Christian Love and the Refugee Problem

What is Christian love? Answering this question is essential to how we answer the question regarding our response to Islamic refugees. For one thing, according to Jesus, it is essential to forgive as we have been forgiven:

• For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)

Forgiveness is not optional. It is integral to the Gospel itself. Love too isn’t an option:

• Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. (Romans 12:14-19)

Consequently, on a personal level, we must be loving and forgiving even to members of ISIS. We cannot take revenge but must leave matters of justice to God and to the authorities He has ordained. This is how we “leave room for God’s wrath” and how He avenges:

• Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. (Romans 13:1-4)

It is God and His officials who punish, not us! Instead, this division of responsibilities frees us up to love, while we respect and uphold the system of justice that He has instituted.

God embodies both justice and love. Therefore, we cannot reject one in favor of the other. Besides, if we are assured that He will bring justice, we need not take the law into our own hands. Consequently, love and justice go together, like the two wings of a plane.

Although we are not the agents of justice, we have to affirm God priorities and uphold justice. Therefore, by approving of bringing jihadists into the country, we demonstrate an unbiblical disdain for justice and an aberrant understanding of love, one that rejects the need for justice, order, and social peace. It would be no different than springing murderers and rapists lose from prison, arguing that this is the duty of Christian love. Instead, this love upholds justice and seeks to protect the innocent against avowed murderers.

What does love look like? If your wife is raped, love does not take personal revenge but refers the matter to God’s authorities. And we must! Would it be right to subject our neighbor to this rapist? Of course not! Love would require that we bring criminal charges to stop the rampage. To not bring charges against the offender would bring disrepute upon Christianity and call into question our wisdom. Likewise, would it be wise to unleash jihadists on the innocent? Of course not!

Meanwhile, pray for the perpetrator and do good as you seek justice through the ordained channels. We support those who bring relief to refugees but not those who would unleash destruction by indiscriminately bringing them into our neighborhoods.

Also, the church should proactively love those Muslims who are already here. Why? Because such love in no way further endangers our neighbor! Instead, it works to bring repentance.

While we always forgive wrongdoing within our hearts, complete forgiveness and restoration can only be achieved through confession and repentance:

• So watch yourselves. "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." (Luke 17:3-4)

According to Jesus, complete forgiveness and restoration require repentance. We cannot disdain matters of righteousness and justice for the sake of love. Nor can we disdain love because of an overriding concern for justice. Instead, these are complementary rather than oppositional. Excommunication (judgment) might be required to bring about true restoration and love, as Paul suggested:

• …Some have rejected these [faith and obedience] and so have shipwrecked their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. (1 Timothy 1:19-20)

Excommunication can be an expression of love. Paul advocated this form of tough love in hope of restoring blasphemers. Love is not a matter of giving everyone what they want but what they need.

What does the Muslim refugee need? How do we best serve them? At the very least, the Muslim refugee should be required to renounce those Koranic passages about jihad, sharia law, wife-beating, and rape. Perhaps the most loving thing to do is to clearly demonstrate that many of the tenants of their religion will not be tolerated.

Meanwhile, those who are left of center are appalled at the suggestion of requiring the refugee to disavow murder and rape. Instead, they enable them to continue in moral and spiritual bondage.

In contrast, Christian love is not just a matter of soft-fuzzies – those things that feel good and buy a temporary peace. This love also requires firmness and discipline. God chastens those He loves:

• Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7-11) 

Christian love also requires correction, which is often painful. While Jesus reserved His harshest comments for the religious leadership – they required harsher words – He issued far more words of censure than praise for His own disciples:

• Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16:23) 

Because Jesus loved, He also warned about the impact of false teachings:

• "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:15-16; Mark 8:15; Rev. 2:14-15; 1 John 4:1)

We too must denounce dangerous false teachings. What did Christian love require during the rise of Hitler? At the least, warning! Had the West powers intervened earlier, they could have stopped the coming Nazi horrors and the destruction of many millions. Had the Church exposed Hitler’s false conception of Christianity, Hitler might have even been stopped earlier.

However, we shouldn’t be surprised to find that those Christians who did oppose Hitler would be labeled as “Communists,” “bigots,” “fundamentalists,” and “haters of the German people.”

I too am called a “hater” and a “bigot” because I oppose Islamic emigration to the West. However, what can we say to a young man who wants to join ISIS and defends his decision by citing verses of the Koran? Wouldn’t we then have to challenge the Koran? Wouldn’t Christian love require that we attempt to rescue the sinner from sin?

At this point, many would call me an “Islamophobe,” saying:

• You cannot criticize an entire religion because of some extremists. Muslims interpret the Koran differently, and you are no Islamic scholar! 

However, if I am to love this young man, I must address his Koranic rationale for wanting to join ISIS, despite the predictable leftist charges of “bigot.” However, Jesus, the epitome of love, was called worse.

What would be the influence of receiving many thousands of additional Islamic refugees? What would Christian love require of us? In the past, refugees to the USA were grateful to their host country and wanted to repay the debt. However, Muslims instead want to replace our government with sharia law, which subjugates all non-Muslims and condemns any criticism of Islam. There is no gratefulness, only demands!

