Turning Away the Foreigner?

By Jedd Cole on Sep 18, 2015 12:58 pm As millions of migrants and refugees face prejudice and trouble across the world, what is our own attitude toward the foreigner? Humans have a problem with how they treat people they see as foreign. For many millions of people in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the history of the past two or three centuries has been one characterized to a great degree by colonization and its effects, mainly at the hands of European powers. Countless regimes, conflicts and wars have sprung up from oppressive practices in the centuries and decades since—the legacies of slavery, dispossession, greed and manipulation. The human capacity for ethnic, nationalistic and religious hatred continues today. One result: massive human displacement. You’ve seen it in the news: The United Nations Refugee Agency reported earlier this year that wars, conflicts and persecution have displaced almost 60 million people worldwide, more than half of them children. The number has only risen since. Over half of Syria’s 23 million people have been displaced since that country’s civil war began in 2011, many of them fleeing into Europe. Tens of thousands of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and North Africa have desperately crossed the Mediterranean, many dying in the attempt, only to fear never being permitted asylum in Europe, according to a Sept. 12 Time article. And don’t forget the thousands of Rohingya people fleeing Myanmar this past summer, many of whom were left floating at sea while neighboring countries hesitated to take them in. Or the thousands of internally displaced people in countries like Colombia, where violence, crime and economic instability force many to pick up and move. Or the refugees and migrants, many unaccompanied children, who regularly flee from Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador for similar reasons. The other The headlines can only go so far to describe the complexities surrounding these vast movements, their competing motivations, local politics, religious conflicts and the mixed and sometimes troubling reactions of the countries receiving them, such as Hungary’s crackdown and the ensuingriots on its border with Serbia. Instead of really trying to understand the complexities of human crises, we human beings tend to simplify them to give ourselves the illusion of control and, sometimes, to justify our prejudices. Often we practice what sociologists call othering. We look at people in terms of whether they are part of our group—our country, language, religion, race—or outside of it. We come to believe that the ones outside are a threat to our way of life, our economy or our identity. We grow hostile in the way we talk about them, and we start to see them as less and less like ourselves—human beings—and more and more like all the things our own group doesn’t approve of: criminals, terrorists, violent, lazy—above all, different. We often take individual examples of crime, terror, violence and laziness and generalize it to a whole group. We can all fall into this language, from regular citizens to politicians. What about you and me? How do we see other people? The way we understand others and the way we talk about them often shapes how we treat them. And there’s a good reason to check our thoughts and motivations here. Are you turning away the foreigner? For all of history’s criticisms of religion’s failings in terms of bigotry, racism or injustice, the Bible shows that God does not tolerate prejudice as something righteous or justified. Speaking of those He will judge, God groups “those who turn away an alien” right alongside adulterers, perjurers and labor exploiters (Malachi 3:5). Elsewhere, He instructs us to “execute true justice, show mercy and compassion,” not oppressing anyone, neither widows nor orphans, neither the poor nor foreigners (Zechariah 7:9-10). Even if the current migrant crisis seems a world away from where you sit reading this, are you “turning away the alien” by the way you think of the other, the way you talk about people, the way you treat them? What can you do about it if you are? As the scripture above says: learn to judge fairly, mercifully, kindly. God intends to (and will) giveevery human being—regardless of his or her origin, language or appearance—the chance to accept and follow His way of law and love (2 Peter 3:9). While God doesn’t want us to condone what He defines as sin, He also wants us to treat everyone—everyone—with love and righteous behavior (James 2:8-9). This requires a change of heart, but God is able to help if we ask Him. We all have the same spiritual potential as far as God is concerned; and He is concerned—about each and every human being. If that’s true, then we’re not so different after all. For further insight into the issue of prejudice, read: Now Is the Time to Protest Does God Grant Freedom of Speech? Compassion Online Is Hard to Find