Are We Our Brother’s Keeper: Christian Refugees

 

A Christian friend wants to help the Middle East refugees but stated emphatically that he doesn't want to help just Christian refugees. While this is commendable, it also might represent the fear that we are seen to favor Christians and are, therefore, biased.

However, his concern is biblically extreme. While we are to express love to all people, the priority is upon “the family of believers”:

• Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Galatians 6:10 )

This truth might make us feel uncomfortable, but it is thoroughly biblical, and perhaps even our highest expression of love towards the rest of the world.

Biblically, there is nothing wrong with the idea that charity begins at home. Jesus told a parable demonstrating that, when we give to our brethren, it is the same as giving to Him:

• “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats… Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?... When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:32, 34-37, 39-40)

What we do for the brethren, we do for Jesus Himself. These should occupy a special place in our thinking and doing:

• If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? (1 John 3:17)

Likewise, we have a greater debt of responsibility to our immediate families:

• Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8)

There is nothing illegitimate about love starting at the center of our family – both our faith and biological families – and radiating out from there:

• Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.... to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Ephesians 5:25, 27-28) 

Love has to begin at home with our wife and not with our neighbor's wife. Love is not to be applied to everyone indiscriminately. Instead, according to the biblical model, love must emanate out from the marriage to the children and then to the community. From this perspective, we understand that the best way to love our children is to first love our wives. And the best way to love our communities is through our loving family.

If we love our neighbor but fail to love our wives and children, we show that our love is hypocritical. This family concept also extends to the brethren, the household of faith, our persecuted brethren.

How does love for our suffering brethren translate into love for the world? It does so in many ways. Jesus highlighted one of them:

• “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35 ) 

When we love the brethren, we demonstrate the reality of the Christian faith in very tangible ways. Jesus even prayed about this to the Father:

• “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

This is not optional! Meanwhile, the world is pointing to the silence of the churches. Instead, when one suffers, we should also mourn with them. Perhaps the best way we can love the world is by showing them the reality of our Savior through the love and concern we demonstrate for one another, which expresses our unity in Christ.

While we don’t disparage the rescuing of Muslim refugees, there doesn’t seem to be a nation in the world (perhaps with the exception of Poland) which is trying to rescue Christians from their appalling circumstances. Meanwhile, they are suffering worse than others and have nowhere to go.

Several years ago in The Global War on Christians, CNN writer John L. Allen Jr. gave us some idea of the extensiveness of Christian persecution:

• From Iraq and Egypt to Sudan and Nigeria, from Indonesia to the Indian subcontinent, Christians in the early twenty-first century are the world’s most persecuted religious group. According to the secular International Society for Human Rights, 80 percent of violations of religious freedom in the world today are directed against Christians.

• The Open Doors Estimate, based on decades of tracking the realities of persecution in some of the darkest corners of the earth, is that roughly one hundred million Christians today suffer interrogation, arrest, and even death for their faith, with the bulk located in Asia and the Middle East. The overall total makes Christians the most at-risk group for violations of religious freedom. (37)

Since then, it has only gotten worse! Meanwhile, there are many Muslim nations that could take in Muslim refugees. Instead, the West is taking them in, neglecting the Christian refugees who are far more likely to make a positive adjustment to the West.

Please, join me in prayer - you and your church - for our persecuted brethren. Ask Him how we can help. Please also encourage your pastor to involve your church in this effort, organizing prayer chains, speaking from the pulpit, and giving material support to those facing death. We cannot ignore these horrors. We cannot turn our backs:

• Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? (Proverbs 24:11-12)

The Offensive “Us - Them” Distinction

The central message of the Gospel is that we are sinners who must be forgiven and “born again” from above. Those who are born again become “new creations,” have passed from death into life, and are no longer of this world (John 15-17). This means that we are different from others. We are God’s redeemed – the Body of Christ – and have become “one with Him in Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17).

Understandably, the Gospel is offensive. It claims that Christians are a distinct and special people, but this is the Gospel, and any attempt to modify this teaching undermines the Gospel. However, many who call themselves Postmodern or Progressive “Christians” have rejected this critical distinction.

For example, a manager of a “Christian” Evolutionist Facebook group wrote:

• This group is unusual because we can all come together without having an us-them mentality. We're proud of that.

For Mystics, Emergents, Progressives, and “Christian” Evolutionists, this distinction is offensive. It separates people. It seems that, for them, removing such distinctions is to make a more peaceful world. However, for the Christian, peace is a matter of loving others despite the unavoidable distinctions. (Somehow, my wife and I are able to love each other despite our many differences!)

I responded:

• What then do you make of the many verses that claim a sharp distinction between believers and those who aren't, for instance 2 Corinthians 6:14-16: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.”

What a set of politically incorrect verses! Of course, the world regards such beliefs as the height of arrogance and not the grace of God.

I did not receive a response – not from anyone. Perhaps, though, it might make them wonder whether they can consistently call themselves “Christian.” Of course, they hate me, as Jesus had promised (John 15:18-20). But I ask myself, “How can I best love them? Through pleasantries or prophetic warnings? Through enabling them to have a false sense of security or through exposing them to the painful, revealing light?

There is a radical distinction between the children of the light - those who come to the light - and the children of darkness, who detest the light and will avoid it at all costs, even by destroying the lamps of that light (John 16:1-3).

The Apostle Paul put it this way:

• For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. (2 Cor. 2:15-16)

Consequently, for some, the light carries a nauseating stench of death. However, this evil response often disguises itself in the garments of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:14-15).