If we have any doubts about this inevitable outcome, we need look no further than Western Europe, where Islam has already created their own “states” – no-go-zones - within their host countries. Meanwhile, rapes of the filthy infidels has exploded. What is our responsibility? To defend the innocent!

Both history and Koran testify that the Muslim rarely adopt our system of justice. In every country where there is a sizable Islamic minority, there is also a demand for Islamic law, often accompanied by violence.

If Christian love would have required the Church to warn against Hitler, it also requires us to warn against Islam. Why? It is Islam’s intention to dominate the world, violently if need be. The Koran reads:

• “Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah’s religion [Islam] reigns supreme, (Surah 8:37)

• “When the Sacred Months are over, kill those who ascribe partners [like Jesus] to God wheresoever ye find them; seize them, encompass them, and ambush them; then if they repent and observe prayer and pay the alms, let them go their way’.” (Surah 4:5)

• “…kill the disbelievers wherever we find them” (Koran 2:191) and “murder them and treat them harshly” (Koran 9:123), and “Strike off the heads of the disbelievers” (Surah 8:12, cp. 8:60).

Well, aren’t there also good Muslims? There are some, but can we identify them? Not without great difficulty! In light of their doctrine of Taqiyya, the Muslim is authorized to deceive the infidel, even with false demonstrations of friendship, in order to promote Islam.

What then does the West do with the many needy Muslim refugees crashing the boarders of Europe? Resist the influx! They are passing through the Islamic nation of Turkey. Why doesn’t Turkey grant them safe haven? Many are offering Turkey assistance. Why not Iran or Saudi Arabia? Why should this fall upon the West, which is held in the highest contempt by the Muslim?

Meanwhile, the West is turning away those most in need of a refuge, those who would be most grateful for one – the Christians! Middle East scholar, Raymond Ibrahim, writes about this horrible irony:

• Why are Christian minorities, who are the most to suffer from the chaos engulfing the Middle East, the least wanted in the United States?

• To the Obama administration, the only "real" refugees are those made so due to the actions of Bashar Assad. As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their religious identity by so-called "rebel" forces fighting Assad -- including the Islamic State -- their status as refugees is evidently considered dubious at best.

• The Obama administration never seems to miss an opportunity to display its bias for Muslims against Christians. The State Dept. is in the habit of inviting scores of Muslim representatives but denying visas to solitary Christian representatives. While habitually ignoring the slaughter of Christians at hands of Boko Haram, the administration called for the "human rights" of the jihadi murderers.

• In Islamic usage, the "cause of Allah" is synonymous with jihad to empower and enforce Allah's laws on earth, or Sharia. In this context, immigrating into Western lands is a win-win for Muslims: if they die in the process somehow, paradise is theirs; if they do not, the "locations and abundance" of the West are theirs.

• Muslims all around the U.S. are supporting the Islamic State and Muslim clerics are relying on the refugee influx to conquer Western nations, in the Islamic tradition of Hijrah, or jihad by emigration. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6564/obama-christian-refugees

What does Christian love require? How are we to love our neighbor? By bringing assassins or by bringing in those who will love their neighbor? Love should not enable violence and insurrection. Rather, love should favor the protection of the innocent.

Tim Keller and Making Mercy an Entitlement

In Generous Justice, Pastor Tim Keller fittingly argues that we have a biblical obligation to do justice on behalf of the poor (especially for all the vulnerable and needy). However, in making his case, he wrongly equates justice with mercy and argues that to do justice is to be merciful and to be merciful is to do justice:

• The mishpat, or justness, of a society, according to the Bible, is evaluated by how it treats these [marginalized and vulnerable] groups. Any neglect shown to the needs of the members of this quartet is not called merely at lack of mercy or charity, but a violation of justice, of mishpat. God loves and defends those with the least economic and social power, and so should we. This is what it means to “do justice.” (4-5)

While God requires both justice and mercy from us, these complementary principles are distinct. We are entitled to justice as a human right. Keller rightly cites the fact that there should be one law for both Israelites and alien. God required that both receive equal treatment under the law. The fact that all are created in the image of God makes justice an entitlement.

This might illustrate the distinction between mercy and justice. A judge, constrained by the law to treat everyone justly and equally, is also free to throw a party and discriminate. He could be merciful to some and not to others. He could invite some of the poor but not all of the poor. Those poor who were not invited could not protest, “You have violated our rights by not inviting us.” Instead, the judge is free to invite whomever he so pleases to invite. This is not a matter of justice but of mercy. Therefore, the poor cannot insist that the judge hadn’t been just with them, as he must be in the court.

Jesus told a parable about a landowner who had invited some unemployed to come work for Him. He promised them a denarius. However, later He hired others to work in His vineyard but for a much shorter time. However, at the end of the day, He gave all of His workers the same pay.

The ones who had worked the longest protested that this was not just. However, He explained that He had been just and had given them the exact amount that they had agreed on. Therefore, they had no reason to complain. However, there was also a matter of mercy:

• “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?  Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.  Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:13-15)

Justice and mercy are two different things. Justice gives a person what they deserve – what they are entitled to. Mercy gives a person what he is not entitled to!

