Immigrants go home – the new Christian slogan?

Allow me a quick rant on the distressing way Christians jump on the anti foreigner bandwagon. Some positively sound like extreme right wing militants as they lobby for anti immigration legislation. Immigrants it would seem are the great evil, only slightly less menacing than the devil himself. It is ridiculous and thoroughly disheartening.

Christians, of all people, should  love and care for the weak, the oppressed and the marginalised, which foreigners quite often are. Christians are those who live by a kingdom identity and should be the least bound to a national, ethnic identity. Christians are those who believe that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. Is it then right to refuse the benefit of that earth to a section of people because they did not have the good sense to be born in the right place?

Are Christians not those who believe that all men are one family since they all descended from the same parents, Adam and Eve. And are they not those who ostensibly believe that all men were made in the image of God, therefore, precious, therefore to be honoured, irrespective of colour of skin and place of origin?

Sadly, the same, in particular in the  West have become excessively narrow in their thinking. We build fortresses to keep out the poor. It is a matter of shame. Concern for social justice, for the welfare of the poor has been handed over to the liberals, left wingers and sundry humanists, while the church busies itself with marching on abortion clinics. We ignore the ‘born’ while we campaign for the ‘unborn’.

Am i in favour of abortion? Hell, no, as i have had occasion to write on this blog, abortion is murder. Yet as Jesus said to the Pharisees who tithe and split hairs over the law, while neglecting justice, this should be done while not neglecting the other. How can we keep singing and dancing, shouting hallelujah while remaining totally oblivious of the plight of hundreds of millions living in abject poverty in the third world, and propagating laws to keep them out? It is unchristian.

Another take on this is that as the West becomes increasingly de-christianised, Western Christians will be grateful for the uncompromising witness of those unwanted immigrants in the midst of them who are Christians, who have grown up in cultures where they have not been brainwashed and browbeaten into silence and into an insipid, pale, lacklustre expression of faith. The UK is a case in point; oh and  my beloved France.

Some French Christians of course still sit on their high horse, wrapped in their iniquitous cloak of racial superiority and look askance at the Africans, Asians, and others; but those with a modicum of good sense are blessing God that they are here, praying for this nation that they have adopted as their own and standing in faith, believing God for revival in this land. After all, in the immortal words of David ‘Is there not a cause?’

Here is God’s immigration policy as I understand it from the Scriptures

“Never mistreat a foreigner living in your land. Foreigners living among you will be like your own people. Love them as you love yourself, because you were foreigners living in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Lev 19:33-34 GW)

“Never oppress foreigners. You know what it’s like to be foreigners because you were foreigners living in Egypt.
(Exo 23:9 GW)