There simply is no biblical reason to refuse legitimate refugees. The Bible is clear that national borders should be open to all peaceful and law abiding individuals. Further, when we properly understand the meaning of the Bible’s teachings on immigrants, we will understand that to loathe refugees is to loathe ourselves and our own nation.
Dr. Joel McDurmon
American Vision
1.) First we would note that Dr. McDurmon confuses the issue somewhat by conflating the categories of “refugee” and “immigrants.” A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her home country, while an immigrant is someone who chooses to resettle to another country. There is a third category of “asylee” that is part of the conversation. These distinctions are important in this kind of conversation for without them it makes it even more difficult to make progress in the conversation.
2.) Dr. McDurmon makes this assertion in the face of what many have styled as “civilizational Jihad.” The recent deceased Muammar Gaddafi, noted,
“We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe—without swords, without guns, without conquest—will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.”
Consistent with Gaddafi’s observation, authors Sam Solomon and E. Al Maqdisi in their book, “Modern Day Trojan Horse; The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration,” call Muslim immigration to the West a “modern day Trojan Horse.” They go on to note that,“Mohammed himself proclaimed that migration is jihad,” and provides a flourish with. “from the Islamic jurisprudence view the immigration of the Muslims to the West is to be regarded as the most important step on the ladder for achieving the establishment of an Islamic state in the West. This is the primary objective of Islamic Mission in the West.”
Dutch political leader, Geert Wilders again echoes the above sentiments by noting that, “gradual and incremental transformation of our societies and legal systems, or what is termed ‘Isalmisation’ of our democratic societies by the vast growing numbers of Muslim immigrants who are importing Islam into our Western way of life.”
Ann Corcoran in her book, “Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America,” writes Hijara means migration and, according to Islam’s doctrine and its quietly acknowledged organizational strategies, the goal of migration, today is not peaceful assimilation to the political system and mores of the host country. Instead, the goal is jihad by non-violent means known as civilizational jihad or Islamization.
Would Dr. McDurmon have us believe that God would be pleased with embracing a immigration pattern, the soul intent of which is squashing what little remains of Biblical Christianity, by a Muslim immigration horde intended to be used as a hammer of submission to obliterate the Christian remnant in the West and all this to the end of the Humanist attempt to establish a New World Order?
3.) Next we would note that Dr. McDurmon is just wrong in this assertion above, as OT Scholar Dr. James Hoffmeier points out ,
“The very positive statements about the treatment of strangers in the Bible, some of which were already quoted, show compassion for the alien in ancient Israel. The defenders of illegal aliens point to these passages as the rationale for rewriting current laws. The problem is that they make a simplistic correlation between the ancient Israelite social law and the modern situation as if the Bible was addressing the same problem. Three important questions must be raised before one attempts to apply Israelite law to the modern situation: 1) Was there such a thing as territorial sovereignty in the second millennium B.C. when these laws originated; 2) Within that socio-legal setting, what was a “stranger” or “sojourner;” and 3) How does one obtain this status?”
The fact of the matter is that McDurmon has likewise rushed passed these distinctions just as he rushed by the distinctions between “refugee” and “immigrant.” McDurmon completely disregards the distinction between the differing words in the OT translated as differing times as “stranger,” “foreigner,” “alien,” and “sojourner.” This is a significant error and reveals a certain sloppiness on Dr. McDurmon’s part.
In point of fact, as Ehud Would has written, putting the strongest contradiction possible to Dr. McDurmon’s opening quote,
“In biblical law foreign races were permitted to enter the border only under patronage and direct legal oversight of a native. Whether ambassadors, contracted laborers, or slaves, they were forbade from owning land, ascending to any positions of political power, forbidden to marry members of the nation, and weren’t allowed to lend to natives at interest (though natives could do so toward them). Nor could aliens conscript natives to perpetual slavery, but natives could buy chattel slaves so long as they were of other peoples. And any of foreign breed who would not consent to these terms for entry of Israel’s border was regarded a hostile invader and subject to forcible expulsion as in the cases of the mass deportations under Ezra and Nehemiah.”
Dr. James Hoffmeier, unlike Dr. McDurmon in the opening quote, pays close attention to the different OT Hebrew words that are so significant in this discussion, and confirms much of Ehud Would’s observation immediately above,
“The delineation between the “alien” or “stranger” (ger) and the foreigner (nekhar or zar) in biblical law is stark indeed. The ger in Israelite society, for instance, could receive social benefits such as the right to glean in the fields (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 24:19-22) and they could receive resources from the tithes (Deuteronomy 26:12-13). In legal matters, “there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you” (Numbers 15:15-16). In the area of employment, the ger and citizen were to be paid alike (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). In all these cases, no such provision is extended to the nekhar or zar. In a sense, the gerwere not just aliens to whom social and legal protections were offered, but were also considered converts, and thus could participate in the religious life of the community, e.g. celebrate Passover (Exodus 12:13) and observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:29-30). They were, moreover, expected to keep dietary and holiness laws (Leviticus 17:8-9 & 10-12). It is well known that within Israelite society, money was not to be lent with interest, but one could loan at interest to a foreigner (nekhar). These passages from the Law make plain that aliens or strangers received all the benefits and protection of a citizen, whereas the foreigner (nekhar) did not. It is wrong, therefore, to confuse these two categories of foreigners and then to use passages regarding the ger as if they were relevant to illegal immigrants of today.”
4,) Another problem with Dr. McDurmon’s quote above is that Dr. McDurmon is calling for the State to have charity but as Dr. R. J. Rushdoony notes, “the state has no part in charity; the scripture never says that the state is to administer it. ” Rushdoony, in the same lecture, “Justice and World Law,” offers about this issue of immigration, “first of all they [illegal immigrants] have broken the law. And justice to everyone requires that the law be upheld. So if they are illegal aliens they should be deported. Now that’s justice because it’s comparable to breaking and entering into a man’s house.” From this quote we see that Dr. Rushdoony also disagrees with Dr. McDurmon’s opening quote.
In conclusion it is interesting that seemingly all of Institutional Christendom is insisting that civilizational Jihad must be embraced, and that the West must embrace its death by commandment of God. Whether it is the long acknowledged Left like the “Sojourners” organization or whether it is the Cultural Marxist Churches, or whether it is organizations like Lutheran World Relief or Catholic Relief Services or any number of other Denominational organizations what Christian laity are almost universally being told is that that if they don’t support the dissolution of themselves in their undoubted catholic Christian faith and as a people and they don’t love Jesus and are guilty of Racism. This call to accept civilizational jihad now even comes from those organizations that heretofore were considered “conservative” such as American Vision.
Christians need to be assured that they can oppose immigration and still be considered Christ honoring. Opposition to the kind of immigration that is being foisted upon the West today can happen in the context of obeying the 1st commandment, the 5th commandment, and the 8th commandment. Opposition to the kind of immigration that is being foisted upon us today can be embraced on the basis of the admonition of the necessity to provide for one’s own household. Opposition to the kind of immigration that is being foisted upon us today can be embraced on the basis of the same kind of love for our people that we find St. Paul expressing in Romans 9:3. In point of fact, I would insist that opposing the kind of immigration that is being foisted on the West today is the duty of every Christ loving Christian.
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