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The Christian and the Refugee

In the wake of the horrific attack on Paris by Islamic extremists, the United States has been left with consideration of how to handle the thousands of Syrian refugees escaping the terror in their home country.

There have been calls to stop accepting all refugees, only allowing Christian refugees, delaying acceptance of refugees, or continuing to accept all refugees completely unfettered from any new restrictions based on the attack.

At face value, the most unreasonable response to continue doing things the exact same way we have been doing.  To continue accepting any and all refugees without any sort of delay, new vetting procedures, higher restrictions, or limitation is simply disconnected from the reality of this terrorist attack.  Debate has gone back and forth on the extent of one of the terrorists permitted into Europe with a fake passport claiming to be a refugee, but evidence sure seems more than plausible that is exactly what happened.

The immediate response from the Left is that there are serious "vetting" procedures when it comes to permitting refugees in:
Yet what exactly is the vetting process?  How were the attackers on 9/11 vetted?  Or, a better consideration, how exactly was the Tsarnaev family vetted?  A headline from WaPo in 2013 declared brothers "Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were refugees from brutal Chechen conflict."  I'm not so sold on this "vetting" process the Left keeps peddling.  This is the government intelligence that was unable to identify or prevent these types of attacks.  The Blaze has identified ten instances where legal immigrants either plotted or carried out terrorist activities.  A 2013 article from ABC News looked at the possibility of terrorists entering the US as refugees.  That's not to say the government hasn't prevented terrorists from coming to the country; likely we will never know about most of the success stories.  But still, there are gaps and mistakes that have shown we are still vulnerable to such attacks.  The government can tell me until its blue in the face that they are "vetting" the refugees, but 1) I inherently distrust the government's ability to do this to perfection, 2) What exactly are the "vetting" procedures, and 3)...
Point being that I'm not on board with the practicality of "vetting" 10,000 refugees from war torn countries.  How many of these individuals are capable of presenting accurate identification?  And what is considered "accurate identification" from a country run by a guy like Assad?  Most of these countries in the Middle East exist in a world decades, if not centuries, behind the civilized world.  Some more so than others.  To what extent are we confident enough that our "vetting" process is capable of sifting through everyone?

The Center for Immigration Studies points out three serious issues with U.S. "vetting": 1) Our system is heavily based on "electronic systems" with biometric information, which isn't necessarily helpful when refugees have little to no identification on them, 2) Attempting to use fake identification does not disqualify someone, and 3) The ease of jihadists getting legitimate documents from Syria.  So when someone like Rachel Held Evans says something like this...
I'm not apt to trust our process.

Further, let's assume we should still permit 10,000 refugees to come to the United States.  Is anyone going to track their whereabouts?  This might sound odd coming from someone who typically finds himself against NSA programs, but when it comes to actual potential security threats, I don't think it's too much to ask that we know where these individuals are going and whom they are contacting.  Are we going to see more situations of refugees gone missing like recently in Louisiana?

So put me down for needing to do something a little different in the wake of the Paris attacks. 

Senator and Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz recently took the stance that only Christians should be permitted into the country at this time.  President Barack Obama's response was that there should be no "religious test" in accepting refugees.  The Left has outright condemned Cruz and others for such a viewpoint, adamantly saying religion should have nothing to do with who is brought in as a refugee.  That's not entirely accurate.

The U.S. Department of State defines a refugee as such:
A refugee is someone who has fled from his or her home country and cannot return because he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution based on religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.  (Emphasis added)
Now does this automatically mean that we should only accept Christian refugees from Syria?  Not necessarily, but it clearly indicates that religion does in fact play a role in the refugee process.  Are Muslims safe in Syria?  Some, possibly.  Are Christians safe in Syria?  Absolutely not.  Now, I tend to disagree with Senator Cruz's plan based on the inability to actually prove (or "vet") refugees as Christian, Muslim, or other.  Individuals willing to blow themselves up for assurance of "heaven" probably have little qualms about lying to reach such an end.

