The other day Ray Schellinger (a missionary and friend of mine) posted the following on facebook.
I am putting together a
biblical reflection and I need a little help from my conservative Christian
friends. For those who believe we should build a wall, enforce a Muslim ban, or
deport a large number of undocumented immigrants, what are the biblical foundations
for your positions? And can you tell me how you reconcile those passages with
the call to welcome the stranger? What are the other values/tenets that
underlie your position? I am asking this in all sincerity and promise that this
will not be used to belittle your position, but rather to better understand it.
So I decided to respond. Here it is almost verbatim…..
Okay. I'll take a stab. 1. I'm not entirely convinced
we need a wall but I'm okay with the philosophy behind a wall which is all
about law and order, stopping the flow of illegal immigrants, and the flow of
illegal drugs. It would seem to me that liberals and conservatives alike should
agree with the philosophy behind the building of a wall. Maybe there just needs
to be some walls in certain places and not the entire border. Maybe there are
some much better ideas than a wall. What's not helpful is liberals throwing
around terms like "racist" and "hateful" because some think
a wall will be helpful with these issues of law and order. It's entirely
possible to have a wall and still welcome the stranger and care for the least
of these. 2. It's a ban on countries that happen to be predominantly Muslim as
opposed to a Muslim ban. Calling it a Muslim ban has not been helpful for
constructive dialogue. It's a temporary ban. It's not a ban on all countries.
Unfortunately we live a world where lots of countries have refugees. As Christians
and churches we can still identify those in need from countries that are not
banned and welcome them and care for them. What's not helpful is liberals
throwing around terms like "racist" and "hateful" because
some think there might be value in a temporary ban. It's entirely possible to
have a temporary ban on a few countires and still welcome the stranger and care
for the least of these. 3. As far as I can tell, the primary effort has been to
deport those with criminal backgrounds as has been the case with previous
administrations. My impression is the Trump administration has ramped up those
efforts and there have certainly been cases where some have been deported that
shouldn't have been. But again, we are still talking about illegal immigrants. What's
not helpful are liberals throwing around terms like "racist" and
"hateful" because some think efforts should be made to deport illegal
immigrants with criminal backgrounds. It's entirely possible to deport illegal
immigrants and still welcome the stranger (especially the legal ones) and care
for the least of these.
Perhaps you might be
noticing a theme. First let me say as I
look again at my response I feel bad about using the term liberal. I’ll be the first to admit that these labels
are not helpful. Not that the term
liberal is even bad but it’s just another way to bunch us into broad categories
when as people there is so much more to us than just a label. That being said I stand by my position that I’ve
seen a lot of reckless language thrown around lately by those who tend to
identify more with a liberal point of view.
I know there are plenty on the right who do the same and I believe they
are just as much a part of our political problem. But I think we can safely say there is
something about the Trump presidency that has brought animosity to a whole new level,
and that is part of what I was addressing in my response to Ray’s post. It’s just not helpful. And I’ll just say it; it’s very
unchristian. By the way I’m saying that
about both sides and I am very aware of our president’s role in all of
this. But perhaps all of us could take a
page from our former first lady regardless of what politics we most identify
with, and whenever someone goes low we can go high. What if we applied Philippians 4:8 to our
political discourse. “Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is
true, whatever is noble, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything
is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” It sure would make some of our facebook
feeds look different.
So what about my response
to Ray? Actually I’d like to elaborate
on it just a bit, but I’ll save that for next week’s blog post. As a preview I’ll just say it will primarily
be about how we apply the passages that talk about welcoming the stranger and
caring for the least of these and their place in our national policies. That’s all for now. In the meantime know that I value and care
about everyone reading this regardless of your political opinions. We are all God’s creation, and He created us
all unique and with different gifts, abilities and personalities, which no
doubt in some part has led to the political positions we hold now. And that’s all good.
