Christianity and the Migrant Crisis

I'm simply picking up where I left off on 31 March. An opinion piece by the Mad Monarchist.

From The Mad Monarchist (26 November 2017)

This has been an issue I have not been eager to expound upon but do so because so many have challenged my (very obvious and correct of course) remarks on the subject and it would be easier to simply have an article to refer them too with all of the proper Biblical citations. This has been coming up for quite a while, the issue that it is somehow a Christian duty to be in favor of open borders and allowing all and sundry into your country. This is not true. It is so manifestly untrue that it staggers the imagination that any serious Christian or anyone with any understanding of Christian Scripture could possibly believe it. Rest assured, I do not think they actually do as it is often the ones who are ordinarily the most anti-Christian who suddenly start telling actual Christians how to be ‘more Christian’ when it suits their political agenda. The really perverse thing is that, in this case, it is also an anti-Christian agenda.

I will address this primarily from a Biblical point of view because Christians have many different traditions but pretty much everyone has the same Bible and nothing I will be talking about will involve those books that are present in Catholic Bibles but missing from Protestant ones, so this does not devolve into a denominational food fight. There is actually nothing, at all, anywhere in the Bible that says one has to take foreigners into your country. You can read it from cover to cover, it is not in there. That being so, the proponents of open borders must cite other verses that they then ‘interpret’ to mean national borders should be abolished. They won’t come right out and say that quite often but when you say every country is entitled to have borders and set their own immigration laws but then oppose any and all efforts to actually enforce such laws, you are being dishonest and deceitful and I have heard many (usually Catholics) pull that trick. If you say you are for borders and for immigration laws but when someone crosses the border illegally they cannot be sent back, then you are not for borders and should stop lying.

Since the Bible does not say you must let any and all people into your country as they please, the people who favor this have to come up with something else and it usually comes down to only two or three verses that they repeatedly refer to. I cannot resist pointing out that there are more verses in the Bible that command people to obey kings and princes but I shall try to stay focused here. One of the most cited comes from very, very far back in the Bible, indeed almost to the book of Genesis which, by the way, pretty much all of these people believe to be completely fictions but I am speaking of Exodus 22:21 which says, “You shall not wrong a stranger (aka foreigner) or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” That is pretty simple, calling to mind the trials the Jews suffered in Egypt, it says do not treat others the way that you were treated. Do not oppress foreigners. The Jews, of course, were enslaved by the Egyptians and I don’t think anyone is arguing for the enslavement of foreigners. They want to keep the strangers out which, if they do, will certainly make it impossible to oppress them.

Everyone, presumably, knows the story of the Jews being in Egypt. The Patriarch Joseph became prime minister to the Pharaoh of Egypt and when famine struck the Jews, he gave them sanctuary in Egypt. After he died, the Jews were enslaved, Moses came and told the Pharaoh to ‘let my people go’ and God sent increasingly horrible plagues on the Egyptians until they finally did that and let the Jews go. As soon as they got the chance, all the Jews left, even digging up the bones of Joseph and carrying him away with them as well. The bottom line is, as soon as they were able, they left Egypt to go to their own country which is exactly what people who oppose open borders want too! They want these people to go back to their own countries. However, aside from the history lesson, if anyone quotes this verse, you might also put it in context for them by quoting the verse which immediately precedes it, Exodus 22:20 which says, “He who sacrifices to any god, other than to the LORD alone, shall be utterly destroyed”. Now, are most of these migrants Christians? No. Are they even Jews like the people in Exodus? No. You might ask the people who think Exodus 22:20 means to let anyone into your country if they then favor utterly destroying any of them who are not Christians.

The idea that the Old Testament commands mixing it up, promotes diversity or multiculturalism is so blatantly wrong as to be totally absurd. In speaking of foreigners in the “Promised Land” the people are told in Deuteronomy 7:3-4, “Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you.” You might also look at Joshua 23: 11-13, “So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the LORD your God. For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the LORD your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you.” This is not exactly a call for inclusion and acceptance and there are numerous other verses that say the same thing.

Another passage, sometimes cited, is Leviticus 19:33 which says, “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.” For context, the following verse says to love the stranger as yourself and calls to mind the exile in Egypt just as the passage from Exodus did. As with the first verse addressed, this one is basically the same. It does not say to let all foreigners come to your land, it does not say to give them your land, it simply says not to oppress them and this is very interesting for the ‘open borders’ crowd to cite today. I should hope no one would be in favor of oppressing anyone but it is the people who are pro-open borders who are usually the ones who say that White/Western/European people are inherently oppressive which then begs the question of why they want more people to come in to be oppressed? I also cannot refrain from pointing out, to all of these recent, Bible-quoting leftists, that the same people here being told not to oppress the foreigners are also people for whom slavery was okay. Indeed, in the chapter preceding that of the first verse we looked at, which would be Exodus chapter 21, it starts with regulations regarding the treatment of slaves. It is also worth pointing out considering the topic under discussion that what is detailed there is the treatment of Jewish slaves owned by other Jews as foreign slaves were treated differently from Jewish slaves.