But back to President Obama's objections.  It's worth noting that the Syrian population as of 2011 (before the civil war) was roughly 90% Muslim and 10% Christian.  Yet the refugees admitted into the United States breakdowns at 96% Muslim and 2.4% Christian (with a few "others" making up the slight difference).  If there is no "religious test", why the discrepancy?

Another possibility is delaying the process.  This is an idea floated out by both Republicans and Democrats (well, at least one Democrat).  In New Hampshire, both Governor Maggie Hassan (D) and U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R) have suggested halting "the acceptance of Syrian refugees until intelligence and defense officials can assure a strong process for vetting refugees."  A similar stance has been taken by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.  Shoot, even the friendly and accepting Canadians are giving pause about "fast-tracking" refugees into their countries.

For his part, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is also seeking a "pause" in permitting Syrian refugees.  Of course, depending who you ask, Speaker Ryan is either a radical conservative or a sellout RINO (as an aside, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt as he begins his speakership, though I have no problems with holding him accountable to conservatism and his promises).

Granted, this plan doesn't solve anything.  The questions of "who" and "how many" and "where to settle" are left unanswered.   But what delaying the process does is permit time to come up with answers to those questions, and an opportunity to further scrutinize our intelligence in the wake of the Paris attack.  The most irrational response remains doing things as if these attacks never occurred.

Another option is to completely shut down immigration.  Senator and Presidential Candidate Rand Paul has proposed a bill that would halt visas altogether from nations with "significant jihadist movements."  A more extreme measure would be from Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, who says refugees could be a Trojan horse situation, and instead there should be a "safe zone" within Syria for refugees to go.  (No comment from Mr. Trump on how  that "safe zone" would be defended, or who would willingly give up the land, or why refugees would want to stay so close to their potential murderers, or any other of the litany of questions that often come after a Donald Trump idea).

 So those are generally the four plans: Do nothing, limit the refugees based on religion, delay processing new refugees, or no refugees.  I explain all this, to get to this question:

 What should the Christian do?  For that matter, what plan should the Christian support?

 Well there are many on the Left (Christians and non Christians alike) attempting to use scripture as the final word on the issue.  The irony of the much clearer points regarding sexuality and marriage within scripture being excused away is, of course, lost on them:




Many have been sharing scripture that speaks to how to love the refugee.  And these are all great scriptures on how to love sojourners, foreigners, etc.  It should be noted though that none of these scriptures say that a government should invite thousands of refugees from a country where Jihadism is rampant immediately after a major Jihadist attack; it says to love them, particularly the ones in your midst.

Depending on translation, we often see the word "foreigner", "sojourner," or "alien" used in these passages.  Ultimately, the Greek for foreigner/sojourner/alien is all the same word: paroikos.  So it's pretty straight forward that we're talking about the same thing: someone who is already in a foreign land.  In fact, Malachi 3:5 specifically says "foreigners among you." (NIV)  This is a significant difference in terminology.

Another verse commonly shared reads:
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.  And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you  yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.  (Deuteronomy 10:17-19, NIV)
Clearly we are instructed to love the foreigner.  Again, this is different than the situation we find ourselves in.  And I also want to point out that the God of Deuteronomy 10 is also the God of:
When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than  you--and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally, make no treaty with them, and show no mercy.  Do not intermarry with them.  Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.  This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.  (Deuteronomy 7:1-5, NIV)
Please don't mistake my position involving the destruction of any refugees.  I share this to demonstrate the inappropriateness of using scripture as blanket statements to welcome all refugees with no sort of limiting process.  Above, God tells us to "make to treaty" and "do not intermarry with them."  He tells us this out of our own protection, because He's concerned about us being turned away from Him.  This passage should at the very least, as Christians, give us pause about inviting thousands of Muslims into our country, into our communities, and into our homes.  Again, please don't mistake me as to saying that Muslims should not be permitted in the United States; that's not at all my point.  The point is that using scripture to justify admitting thousands of Islamic refugees isn't sound theology.

