Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses

For most of America's history, in spite of it's flaws, it was a beacon of hope to those fleeing from hopeless situations around the world. Over the centuries, people have flocked to America to find shelter in the wake of famines, wars, religious persecution, crippling poverty, and so much more. I personally would like to believe that legacy will carry on even after I've departed from this earth.

However, I'm beginning to fear that, within my lifetime, this time we are living in now is going to be the era that people point to as the place in history when that legacy began to die.

I'm devastated and enraged by this immigration ban President Trump has enacted. If you're somehow unfamiliar, Trump issued an executive order banning citizens from 7 Muslim-majority nations entry to the U.S. for 90 days, and bans all refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days.

I'm honestly not entirely sure what the President (or the order's supporters) believe will be accomplished by it. America already has the most rigorous refugee resettlement process of any nation in the world. It can take asylum seekers YEARS to be thoroughly vetted. Any potential terrorists seeking to strike out at us from within would find it far easier to sneak into the country than to try to come in through ANY official avenues.

The only possible outcome of this ban is the further erosion of the already very shallow reserves of goodwill that the rest of the world has for the U.S. It is an objectively nonsensical plan that is already having negative repercussions around the world.

So it's a dumb move. As an American, I find it embarrassing, but as a Christian? I find it repulsive. Especially the talk of prioritizing Christian refugees over Muslim refugees. Scott Arbeiter, President of World Relief, said it well: "Some of the most vulnerable people in the world right now are Muslims. If we say no Muslim should be let in, we are denying the humanity and dignity of people made in the image of God."

I am honestly very confused as to how the hell anyone, especially Christians, can both be in support of Trump's anti-abortion orders and his anti-immigration order. If you truly believe in the sanctity of all life, how can you possibly be so dismissive of the hundreds of thousands of orphans and widows who are living in hellish conditions in refugee camps around the world? James 1:27 lays it out pretty clearly: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

There isn't room for interpretation on this issue. Christians should leading the charge against every injustice in the world. Anywhere there are practical needs to be met, Christians should be the first ones rushing to meet them.

I long and pray for the U.S. to lighten it's restrictions on immigration and asylum seekers. If we as a nation committed to resettling as many refugees as we could, it would be the single greatest chance to share the Gospel here in America that has occurred in my lifetime, a truly unparalleled opportunity for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. And I'm not just talking about the evangelistic opportunities...I'm talking about the opportunities to communicate the Gospel through action.

Can you imagine? America, a country still seen in the eyes of the world as a "Christian Nation", opening it's doors to those in need, and then the Christians of the nation actually providing for their needs? Not just begrudgingly allowing the government to take care of the refugees, and then complaining that their tax dollars are being wasted; actually spending their own time and money to feed them, clothe them, house them, help them find jobs, and just generally show them genuine love and support during the most difficult period of their lives?

Even if there was a small contingent of people hiding among them who were planning on carrying out acts of terrorism, I firmly believe that a genuine show of love from the people they're considering attacking would do more to dissuade them than any threats of jail or death. It really is a non-issue, because the risk of being killed in a terrorist attack by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 BILLION a year, but even if it was drastically higher than that, Christians should never make decisions based purely off of potential risk. 

Here's why.

If you say you are a Christian, one of the many things you are confessing to is a belief that all people are made in God's image, and are equally valuable to yourself. Another thing you are confessing to is a belief that all people are in danger of an eternity in hell (or some sort of separation from God in paradise after death) if they die without coming to know Jesus as their Lord. 

If you claim to confess these things, but you are still more worried about some theoretical national security threats than you about the physical and spiritual well being of your fellow sons and daughters of God, then for all intents and purposes, your faith is dead, because God's love is not producing good works in you (James 2:14-17). If your faith is not producing love and compassion in you that takes priority over your fears, even if the fears are well founded (which they most definitely are not in this case), then God is not in you. That's not just my opinion, that's Scripture. 

The Apostle John says it best in 1 John 4:16-21...

