I looked into the mirror, (Yeah)
Proud as I could be, (Yeah)
And I saw my pointing finger (Yeah)
Pointing back at me,
Saying, “Who named you accuser? (Yeah)
Who gave you the scales?” (Yeah)
I hung my head in sorrow; (Yeah)
I could almost feel the nails
I said, “This is how it is
To be crucified and judged
Without love”-Amy Grant, What About the Love
As the news about the list of Governors either pausing or barring Syrian refugees from coming to their states continued this week, I started to be bothered by what I was seeing on social media. At first it was a sense of righteous outrage, but it soon morphed into a self-righteousness. It felt like the Good Samaritan all of the sudden became a big jackass talking about how open minded and compassionate he was as opposed to those other two losers.
I still think we need to welcome refugees no matter where they come from. But like most of life, this issue is not as black and white as we want it to be. We can talk about Baby Jesus being a refugee (which is true), but it doesn’t mean that this issue is that simple.
Political blogger Kevin Drum noted in a blog post yesterday, that people should tone down on the mocking tone because the concerns about safety are legitimate:
The liberal response to this should be far more measured. We should support tight screening. Never mind that screening is already pretty tight. We should highlight the fact that we’re accepting a pretty modest number of refugees. In general, we should act like this is a legitimate thing to be concerned about and then work from there.
Which brings up an interesting point: did you know that the Obama Administration paused the immigration process of Iraqi refugees in 2011 because of terror concerns? This is from an ABC News article:
Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky — who later admitted in court that they’d attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq — prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists’ fingerprints…
As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News – even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets. One Iraqi who had aided American troops was assassinated before his refugee application could be processed, because of the immigration delays, two U.S. officials said. In 2011, fewer than 10,000 Iraqis were resettled as refugees in the U.S., half the number from the year before, State Department statistics show.
Now, what happened in 2011 is not the same thing happening now. We don’t have proof that there are terrorists among the refugees. But this does make me think that in light of last week’s attack in Paris, it isn’t so far-fetched to request a pause.
Which leads me to the article that prompted me to write this blog post. Evangelical blogger John Mark Reynolds wrote that being prudent doesn’t mean being anti-refugee and that accepting a token amount of refugees makes you virtuous. Reynolds believes that Christians must care for the refugee, but he also thinks a lot of what is being done by the United States is not enough and not helpful:
We can pretend to be making room for Baby Jesus at our inn while doing almost nothing for Syrians relative to the need of the Syrian refugees. If we wanted to help by repopulating, then we should be moving tens of thousands more, but nobody thinks this is a good idea.
Why?
Our goal is for people to flourish in their homelands, not depopulate Syria of Christians and other religious minorities. We do not want to move Syrians to the US and Europe in such great numbers that we effectively end Syrian culture.
In the meantime, we do need safe havens near home for the refugee populations. I wish the Obama administration were doing more . . . but taking in ten thousand is doing next to nothing that is meaningful.
Leaving the Islamic State and terrorist groups in charge of much of Syria while helping the good people of Syria depopulate the area of those who have lived there for centuries is questionable policy. What happens next? Where will the next million Syrians go? Will we take another ten thousand and pretend that is enough?
Reynolds also notes that we haven’t done a good job of preventing Syrians from having to leave their homes in the first place:
I have no doubt that almost none of the ten thousand are here to commit terror or will commit terror. I also have no doubt that if one does that it will be devastating to the political will to do anything again. We do little and risk much through this gesture.
Yet if I say this, then I am shown a picture of a dead child and told I support this policy, generally by people who oppose putting boots on the ground to end the regime that is causing the refugee crisis. I want to preserve Syria, beautiful, multi-cultural Syria, not appropriate her people into permanent exile or cultural isolation.
Fortunately, I am blessed to have sensible, loving friends who know how painful this decision is on both sides. I am not sure I am right and this is hard. Loving Syria and the people of Syria makes me wish to throw all caution to the wind and do all that can be done . . . but we are already not doing all we could. When on Facebook I was told my “prudence” would kill a Syrian child, I wanted to say: “What of the Obama administration that through prudence has let Syria burn?”(emphasis mine). What of your prudence in only taking ten thousand? Why not one hundred thousand?”
That is the question we aren’t talking about: why did we let this happen in the first place? In 2013, the President had a chance to go into Syria to deal with the crisis, but backed out of it. I along with others, thought we should stay out of Syria. Wasn’t our concern, we said. Why is it now our concern? Did Syrians have to leave their homes for us to give a damn?
In some way, a lot of this is just another part of the ongoing political polarization of America. People lumped together every Republican governor that said “no” into a xenophobic cowardly bigot. Some of the governors are cynical bigots, but not all of them. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder was one that asked for a pause. I was dissapointed in his decision because earlier in the year he said rather publicly that he would accept Syrians. Michigan (which is my native state) already has a substantial Arab population, including a number of Syrian immigrants in Metro Detroit and Flint. The governor has gone to great lengths to explain that he is not wanting to shut the door permanently; he simply want to be sure. Maybe that’s not the right course. Maybe he should have just accepted the refugees without question. I don’t know. What it seems to me is that he is trying to be both welcoming and responsible. But all of that nuance gets lost in the debate.
I still think we should accept refugees. But I’m less willing to automatically chastise anyone who doesn’t agree with me. I will denounce the naked racism that I find on Facebook when we talk about these issues, but I will also think about when and why we should get involved in conflicts around the world. I will learn that sometimes the issues we think are so black and white, aren’t.
The reason I started off with the lyrics from an Amy Grant song is that even when we are doing good things, our pride can taint them. It’s wrong to be hate another person for their religion. But God also looks down on pride, the sense that you are better than others because you are so righteous. I think there has been a lot of pride over the last few days and we have to ask if this is leading to something better or not. We can be right and yet be so wrong.
The Clockwork Pastor 
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