I point this out simply to show that, very obviously, the Old Testament did not regard all peoples the same or interchangeable and also to point out how, certainly when it comes to things like regulations regarding slavery or animal sacrifice, we are assured that us modern folk are not bound to obey all these regulations. So, when these irritating things called facts are brought up, if the exchange carries on this long, the open-borders advocate will then shift to the New Testament if they had not started out there with a verse that is, if anything, even easier to toss around in any and all circumstances. It will usually be a verse such as or similar to Matthew 22:39 which says, “And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself”. This is really a fun one to get in to as, again, the person quoting it at you is inferring meaning into it which it does not actually say and has no idea of the context in which the verse is given because they don’t actually read the Bible.

You will notice that this, the second-to-greatest commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself does not say anything about letting throngs of foreign people who worship a different god into your country and giving them welfare payments, housing and medical care. It says to love your neighbor and loving your neighbor is free. We then might ask, as someone did to Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” Before looking at the answer Jesus gave, we should have some context because you really need to do that every time, it is very easy to pluck verses out of context to give people a false impression. Notice that in Matthew 19:19 the command to love your neighbor comes immediately after the command to honor your father and mother, which is to say your ancestors, your blood. Then, for even greater context, look back to the Old Testament to Leviticus 19:18 which says, very similarly, “You shall not take revenge nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD”. Your neighbor was your people, after your family, your wider family, your race or your nation, in this case the Jews were being told not to hold hatred against other Jews. The command from Leviticus to love your neighbor was literally a command to observe what the scholarly types call “in group preference”, the exact opposite of viewing all people as being the same and interchangeable.

The response Jesus gave was the familiar story I am sure everyone knows about “the Good Samaritan”. Jesus was speaking to a predominately Jewish audience and the Samaritans were probably the one group of people the Jews despised more than any other. They were effectively a schismatic sect of Judaism, usually described as being mixed race though this may mean mixed-ethnicity but it doesn’t really matter. The point is, Jesus was talking about a people who professed the same religion as the Jews but who were traditionally hated and shunned by the orthodox Jews. As the story goes, a presumably Jewish man was robbed and left half-dead by the side of the road. His fellow Jews walked by without helping but a Samaritan saw him and immediately stopped to help and was extremely generous to the injured man. Jesus then asked which had shown himself to be a good neighbor and the obvious conclusion is that it was the Samaritan. He saw someone who had been injured and helped him which, contrary to the way most twist this story, makes the definition of “neighbor” even more exclusive rather than inclusive, it is something determined by how you behave.

One might also point out that the Samaritan did not take the injured Jew home with him, tossing out his youngest child to give the man a place to stay and so on. The exact words of Jesus in this story is to help someone who has been attacked in your path, not to go out into the world in search of people who have it worse off than you and bring them home. This was effectively a lesson about reciprocity, which is the part everyone gets wrong because they invariably reverse the story. It was about who the neighbor is and the point was that the neighbor is the one who helped the injured man, the Samaritan proved himself to be a good neighbor by his deeds. This, in context with what Jesus had first said which prompted this question comes down to this: He said to love your neighbor as yourself and when asked who your neighbor is, the answer is a person who helps you when you have been attacked. The Samaritan did not help a man who had ruined his own life, he didn’t take the man home with him, he effectively rendered first aid (to a schismatic of his own religion). It is really not a complicated story and is rather simple. It also has more to do with mugging than with migration.

In Like 9:51-56 we see that Jesus sent two of His apostles ahead of him, while on His way to Jerusalem, to make preparations for a place to stay in a Samaritan village. The Samaritans, hearing that they were headed for the ‘rival’ Temple in Jerusalem, refused to welcome them and when the apostles asked if Jesus might not rain down some fire and brimstone on the Samaritans for refusing to receive them, Jesus said no and scolded them for suggesting such a thing. That is worth keeping in mind because, if one is a Christian, commanded to love everyone, the greatest act of love for a Christian is to save the souls of others from eternal agony by spreading the Gospel to them. At this point in human history, most of the world is probably aware of Christianity and the story of the Gospels. Most of those flooding into Europe certainly know about it but believe it to be wrong, adhering to the Islamic religion which claims to be the final word. So, keeping that in mind, we can see from the reaction of Jesus that raining down Hellfire missiles on these people’s villages would not be the Christian thing to do but we are also told very clearly how to deal with such people and it is not letting them take up residence in your country in massive numbers.

