Refugees and Religious Realities

By: American Decency Staff

The problem with a label like "conservative Christian" is that it represents a spectrum. On one side, there are those who were maybe raised in a Christian home or under Christian values, but their passion for limited government burns far brighter than their passion for the Great Commission. On the other side, where I hope to be, are those whose recognized purpose is to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever" and who believe that the ideals of conservatism reflect that best. The passions for God and country exist at both ends, but each end prioritizes them differently.

I have great respect for the former, less religious, Conservative ideologues.  They have often been the ones making those political and philosophical arguments in the public square and have been the engines behind positive political change.

Yet, I believe, without the emphasis on glorifying God over promoting a political viewpoint, it can be easy to send out that vibe of "don't care a whit about the poor but talk a really good line," as I've heard one hostile critic of conservative Christians say.

In fact, I once saw a comment on an article by a woman with a picture of Jesus on her profile rejoicing in the death of a young man because he was trying to cross the desert and enter the US illegally.

I think to some very limited extent, if we're humble enough, that we can take comments like the one above as a reminder.

We are more than representatives of a political ideology. Christians are representatives of the Living God who is passionate about justice and about caring for the outcasts and the downtrodden and banishment of evil from the world, and where popular conservative thought drops the ball on those issues, it's the duty of the Christian to pick it up.

A Conservative can argue pragmatically for why illegal immigration and the acceptance of refugees is bad for national security, but a Christian who is conservative has to take into account the Image of God in every soul turned away from the safety of American borders.

If we cannot hold God's standard up to conservatism on that or any issue and walk away a Christian Conservative, we had better just walk away a Christian.

All that is a very long introduction to the question which has been placed before me: What is the correct Christian position on allowing Syrian refugees into the United States?

Given my long-winded intro, you'll likely find my answer paradoxical: I do not think Syrian refugees should be allowed to enter the country on any kind of mass scale.

So how can I hold up the danger in which we are allowing Syrian civilians to remain to the intrinsic value of their lives as Image-bearers, and turn them away from our own relative safety?

It's because Americans are Image-bearers too. When Christians argue for harboring refugees from the breeding grounds of ISIS, the argument you often hear is that we are commanded to "love your neighbors as your selves." In the parable of the Good Samaritan, when Jesus was asked, "who is my neighbor?," He gives an example of a man helping someone in his immediate vicinity. It could be argued that the priest and the Levite who passed by the victim were likely on their way to "help" people through their respective roles in worship ceremonies, but the Samaritan helped the person right next to him, and he is held up as an example.

I take this to mean we have a responsibility to especially love the people around us, which means watching out for their wellbeing.

Realistically, living in a rural farm town, my chance of being the victim of a terrorist attack is probably pretty slim, but the risk to my countrymen in bigger population centers is what worries me more.

But really, what you or I would do is a moot point. We have heads of State who make that decision and these officials are charged with keeping their constituents safe. It is their responsibility to put the safety of American citizens before the needs of citizens of foreign countries. When America help threatened peoples and keep her citizens safe I'm all in favor of that, but history and the experiences of other countries has shown that that is not the case here.

Certainly, they talk a good game – listing the databases that names are run through, and that the process is the most secure form of immigration – but what is not explained is why they would expect terrorists or terrorist sympathizers to show up in their databases.

We don't even know of all the radicals in our own country, let alone Syria!

Farm boys from Syrian fields may not show up in a State Department database, but that doesn't mean they don't have ISIS propaganda on their phone and ISIS propaganda, for whatever disgusting reason, appeals to at least some Syrians.

The Daily Caller cites a study from the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies which finds that 13% percent of Syrians have a "positive to some extent" view of ISIS. Encouragingly, the very vast majority view them negatively and support us bombing the tar out of them, but consider the idea that one out of ten refugees can kinda see where ISIS is coming from, but there's no way to leave out the one and bring in the 9. With the President planning to allow 10,000 refugees into the states, that would make around 1,000 of them potential radicals, or at least vulnerable to radicalization, and most of the big headline attacks have been perpetrated by teams of less than ten.

So, in short, I don't favor harboring refugees from Syriabecause I love my neighbor and I do not want to put them at risk.

That's not to say we shouldn't love them!

Do your research and find a respectable organization that you can donate to that provides humanitarian aid to displaced Syrian families. Save the Children claims to have helped 2.3 million people inside Syria and other organizations are doing noble work there as well.

But.

It seems that the decision makers in our country do not agree with me, and that America will welcome at least those 10,000 refugees.

At that point they are not only our neighbors in the global way that every person is our neighbor, but they will literally be  our neighbors, working and playing side-by-side with us, and if I over analyzed the parable of the Good Samaritan, the moral is at least this: when you come across someone who needs help, help them.

A Biblical Counselor that spoke at our marriage conference made a point that has stuck with me.

He said something like, "God calls us to love our wives as Christ loves the church, but if we cannot love them as our wives, He calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and, if we cannot love them as our neighbors, God still calls us to love our enemies."

Apart from the wife bit, obviously, that applies in this situation too. Is it possible that out of the 10,000 Syrians that come to this country, some of them will be hostile to the American way of life, maybe even outright enemies? Yes, I'd say it's likely.

But we are told to love our enemies.

This article was originally supposed to be an answer to a piece published by Desiring God, entitled, "Eight Words from Jesus in a World with Refugees," which argues that Jesus would have Western nations accept Syrians with open arms. But that article mainly just quotes Jesus, and how can I argue with Him?

I cannot, so I make only this point: The words from Jesus are not commands on how to run a nation, they are commands on how to live our lives for Him.

They do not change a government's responsibility to protect the wellbeing of its citizens.

But, as the author notes, Christians are not called to a life of safety, but of self-sacrifice – of being willing to lose our own lives for the advancement of the Gospel.

May God give us discernment as to whom He brings into our lives – whether from near or abroad.  May it be that our government leaders do what they have been called to do – defend and protect their citizens –  so that we aren't opening up our neighbors and our loved ones to those who have an agenda to islamize the "infidel".   In the event that our leaders fail to keep their oath, God calls us to show the love of Christ and share the gospel with them; but may our leaders not fail.

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