As an aside, there are those attempting to compare this situation to that of Jewish migrants being turned away from the United States at the dawn of World War II.  This is a terrible analogy.  As Kevin D. Williamson wrote, "there was at the time no worldwide Jewish supremacist movement engaged in massive acts of terrorism on every continent save Antarctica."

Regardless, scripture calls us to love.  The question is, how can Christians love in this situation, because it's rarely that simple.  If it were, we'd probably be better at it.

During his November 18, 2015 podcast of "The Briefing", theologian Albert Mohler states:
Now we need to note, almost immediately something that simply has to be stated, even though it is certainly true that most Muslims are not at war with the West and that most Muslims are not involved in any terrorist organization, nor do they have any ambition to be so, it’s also true that in this vast flood of humanity now represented by these refugees and migrants, the reality is that very few of them will actually be terrorists. It will be a very small percentage. But that still is a percentage and it still is a very real and present danger, as the fact that one traveling on a Syrian passport was involved in the terrorist attacks last Friday night.
Mohler then continues:
There is a basic Christian understanding of the necessity of taking care of our neighbor, that is indeed the Lord’s command and furthermore, we are told that everyone on the planet, every single human being made in God’s image is in some sense our neighbor, and we’re also looking at the fact that there is a basic Christian inclination to help those who are weak and defenseless and in trouble, and that is absolutely right, and it’s not only a moral inclination, it’s a moral mandate. To put the matter succinctly, if someone hungry were sitting next to us, it is our moral responsibility to feed them. If someone needy is sitting next to us, it is our responsibility to help them to be fed and sheltered and protected. If a needy or vulnerable child was within our vision or proximity, we would know that the right thing to do is to help them and ask questions later. But when we’re looking at a refugee crisis on this scale and when we’re looking at something taking place more than halfway around the world, one of the realities we face is that some humanitarian instincts can actually make the humanitarian problem worse. Incentivizing more people to leave Syria under these conditions can lead to refugee camps exploding with conditions even worse than were left behind in Syria. This is one of those situations in which there is no formula that simply gives us the right answer for the Christian responsibility, or the American responsibility, or the European responsibility in light of this kind of a crisis and the crisis is spreading.
So we need to think through our response a little more deeply than Rachel Held Evans.

Further, an influx of refugees into the United States isn't necessarily love when you consider it is twelve times more expensive to bring a refugee to the United States than it is to settle them in a neighboring Middle Eastern country.  Exactly how is it loving to effectually deny helping 11 refugees for every one refugee we bring here?  Obviously it's not practical for every single refugee to be settled in a bordering country, but certainly the further removed from home they are, the more expensive it will be.  Writing for National Review, Mark Krikorian argues that it's actually even "immoral" to process refugees in this manner, considering in cost ineffective it is, and helping in this manner limits how many we can help.

This doesn't mean there aren't other ways to assist.  Foreign aid through medical supplies, food, construction equipment, cash, and possibly even military policing would be helpful.  There is no serious voice denouncing any of those ideas (except possibly the military involvement piece), and all of these are resources that would be far more cost effective than shipping everyone over here.

Yet my important point is this: Christian love can never be carried out through government action.  Being a Christian means belief that Jesus Christ died a sinner's death to reconnect us to the God of creation and transform us into heirs of His kingdom.  Government, which is not human, is incapable of being Christian; it can only be a means of carrying out efforts of Christians.  That's right, "a" means.  Meaning one of many.  Meaning Christians need to stop claiming we need to take care of others by forcing others to do it; be it accepting 10,000 refugees into someone else's neighborhood or raising someone else's taxes.  You/me/we are called to take care of the widows and the orphans.  This does not require government.  It requires you/me/we.

Ultimately I do not hold the answer to solving this problem.  I believe that we need to at least institute a delay in processing refugees, and that some Christians need to stop believing that government action answers God's call to love others.
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