-1920, 100.