In one of the shortest books of the Bible we see very clearly how a Christian is to handle those who have rejected Christianity. 2 John verse 10 says, “If anyone comes to you bringing a different doctrine, you must not receive him in your house or even give him a greeting. To greet him would make you a partner in his wicked work.” That is when they come to you but the same holds if you go to them as Matthew 10:14 says, “And if anyone will not welcome you or heed your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town” or in other words, have nothing to do with such people. Do not harm, do not oppress, simply avoid. Do not associate with them and do not allow them into your home. Mark 6:11, Luke 10:11 and Acts 13:51 all say the same thing just in case anyone thinks I might be taking things out of context.

The final point that I think needs to be made, which all of this tends to broadly coincide with, is the notion that Christianity should not even acknowledge nationality but should instead embrace the revolutionary “brotherhood of man” type concept. According to this way of thinking, everyone is your neighbor and even your brother or sister. This is not only wrong, this is anti-Christian. The fundamental mistake that well-meaning people make in parroting this line is to confuse the flock with the faith. Christianity is for all people and does not change according to time, place or nationality. That is not the same as saying these distinctions do not exist and, again, the Bible actually makes clear that the exact opposite is true. How many times does the Bible reiterate the commandment to “Honor your father and mother” to receive God’s blessing? This, particularly in the Old Testament days when people lived much longer, is a command to honor *you* ancestors who are, obviously, not going to be the same as those of everyone else. The numerous genealogical tables found throughout the Bible also attest to the importance of your blood ties, your ancestry, the history and bonds of your family and your people.

Isaiah 51:1 says, “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug.” In other words, honor your heritage, know the history, customs and traditions of your people, your ancestors. Nor can this be confined to the Old Testament as I Timothy 5:8 says, “If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” This means you take care of your own first, your own family and your own people are your first priority before helping others. This means that the “Good Samaritan” would not have been good if he had left his fellow Samaritans to starve so he could help the Jew on the side of the road. Although when it comes to the “Migrant Crisis” the focus is on Europe, this part is also very demonstrative for the United States and the influx from Latin America, all of which is Christian and has been for longer than North America. You take care of your own and it is precisely because Christianity is the same for all people in all places, that Christian mercy stuff does not just apply to Americans but applies to everyone south of the border too. You take care of your own, you do not shuttle them along for someone else to deal with for you.

However, on this issue the one verse that the “brotherhood of man” types invariably bring up is the line from Galatians 3:28 which says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” and, I must say, when it gets to this point you can start planning your victory dance because you are about to win the argument. This verse does not mean that all of these things are the same but that *Christ is the same* for all of them. There is not one Jesus for Swedes and another Jesus for Somalis, there is only Jesus. This is why, in Acts chapter 15, St Peter said that Christianity is not only for the Jews but for the Greeks and Romans as well and that they did not have to be circumcised. This is why Christians do not keep kosher, because such was not their custom, they did not have to become Jews in order to be Christians. Jesus is the same for all people everywhere but people are different and they do not have to all be made the same. Obviously, there were differences between Jews and Greeks as this shows, just as the distinctions between slave and free or male and female no longer ceased to exist. St Paul was approached by a runaway slave and he sent him back to his master, women were told to keep their heads covered in church and so on, there are numerous other verses showing that Christianity did not mean that men and women or different nationalities were all interchangeable but that the faith was the same and the need for the faith was the same for all people everywhere.

This is why, as with Christianity as I suppose it would be with anything else, you must take the entirety of it and not hand pick the bits out that please you. All people need salvation and that salvation is open to all but that does not change the fact that your family and then your people are your first priority. This goes back, again, to the “good neighbor” point. You cannot be a good Christian or a good neighbor on behalf of someone else. To say you will accept the responsibility of dealing with someone else’s problems is only to encourage them to carry on being a bad neighbor or a bad Christian or no Christian at all. Remember that Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart and then, secondarily, to love your neighbor *as yourself*. This means that loving your neighbor in the Christian context is predicated on loving yourself first and if you are displacing your own people for another, you obviously do not love yourself and are, therefore, incapable of loving your neighbor!

The Bible clearly does not teach that all the people in the world are the same and interchangeable. Far from that, the Bible teaches people to have “in group preference”. It says to honor *your* forebears, take care of *your* own family and *your* own people before taking care of anyone else, it says that the teachings of Christ are for all people and not for some people to observe on behalf of other people. It says that the greatest thing you can do is save others from eternal damnation but if people refuse that gift, you are to have nothing to do with them and not even wish them well as you would be wishing them well on a destructive path. For a Christian country such as Poland being asked to take in Muslim migrants, even being scolded by the Catholic hierarchy for being reluctant to do so, the simple fact is that the Bible says not to welcome such people at all, not into your country, not even into your home. There are many *extremely* wealthy Muslim countries which could be taking care of their own just as there are many countries in between Somalia and Sweden for neighborliness to apply. The point about Christianity and Christian morals being the same for everyone means that you take care of yours and that everyone else does the same. You cannot be a good neighbor *for* someone else and taking care of others before you have taken care of your own is specifically anti-Christian. As with so many things these days, actual Christianity is the complete opposite of what so many so-called Christian leaders say that it is.