It’s hard to imagine anyone not wanting Canada to help out in the current worldwide refugee crisis. But despite the many positive responses I’ve heard about, including from the Christian community, I’ve also heard about some naysaying. So what’s going on?
First of all, almost all Canadians are immigrants or refugees. While it remains a debate among archeologists about just who arrived when and whether they came in boats or walked across the land bridge from Siberia, it’s safe to say that at least 13,500 years ago there were people hunting camels and dodging lions in southern Alberta.
Not your relatives? Then you are a Johnny-come-lately. And, depending on when your forebears came to Canada, you may owe a particular debt to the descendants of those first human explorers who did venture over here.
Secondly, one of the core values of our faith—one we share with Jews and Muslims—is to take care of the vulnerable.
Nor can we forget that Jesus and his family were once refugees.
So how can some Christians oppose letting in refugees right now, particularly those fleeing from Syria?
A possible answer came from a minister who had been talking with a church member who said she had no logical reason to oppose the congregation’s refugee project, it was just a feeling thing.
Feelings—emotions—are part of our humanity. Too often, we ignore the emotional side of arguments and try to create arguments from the head.
As Christians, we honour our whole being: we worship God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. So what are our feelings telling us?
In this case, the feeling has clearly been fear. Several shameful controversies during the recent federal election campaign played on fear of “others.”
Fear has been used numerous times in recent years to herd people into believing in dubious or non-existent threats.
But if unchecked feelings are at the root of this issue, appealing to reason is not going to resolve anything—including the argument I’ve just made. The appeal has to be to feelings. To do that, I suggest reading Andrew Faiz’s stories in this issue.
Because by feeling what these refugees are feeling, hearts can be changed. Andrew’s stories are about real people, real families. Families who carry heartache in one pocket and hope in the other. They are the stories of people who have risked almost everything, because to stay was to risk more—their lives.
Turning the problems of the vulnerable into an ideological debate dehumanizes individuals. These tragic stories force us to remember that the only reason we aren’t in their shoes and they in ours is the simple matter of where we—and they—were born.
No one “deserves” anything as a result of that chance: neither riches nor poverty, security or terror. But as members of a community who have had the great fortune to be born in or come to this country by choice and relative wealth, we are absolutely called upon to open our hearts and homes to those who weren’t so lucky.
May we all do so with a joyful heart, thanking God for our many blessings and the opportunity to share them with others.
