White evangelicals are least likely to say U.S. should accept refugees: How would Jesus respond?

A Pew Research Center survey found that only 25% of white evangelicals say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees.
Meanwhile, people with no religious affiliation were most likely to say the U.S. does have that responsibility.
The results show the divide between the principles and practices of right-wing Christians in the U.S.

It might seem like non-religious people would be most likely to say the U.S. doesn't have a responsibility to accept refugees. After all, nonbelievers don't follow a unified doctrine that explicitly tells followers to offer love, shelter and compassion to foreigners — you know, like Christians do. For example, the Bible states:

Leviticus 19:34 — "The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the foreigner as yourself, for you were foreign in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."

Matthew 25:35 — "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me."

Jeremiah 22:3 — "Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place."

Exodus 22:21 — "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt."

It's not difficult to decipher the main moral message here: Be kind to foreigners. But that directive seems to be lost or ignored by a particular group of modern American Christians: white evangelicals.

A Pew Research Center survey found that only 25 percent of white evangelicals in the U.S. said that the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees into the country. The center first published the study last year, but recently tweeted a breakdown showing how answers vary along lines of race, age, education and religion.

"By more than two-to-one (68% to 25%), white evangelical Protestants say the U.S. does not have a responsibility to accept refugees," the center wrote. "Other religious groups are more likely to say the U.S. does have this responsibility. And opinions among religiously unaffiliated adults are nearly the reverse of those of white evangelical Protestants: 65% say the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees into the country, while just 31% say it does not."

Do these sentiments help explain support for recent anti-refugee policies in the U.S.? Or are these views, in some way, a product of the Trump Administration's strategy of weaponizing the Bible and Christianity to push policy — such as when former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders "appeared to use Romans 13 — a verse in which the Apostle Paul cautions an early Christian group against rising up against the Roman Empire — to argue that the Trump administration has the biblical authority to make its own rules, and that Christians have a duty to submit to them," as Vox notes?

It's hard to say which came first. After all, white evangelicals — many of them, at least — have a history of racism and xenophobia. But the Trump presidency is notable for receiving such strong support from white evangelicals and, more broadly, Christian nationalists. That support was undoubtedly pushed along by prominent evangelical leaders with ties to the president.

For example, take Paula White — President Donald Trump's spiritual adviser and popular prosperity gospel preacher. Last year, White told the Christian Broadcasting Network that the government had "amazing" detention camps in which migrant children who'd been separated from their families were being held. She also tried to use the Bible to justify anti-immigration policies.

"I think so many people have taken biblical scriptures out of context on this, to say stuff like, 'Well, Jesus was a refugee,'" White told the network, adding: "Yes, [Jesus] did live in Egypt for three-and-a-half years. But it was not illegal. If He had broken the law then He would have been sinful and He would not have been our Messiah."

(To sum up her logic: Breaking the law is a sin, because the law is always right. Therefore, to be Christ-like, we should always follow the orders of the government, no matter what the order, no matter the president. Of course, this viewpoint is by no means endorsed by mainstream Christians, and it sounds far more totalitarian than American. After all, the U.S. would've never been founded if colonists hadn't repeatedly broken British law. Does that mean the U.S. was founded on a sin?)

In any case, examples like this show how some evangelical leaders combine spurious logic with half-baked biblical notions to obfuscate a very simple message the Bible tells us: Be kind to foreigners. Of course, this doesn't mean Christians are hypocrites unless they support a radical open-borders policy. But rather, it shows how some groups of right-wing Christians have for decades been drifting away from their source text — so far away that sometimes they seem completely unmoored to it.

Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. Those who were foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom delayed, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, "Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!" Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out." But the wise answered, saying, "What if there isn't enough for us and you? You go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves." While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins also came, saying, "Lord, Lord, open to us." But he answered, "Most certainly I tell you, I don't know you." Watch therefore, for you don't know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.

— Matthew 25:1-13, World English Bible

I don’t claim to have all the answers to the problem of refugees, but since the author quotes scripture to insinuate that White evangelicals are hypocrites for not following the teachings of the Bible, Let’s ask ourselves some relevant questions from the verses the author quotes :

1. Leviticus 19:34 — “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the foreigner as yourself, for you were foreign in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

Notice the phrase “as the citizen among you.” What does it mean?

If someone from a pagan nation came to Israel ( e.g. Ruth or Rahab ), is Israel supposed to assimilate to the pagan’s religion and culture or is the pagan supposed to assimilate to the culture, morality and God of Israel?

Next question -— how many percent of refugees from places like Syria or Somalia are assimilating to American culture instead of retaining their own Muslim culture? ( the culture they are so desperate to escape from). Replace the word “American” with “German” or “French” or “Asutralian” and the question remains the same.

2. Matthew 25:35 — “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Suppose we establish a safe zone IN SYRIA for instance, and send troops to protect those fleeing the civil war there, feed them, house them and clothe them, instead of encouraging them to treck thousands of dangerous miles to come to the west. How is this violating the teachings of Jesus?

3. Jeremiah 22:3 — “Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.”

Notice the word “Do Justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who was robbed”

Let’s talk about Syria again. How do you “deliver then from the hand of the oppressor”?

There are two oppressors in this case — on the one hand, we have Bashar Al Assad, on the other hand we have the opposing Syrian Front ( of which many ISIS terrorists are embedded ).

What to do to deliver them from these oppressors and do justice and righteousness?

Do we protect them from Assad’s chemical weapons? Do we kill the ISIS terrorists?

Heck, the USA is doing both ( Trump bombed the airports and military runways of Syria that was delivering the chemical weapons, all these against Putin’s warnings ). The USA just sent troops to help the Syrians and the Kurds decimate ISIS, and I don’t see White Evangelicals opposing these military interventions.

It’s easy to quote a Bible verse, but to PUT IT IN PRACTICE requires wisdom.

4. Exodus 22:21 — “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

What does oppress a resident alien mean?

Is there a case where some Evangelical oppressed a RESIDENT alien as in stealing his things, or preventing him from being housed, clothed and fed? If ANYONE, Christian or not did this in the USA, he would be punished
by our laws.

The author quotes the Bible but does not cite examples

Finally, here is a question we should all ask -— when aliens and strangers come to Israel, is it the expectation that the alien bring with him his culture and worship of his own pagan god? Or is it the
expectation that the alien assimilate and become a worshipper of the true God of Israel?

The answer lies in both the lives of Rahab and Ruth.

Question -— Are refugee Muslims who come to the USA or Europe assimilating? Or are they bringing their culture with them? And how compatible is this culture with the Judaeo-Christian culture of the USA and what used to be Europe?

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