Today,
Trump is set to visit The Department of Homeland Security. At the moment, most
people are focused on what it is he was so adamant about during his campaign,
the building of the wall. However, this will not be his only agenda, as he
signs several more executive orders during his visit today. One additional
promise from his campaign may come to be today: the
complete shut down of accepting Muslim refugees into the United States.
If
it is happening today, there is not much we can do to either promote or hinder
this agenda. So, we might as well spend some time in reflection. What might it
mean to follow through with this ban? What follows now is a series of
considerations. I will not be solving the issue, nor do I claim to be doing so.
In this regard, may this be a meditation, not an argument.
First,
let’s consider the major factor that causes most advocates to support this
agenda. We may call it xenophobia, Islamiphobia, racism, or the like, but the
truth is that, while these might be, for some, the means to fear, it is not
simple bigotry that motivates people. Indeed, it is fear, and we cannot pretend
that there are not some legitimate reasons for fearing the presence of more
Islamic peoples in our nation. Terrorism is a real threat, as we well know from
our own recent history and from current European events, but is it such a
threat that we are warranted in our shutting out countless innocents, because
of the threat that some individuals with ill intent might sneak in with these
innocents.
This
might seem to move off point a bit, but, since it is inevitably where the
discussion leads, we must face how radical Islam came to be, because some will
say, “Well, it is not our fault radicals exist, and while I feel sorry for the
people in areas they already infect, we cannot allow them to infect the U.S. This
has nothing to do with the U.S., we are a Christian nation, and, since these
people are Muslims, they are part of the problem, since it is Islam that
creates radical Islam.”
Is
this a fair and accurate consideration?
It
is true: We make a mistake when we assume radical Islam is not related to
religion, as if it is only a political movement using Islam as an excuse to
commit its atrocities. Islam’s eschatology is intrinsically tied to political
power. There is no doubt that many of Islam believe that the Islamic world must
take over the entire globe, politically, for their desired end to take place.
Whether this should happen through terrorism, war, or diplomacy is up for
debate within the Islamic world:
The reality is that the
Islamic State is Islamic. Very
Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely
from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the
religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even
learned interpretations of Islam.
Virtually every major
decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in
its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates,
stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the
prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the
Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a
religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be
combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back
foolish schemes to counter it.[1]
Likewise,
we make a mistake when we assume radical Islam is not related to political
unrest, much caused by the United States (as well as other Western powers)
imperial presence in the Middle East. Our interventions have caused upheaval in
the region over and again, one example being our covert actions in Iran, which
eventually helped spark the rise of the Shia Islamic Republic and thorn in our
side Iran has recently come to be:
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency coined a term for
it: Blowback. The explosive boomerang that governments throw when, either by
propaganda or through covert military operations, they deliberately stoke the
flames of ethnic, religious or nationalist rivalries for political gain.
Faustian monsters are created who then threaten to overwhelm the very
governments that gave them birth. Blowback was first used by the CIA to
describe unintended consequences of their covert activities in Iran in 1954.
The agency warned of the possible repercussions of the coup d’état it had
engineered to overthrow the elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq.[2]
Moreover, when we began to support
unrest in Afghanistan to frustrate the Russians, we caused much fear in the
region, and refugees began to flee the region. Just like today, they were
gathered in large camps away from their homeland, where they were left to their
own devices. Just like the current situation in Greece, the refugees grew
increasingly disgruntled, as no one came to their rescue. It was this unrest
that radicals used to recruit once normal Muslims to their cause. At the same
time, the U.S. was funding and arming these radicals, creating movements that
still exist today.
Yes, radical Islam is an Islamic problem,
created, in part, by Islamic people, but it is also a U.S. problem. If we are
really worried about the rise of radical Islam, perhaps we should consider how
not accepting refugees create hotbeds, like the ones in Greece at the moment.
These hotbeds of unrest and desperation are perfect harvesting fields for the
radical movements like Isis. By bringing in the innocent, we protect them from
desperation, which leads to radicalization, and, in turn, protect the
global community, as well as the U.S., from avoidable, rapid growth of
radicalization.
Now that we get the practical out of
the way (practical from human, political perspective), let’s talk about the
sacred, sanctified approach (what is practical from a divine perspective). Without considering the overwhelming
biblical data, which calls us to care for the refugee, consider this:
As Christians, we must think very
carefully about how we treat the refugees for the sake of our witness and
mission. Yes, we must be prudent, but we cannot let fear control our treatment
of those in need. A lesson from Christianity’s past here in the U.S. might help
us to think more clearly about our situation today. It is not a perfect
analogy, since our approaches are different in each case (the first case being
direct contact, the second being complete avoidance), but they come together in
their motivation and (possible) consequence:
For many years now, I have been traveling
to and from the Navajo Nation to share the love of Jesus Christ, and, to be
quite honest, there is a part of me that feels like a fool every time I go,
because I know the sad history of the tradition I carry on of "sharing the
Gospel" with the Native Americans. Our nation, wanting to control the
situation with the Native peoples we feared, justified its actions by
proclaiming the Native as "dangerous." So, the white man slaughtered
thousands. Who were the dangerous ones again? After we had broken the backs of
these tribes, we placed them on reservations and Christian boarding schools
were then established.
"In the name of Jesus", it
was these schools' job to kill the culture of the people. The tribal children
would be punished if they did not comply. They were not allowed to speak their
language. They were not allowed to see their parents for many months at a time.
If they tried to escape they would be hobbled. And all of this was done by
Christians "sharing the Gospel."
Generations later, I have been called
in the name of Jesus to share His love with the Navajo, and each time I am out
there I have to face the consequences of what my brothers and sisters in Christ
did many years ago in the name of fear. I have to see the hurt still in many of these precious
peoples' eyes. I have to remind myself each time that what sets me apart is
that I'm not out there to take anything but to give my all. I am out there
simply to love.
The Christian community was too
willing to be motivated by fear of “the other” to treat them like human beings.
We cannot do the same today to the innocent among the Islamic nations fleeing
danger. Christians cannot allow fear to motivate how we treat “the other” now,
lest we damage our relationship with these peoples for generations to come. If
we refuse them rescue in their time of need now, (what else are Christians here in times such as these than offering such hope) how will we ever hope they
will trust us in the future, when we finally realize they deserve love and the good news of the Kingdom as well? What if, wanting to share the good news with
Muslims, today and in the future, our missionaries find that it is they who are
really feared, because the Muslim knows we have considered them as we do wild
animals, less than human? What we are willing to do to humans we devalue is
clear, and, knowing this, those we mistreat may now and forever refuse us
access to their hearts.
I hope I never do anything in this life
to make the work of the church harder for the generations to come. We cannot
allow history to repeat itself over and over again. We must lay down our lives
as Christ. This is the ultimate principle as we see in Acts 5:17-42. When there
is a choice between proclaiming the love of Christ with great danger of losing our
lives or avoiding the situation altogether, we must proclaim the good news. Allowing fear to motivate us has no
place. National protection is an added layer to the issue for sure, but
supporting the total ban of Muslims, which inevitably leads to the ignoring of
the innocent refugee God cares so much about, is, in my mind, equally dangerous.
Again, we have to be smart about this,
but we cannot simply use our fear to dismiss the oppressed for whom we are
called to care.
We must love, because he first loved
us.
"But the lawyer wanted to justify
himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Luke 10:29
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