For the Christian, Political Loyalty Is Never Absolute
This past summer, I had the privilege of attending the largest graveside funeral service I’ve ever witnessed. My best guess is that over four hundred people showed up to the cemetery to mourn and celebrate the life of this woman that I had just met a few months earlier. The enormous crowd, dressed in their Sunday best, formed a big circle and sang hymns around the grieving family in the hot summer sun. When it was over, it took over an hour for everyone to exit the single cemetery entrance.
I’ve lived in Alabama and Kentucky—both Bible belt areas—my entire life. I’ve never witnessed anything like it. I’ve buried my mother and all my grandparents as well as countless church members. They all knew a lot of people, but I’ve never seen even one hundred people show up to a graveside.
The funeral I attended last summer was the funeral of a refugee from Congo who had been in the United States for just a few months. The people who surrounded her grave were fellow refugees. Many of them had never met her. They came, envelopes of cash in hand, to comfort the grieving family in their time of need. They came because they understand the degree to which they need each other if they are going to flourish in this strange new land.
They’re here legally on asylum visas because their lives were in danger in their respective home nations, and our government offers sanctuary for a specific number of such refugees each year. They often cram large families into small apartments in rough parts of town because that’s all they can afford and work long hours in factories and warehouses to provide for their families. Just like our own ancestors, they’ve come to the United States in search of opportunity to better their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren. But, of course, they don’t look like us. They don’t even look like African Americans. They speak foreign languages, practice strange customs, and often dress in traditional African garb.
These refugees in Louisville, Kentucky share much in common with the Haitian refugees of Springfield, Ohio—the ones referenced by Donald Trump in his presidential debate with Kamala Harris last month. During the debate, Trump repeated the now-debunked claim that the Haitians were eating pets. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trumps said, “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” Springfield officials have not substantiated even one claim of pet eating.
Nevertheless, Trump’s irresponsible decision to publicly perpetuate a social media fabrication has made an impact on Americans’ perception of refugees. I noticed it’s impact one week after the debate when I saw a Facebook post from the mayor of Enterprise, Alabama—a city located over seven hundred miles from Springfield—assuring his residents that his office was taking their allegations against their own population of Haitian refugees seriously. In Springfield, bomb threats led to school closings and even shut down City Hall as local restaurants received prank calls asking if cats were on the menu.
Human beings usually need little help fearing the strange and unknown. Xenophobia seems to arise naturally from fallen human nature. Few Trump apologists want to hear, for example, that their ancestors were once the poor, uneducated immigrants with strange customs coming over the Appalachian Mountains and settling into places like Kentucky and Ohio. They too once endured suspicion and false allegations from the existing population. Of course, hatred doesn’t usually listen to logic.
But let’s put logic aside and talk instead about love. Trump has previously said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Whether you plan to vote for Donald Trump or not in the upcoming election, you are not required to defend his every move. Those who represent Christ in the world—those of us who have been saved by grace through faith and gathered into churches under Christ’s lordship—should be the loudest voices defending the refugee and decrying the horrible rhetoric that stokes up fear and hatred toward strangers. We should, in other words, make doubly sure that our loyalty to any political candidate never interferes with our willingness to prophetically speak truth to all. Our Lord doesn’t play second fiddle to anyone.
Christian, you don’t need to fear refugees. In fact, I’ve learned this past year that I have a lot to learn from them—resilience, generosity, and love, to start with. But choosing not to fear them is an insufficient response. Consider Deuteronomy 10:18-19: “He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” The New Testament repeats this calling several times (Matthew 25:35; Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2). As Christ’s redeemed people, we are called to welcome and love the refugee because we were once refugees, too. In fact, we’re still refugees, citizens of heaven, awaiting our Savior’s return to take us home (Philippians 3:20).
Let’s make sure that the concerns of earth don’t interfere with the priorities of heaven. Let’s love the strange people in our communities, no matter what Donald Trump or anyone else says about them. Let’s make sure loyalty to politician never comes before loyalty to our Lord and Savior.
The post For the Christian, Political Loyalty Is Never Absolute appeared first on Remembrance of Former Days.