This distinction should be obvious. Justice requires God to destroy all humanity, because this is what we deserve: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23). While justice requires death, mercy gives life. Because mercy is discriminate and not an entitlement, God is free to be merciful to whomever (Romans 9:18). There is nothing that compels Him to save all, but He must be just to all. However, no one can accuse Him of injustice, although they can charge that He hasn’t been even handed in giving mercy.

How then does Keller attempt to eliminate the distinction between mercy and justice, making them both an entitlement? He cites a number of verses where mercy and justice are mentioned side-by-side:

• “If I have denied justice [mishpat] to any of my servants, whether male or female, when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me?... If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless— but from my youth I reared them as a father would, and from my birth I guided the widow— if I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing, or the needy without garments, and their hearts did not bless me for warming them with the fleece from my sheep, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing that I had influence in court, then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint… then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.” (Job 31:13-28) 

Job correctly recognized a connection between justice and mercy, that both are mandated by God and complementary. However, mentioning justice and mercy together doesn’t mean that they are the same thing.

Keller recognizes that many will object to his thesis:

• Many readers might be asking at this point why we are calling private giving to the poor “justice”… In English, however, the word “charity” conveys a good but optional activity. Charity cannot be a requirement, for then it would not be charity. But this view does not fit in with the strength or balance of the Biblical teaching. (15). 

Keller is correct that charity, in general, is not optional. However, we are free to exercise discernment regarding to whom we will be charitable. Not so with justice! He therefore argues that:

• In Scripture, gifts to the poor are called “acts of righteousness,” as in Matthew 6:1-2.

Here, Keller attempts to equate mercy (“gifts”) with justice (“acts of righteousness”). However, these verses fail to support Keller’s case. Although “acts of righteousness” – giving – is mandated, we are free to exercise discernment and to not give.

Keller also cites several other verses in support (Ezekiel 18:5-8; Deut. 10:18-19; Isaiah 58:6-7). While it is probable that these verses reference the two concepts of mercy and justice together, they do not explicitly say that they are the same thing. Instead, this association seems to show that we must be both just and merciful. (16-17)

Contrary to Keller’s case, there are many verses that reflect the fact that maintaining the poor at a certain material level is not mandated:

• He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son. (Proverbs 10:5)

• Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor. (Proverbs 12:24)

• A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied. (Proverbs 13:4) 

• One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys. (Proverbs 18:9)

None of these verses suggest that the lazy or slothful are entitled to support. In fact, numerous verses instruct against giving support:

• For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." (2 Thes. 3:10)

• As for younger widows, do not put them on such a [support] list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. (1 Tim. 5:11-12)

While justice is an entitlement - a human right – mercy is not. While the poor can insist that they are owed justice, they cannot insist that they are owed an income. Instead mercy was to be exercised discriminately, compassionately, and thoughtfully.

This distinction is not merely academic. Violent passions and church divisions ride upon it. The Occupy Movement believes that they are entitled to the money of others. They decry the riches of the “one percent” and even talk violently against them, as if they have committed a great injustice. (Sometimes, it is a matter of injustice. But if this is so, then it must be mediated by the courts or new laws must be passed to protect the poor. However, the Occupiers never seemed able to articulate what the new laws should look like.) However, it seems obvious that their vehemence is not restricted to just these one percent.

From where do their threats come? They have been told that they are entitled to more, and that they have been unjustly cheated by the rich. While poverty is sometimes a matter of justice, it is not always so. It might instead be the product of other causes, including laziness.

It is therefore important to exercise discernment and wisdom. Many entitlement programs have actually hurt those who were supposed to be helped by them, creating dependency and an angry entitlement mentality:

• We hardly need another polemic about the failure of America’s “war on poverty.” After decades of bitter wrangling and torpid inaction, there is at last a broad consensus that the welfare system is a cure no less malignant than the disease it was intended to remedy. Liberals and conservatives, politicians and program administrators, social workers and taxpayers have all been forced to acknowledge that the poor are not best served by our current lumbering and impersonal entitlement bureaucracy. They never have been. They never will be. On this, we now all agree.

• If the poor are to be equipped with the tools of self-reliance and initiative, they must first restore family ties and community connections that have been sundered by privation and irresponsibility. Promiscuous philanthropy does little to solve the long-term dilemmas of social disintegration. It is little surprise then that programs that emphasize personal accountability, family responsibility, and community cooperation are much more likely to succeed than programs that simply dispense aid as sheer entitlements. 

When mercy, like justice, becomes an entitlement, it is no longer mercy!

ADDENDUM

Despite the above critique, Keller makes an excellent case for legalizing additional protections for the marginalized based upon the concern that God shows for them in the Bible. Here are just of few of the safeguards that our Lord has put into place:

1. JUBILEE - The land returns to its original owners after 49 years. This would provide the poor with a means of support.

2. LAW OF THE GLEANER - The poor could harvest the land of the wealthy after the initial harvest.

3. SABBATH YEAR - The slaves go free!