One of the most pervasive lies often used to peddle open borders is that Jesus was a refugee. As we have often reported, Evangelical leaders support open borders and giving amnesty to people who have invaded the United States. Christian Post is perhaps the most neoconservative outlet in Christian news. Sometimes they post great opinion pieces. More often they cater to liberal narratives and support a certain foreign lobby.
Jalil Dawood wrote an article for Christian Post titled, “Refugees are dear to the heart of God” in a clumsy attempt to advocate open borders for third-world refugees.
Jesus was a refugee. Soon after his birth, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, warning him to take the family to Egypt so Jesus wouldn’t be killed by King Herod. And they stayed there until Herod died.
The proof text would be when the Holy Family had to flee to Egypt as King Herod. Dawood retrofits the Holy Family to be refugees even though they traveled a small distance and stayed in Egypt for a short period of time. Given when we know King Herod (the Great) died, this journey was not particularly lengthy, and Jesus did not grow up in Egypt as The Chosen suggests. Moreover, the term fugitive is more applicable here as they were fleeing the jurisdiction of Herod but not even leaving the borders of the Roman Empire.
Dawood’s handling of subsequent text advocating for refugees to be welcomed in the United States is even worse than his assumption that Jesus was a refugee.
Matthew 25 makes it clear that we will be judged harshly if we neglect the “the least of these,” including the strangers among us. But if we help them, we will be rewarded. The Lord says, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
And what is the best way to show kindness to strangers? Tell them about Jesus. The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 tells us to “go and make disciples of all nations.”
That no longer means you have to travel around the world. People from nations where you could never go and preach the Gospel before live right here in our backyard today.
The dialog in Matthew 25 was in reference to other believers, not hypothetical refugees. While he’s correct, that the Great Commission is the best way to love strangers, that does not logically conclude that we open our border to refugees. And like many legalistic writers, he misapplies the Good Samaritan parable.
The vast majority of them don’t care about politics; they just want to survive.
They’re our neighbors, literally, and in a biblical sense, as well, because Jesus made clear in the Parable of the Good Samaritan that you should consider everyone in need to be your neighbor.
So whatever you think about our border policies, there’s one truth you as a Christian can’t deny: Refugees are your neighbors. Whether you voted Republican or Democratic in the last election, refugees are your neighbors. If you’ve never in your life spoken to someone from another country, refugees are your neighbors.
And what does the Bible say you’re to do to your neighbors? Love them.
The Good Samaritan teaches that our neighbors are those in our proximity, even if they are natural enemies. It is not a biblical understanding that every human being on the other side of the world is our neighbor. Dawood is employing a David Platt level of emotional manipulation concluding that “everyone in need is our neighbor” which logically means that the well-off are not. In the Good Samaritan, the beaten and robbed man on the road was the neighbor of the Samaritan because of proximity, not abstraction.
Dawood’s entire case for opening America’s borders to refugees is based on abstraction, emotional manipulation, and a disregard for America as a nation.