"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

You cannot say, "I do have love for these people, but I don't want them coming into my country, because we have enough problems as is without having to worry about which ones are terrorists." If that's your attitude, then you don't actually have love for these people, you're just a well-wisher, and it means nothing. You are saying, "Depart in peace, be warm and filled." without actually providing them the means to be warm and filled.

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:7, speaking on the topic of love, "It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." True love always seeks the highest good of an individual or group. Love is not just a feeling, it requires action.

Before I close, I want to share from my own personal experience. I'm a missionary. I've committed my life to the teaching of the Gospel, which I know will bring not only radical change in the lives of individuals who accept it, but prosperity to the cultures that live by it. Being a missionary, I've traveled quite a lot, and in the countries I've visited, I tend to go to different parts of the country and meet different people then the average tourist would.

In my travels, I've met people who live in horribly impoverished conditions, but they chose not to flee; I've met Christians in countries where any form of evangelism or public expression of their faith is effectively outlawed, but they continue to stay and practice their faith; I've met Muslims on the run in Europe from religious persecution from other Muslims back in their home countries, yet they are fervently praying they can soon return; and I know that even though there's a lot of things going on in my country that I hate, I would still rather live here than anywhere else. The reason for this is simple: people feel a strong bond to the places they consider to be home.

Across the world, the vast majority of people would much rather stay in their home countries and change them from the inside than abandon their homeland in search of prosperity elsewhere, given the choice. This has lead me to believe that if people are fleeing from their homeland by the millions, they must be doing so because it has become literally impossible for them to live there.

When you actually meet these people face to face, when you actually talk to them and hear their stories, it's impossible to just treat them like statistics.

Imagine you're a man from Afghanistan with a large family back around 2011-2012. When as the American troops pull out of your region, the Taliban immediately move back into your city, demand you turn over your business to them, and threaten to kill you if you are not gone in 2 days. So, you flee with your family to Iran. When you arrive, you find yourself ostracized and unable to find work, because you are a Sunni in a majority Shia nation. Desperate to provide for your family, you flee to Italy in search of work, leaving your family in Iran where at least they will be safe from violence, with the intent of sending back everything you make to them.

After braving dangerous seas, you arrive in Italy, only to find tens of thousands of other Middle Eastern and North African migrants and refugees, all searching for work, just like you. So you head off to Greece, where only a few days after you arrive, you are brutally beaten by the police. Realizing you are not wanted there, you head out for Germany, hoping to find more reasonable people there, but you are arrested as you are caught crossing the border, and thrown in jail for almost 2 years. Upon release, with nowhere else to turn, you head back to Italy, only to find it even more over-saturated with fellow refugees than you remember, with no jobs available anywhere.

If that seems like an oddly specific scenario I just had you imagine, it's because it is the true story of a man named Akbar that I met in Rome back in the spring of 2014. We were able to converse for many hours, because he had learned some English while in jail in Germany, and had been refining it while spending his afternoons at a refugee center run by Cru International. He had a bright smile and a hearty laugh, but no matter how lighthearted our conversation was, his eyes always retained a deep sadness. He would point out the scars on his face and show me some on his back - all from the beatings he received in Greece and in prison.

I loved to hear him talk about life back in Afghanistan. He wasn't a rich man - he had a business in his town before the Taliban took it from him, but he had a large family and life had not been easy - but his prospects in Europe were no better. Listening to him talk, he longed to be back in Afghanistan, even with the threat of the Taliban, because it was his home. He longed to be among people who shared his cultural identity and values, who spoke his language, who didn't view him with the disdain that he'd felt while traveling Europe in search of work.

I wish Akbar and his family would have had a chance to seek refuge in America. I think they would have had a better chance at a normal life. But now? I'm certain they would have been turned away.

If you're a Christian, in America or anywhere else in the world, please join me in praying that this executive order will be overturned. Not only are lives at stake in the immediate sense, but the soul of America is at stake, and if we decide to be a nation that turns a blind eye to tragedy around the world, many, many more lives could be at stake in the future.

God's Blessings,
Chris

"Let the little children come to me." - Jesus