Refugees. The progressive side of the Church in the modern world thinks it has a lock on following what the Bible says about the foreigner, sojourner, or as they would say it in today’s terms the immigrant or refugee. They would simply say that the opposition of Christians to immigration is racist and unbiblical, we are commanded in the Bible to take the foreigner in. So open the gates, and let the welfare checks flow.
They would use a passage like this, Exodus 22:21, “You
shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land
of Egypt, and this, Exodus 23:9, “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know
the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” And like
this one in Malachi 3:5,
“Then I will draw near to
you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the
adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the
hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who
thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”
Case, set and match, they'd say. This means that if you want to be biblical you need to take in refugees, and immigrants, and you need to give them the full rights of citizens as soon as well. To do otherwise is to be like the oppressive Egyptians that exploited the Hebrews when they were sojourners in Egypt. Or so the argument goes.
The problem with this application is that it is not based
on what these passages are saying at all. Firstly, to compare an immigrant, or
settler, to a sojourner, is simply dishonest. A sojourner, is a temporary
resident. Someone who is far from their home and on the move. How did Egypt
oppress the Hebrews when they were sojourners? By forcing them into slave labour
and by not letting them go when they wanted to.
In other words, the progressive Christian actually
inverts what the Bible is saying here. They say that to oppress the sojourner
is to turn them away from settling in your land, but according to the law, first and foremost, to oppress
the sojourner is to keep them in your land for cheap or free labour. Which just
happens to be two of the goals of modern immigration policies in our country.
Immigration is designed to bring in new settlers and to suppress wages. The way
immigration achieves this is by creating more competition for employment, and
therefore, allows employers to offer lesser conditions and lower wages. So
modern immigration is used to oppress the immigrant and the citizen. The progressive actually inverts what the Bible is saying on this issue.
To not oppress the sojourner is to treat them well as long they are guests in your land, and then send them on their way. Think of it like
this: if you have guests in your house, you should go out of your way to treat
them well, honour them, and protect them. But if they won’t leave you can kick
them out. To oppress them would be to lock the doors and make them slaves in
your house. This is exactly what the Egyptians did to the Hebrews. To say, ok, time for you to go home
now, is not only not oppression, it is good, right and biblical.
To compare how the Israelites were to treat small
groups of strangers in their country to large mass immigration is also very dishonest.
The Bible has a term for mass movements of peoples into another land, war. That
is what the Israelites brought to Canaan. The mass movement of Israelites into
Canaan is called ‘The conquest of Canaan’ for a reason, because that is what it was. How did the Canaanites respond to this invasion? They fought against it.
How did the Israelites respond to future attacks on their country by mass
movements of people? They fought against them. To politically oppose mass movements of people
is not the equivalent of oppressing the foreigner, it is simply the business of being good citizens and wanting to preserve your people’s integrity as a nation.
But there is another significant way in which progressive
Christians ignore what the Bible says about the ‘sojourner’ or temporary
resident or immigrant. Progressive Christians and even many conservative
Christians tend to be very pro-multiculturalism. They tend to consider treating
the immigrant justly to mean that they can bring their religion, their culture
and their ways to this country, and to say otherwise is oppression. But the
Bible does not support this in the slightest.
The law of Israel required all sojourners, whether
temporary, which is what the word means, or those who would like to stay, to
follow the laws and customs of the people of Israel, or face the same
punishments for rejecting God that the Israelites faced. For instance, Exodus
20:8-10, one of the ten commandments says this,
“8 Remember the Sabbath day,
to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the
seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work,
you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant,
or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six
days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and
rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made
it holy.”
We all know how strictly the Sabbath law was meant to be
applied in ancient Israel. This law was intended for all who lived in their
land of Israel, whether Hebrew or foreigner.
Leviticus 24 shows us that this applied to other laws as
well,
“13 Then the Lord spoke to
Moses, saying, 14 “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who
heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
15 And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear
his sin. 16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to
death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the
native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death” (Lev. 24:13-16).
Now, of course we do not live under the law of Moses anymore. No one is arguing that we should. But progressive Christians like to pretend that they are closer to the heart of God because they are pro-immigration. They often get strongly involved in pro-immigration and refugee programs. But what would they say if you said, fine those people can come here, but they must give up their religion, their language, their culture, and all their foreign ways and follow Australian founding values and culture from day one? They would flip out and say you were trying to oppress the foreigner. But they would be unequivocally wrong. This is part of what the Bible called living your neighbour.
To not oppress the sojourner, or foreigner in the Bible
was to make sure they were not exploited, to make sure the destitute were
treated with mercy (Lev. 19:10 for instance), and to not force them to remain
in the country. In other words, the Israelites were to be good hosts and treat
their guests well. They were not commanded to take in large amounts of people,
like is happening in our country today, and they were certainly not allowed
to change their laws and ways to suit foreigners and their desires.
The foreigners even had the opportunity to become part of
Israel. We read in Exodus 12:48-49,
“48 If a stranger shall
sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be
circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the
land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. 49 There shall be one law
for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”
Numbers 9:14 also reiterates this same law. Foreigners were allowed to partake in the privileges of the Israelites, however they were to first become Hebrews, and the males were to be circumcised. In other words, the law of Israel was designed to avoid the very situation we are in with modern western countries. It was designed to make sure that those who came into the country came in small numbers and conformed to the customs, rules and laws of Israel. Circumcision by itself was a major stumbling block for many.
This article is not an argument for why we should obey
the Mosaic law today. It is simply a refutation of the idea that progressives
are closer to the heart of God on this issue. A nation is a good thing and it
does not exist for foreigners. It exists for the people who are of that nation,
the kin of the tribes or peoples from which it was founded. Others can become a
part of it, but this only works if it is done slowly, and strictly in a way
that preserves the nation’s identity, culture and religion. What is happening
in the West today is more like what Karl Marx argued for, that there should be
no nations, just large conglomerations of mixed peoples, than anything from
ancient Israel. It is not an accident that our culture is so ungodly and looks just
like the godless empire that is ruled by Babylon in Revelation 18:15, “And the
angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are
peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.” The evil one knows what he
is doing. Multiculturalism has always succeeded in suppressing the faith of a
people.
Don’t let progressive Christians guilt you into think you
are less near the heart of God because you are not pro-mass immigration. Whether
it is legal or illegal, mass movements of people moving into a nation change it
markedly. Just think of it like this: did the mass movements of English settlers
from Britain make this country more British or did the settlers become more
like the Aborigines? The answer is obvious. Mass immigration is nowhere
required of a people in the scriptures, any more than mass apostasy is.
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