One Progressive “Christian” Facebook group rejected my concern for our persecuted Christian brethren:

• We are called to love all people, not just Christians!

This reminded me of the synagogue ruler who had criticized Jesus because He had healed on the Sabbath rather than on one of the six other days (Luke 13). Of course, he justified his criticism by an appeal to the Law of Moses, making his evil sound righteous.

Yes, we are called to love all, but sincere love must begin with our own household:

• Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Gal. 6:10)

Why? This is the best way to love the world! How do we love our children? By starting with loving our wives! This is entirely consistent with Jesus’ prayer:

• “My prayer is… that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

Loving the brethren is our primary vocation! Sadly, the church is plagued with all kinds of problems. Nevertheless, the greatest gift we can give others is to show them the reality of Jesus. We are to do this by loving our brethren before anyone else! Our mandate is to maintain the unity of Christ’s Church (Eph. 4:1-5) not the non-existent “unity” of all humanity!

Passivity, Quietism, and the Church’s Non-Response to Mounting Injustice

Christians are very divided regarding our response to injustice, especially the mounting injustices directed towards Christians and the church. Yes, we generally agree that we should love and pray for our enemies. We even agree that we should rejoice in the midst of loss and hardship, as Jesus taught:

• Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets. (Luke 6:22-23)

However, does rejoicing preclude active involvement? We generally would say that it shouldn’t. We regret the fact that the church became largely quiescent under Hitler and Jim Crow, and boast that, if we had been there, we would have been involved.

However, there seems to be a disconnect when the injustice occurs to our fellow brethren in Christ. One pastor wrote to explain why he wasn’t going to march with other churches protesting their unjust and discriminatory expulsion from the NYC public schools where they had been renting space on Sunday mornings. He claimed that we are to rejoice when we are persecuted. Although this is true, the pastor also claimed that rejoicing precluded “fighting for one’s rights”:

• Unfortunately, one cannot rejoice at persecution while fighting for one’s rights in persecution. The two cannot go together, even if one mixes one’s protest with prayer.

However, the Bible doesn’t seem to separate rejoicing from protesting. Take the example of Paul and Silas who had been imprisoned at Philippi for preaching the Gospel:

• About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. (Acts 16: 25)

As a result, a powerful earthquake sprang open all of the prison doors. The jail-keeper, thinking he had lost his prisoners, was about to kill himself. Paul intervened and the jailer received Christ. However, this isn’t the end of the story. Officers subsequently informed them that they were officially released and that they were to leave. Paul surely rejoiced at this, but this didn’t prevent him from exposing the injustice:

• But Paul said to the officers: "They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out." (Acts 16:37)

Rejoicing and protesting can coexist! They did in the mind of Christ. Although He willingly went to His execution, this didn’t prevent Him from protesting the injustice:

• Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour--when darkness reigns." (Luke 22:52-53)

Here is my letter to the pastor:

I want to take issue with your position to not march on behalf of the churches now being coerced to leave the NYC schools.

While I agree with you that we should rejoice in all circumstances, including this discriminatory action, I don’t think that rejoicing precludes either being prophetic by denouncing the injustice or by taking legal action.

However, you believe that there is only “one appropriate response,” and that rejoicing does preclude legal action. Therefore, you wrote:

• Unfortunately, one cannot rejoice at persecution while fighting for one’s rights in persecution. The two cannot go together…

Instead, I think that they must go together. We might rejoice in the midst of our health problems, but this shouldn’t keep us from going to the doctor. We might rejoice in the midst of seeing our brother’s home in flames – we know that the Lord will work even this for good - but this shouldn’t prevent us from helping him put out the fire.

Even if you feel no overriding concern or justification to preserve your place in the NYC school, your brethren do. And we are responsible for them:

• Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. (James 4:17)

I think that today many Christians are afraid of appearing chauvinistic – a focus on me and mine - in their concern for their brethren. However, it seems that this is the very posture that Jesus would have us take:

• "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35)

When the brethren loose their jobs, buildings and even lives to discrimination, we have a responsibility to combat the injustice and to stand beside them, even in protest, even as we encourage them to rejoice in our Lord. If we are neglectful of this central responsibility, the world will not see our mutual love and will be deprived of the witness of our oneness. They will conclude, “We do not see their love for one another. Christ therefore seems irrelevant to them.”

I don’t think that our passivity will win hearts. During my brief period as a teacher in a public school, I too thought that Jesus had been teaching passivity – to turn the other cheek at the misbehavior of the students. This only won me the deserved contempt of the teachers. They didn’t find anything virtuous in passivity but rather, a clear display of folly. Instead of bringing glory to my Lord, I had briefly demonstrated that the teachings of Jesus (wrongly understood) had no place in the real world.

Instead, I have found that the teachings of the Bible display great wisdom (Deut. 4:6-8) that will impress others with the Light of wisdom. If we simply rejoice while we allow our homes to burn and our brethren to be murdered, we will only earn scorn of others. However, if we show them another way (and I think that it’s the Biblical way) of rejoicing in the confidence of our Lord, as we proceed in wisdom, people may be drawn to this wisdom.

You admit that the children of these schools will suffer loss as the churches are banished from their midst. Well, aren’t these children worth our efforts to stand our ground? Mustn’t we plead for them? Mustn’t we expose the works of darkness (Eph. 5:11)?

Please forgive my unsolicited advice. I think that we are entering increasingly troubled times – times through which the brethren must stand together in worship but also in word and in deed. I pray that you will reconsider.