<\/p>\n
Aware of the special challenges refugees, migrants, and displaced persons face, ELCA World Hunger has long supported companions and partners that work with people who have been forced to leave their homes for a variety of reasons.\u00a0 Partners like Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service<\/a> (LIRS) and the Lutheran World Federation<\/a> (LWF) are critical actors in this work.<\/p>\n Within days after the terrorist attacks in France, governors throughout the United States proclaimed that they would no longer accept Syrian refugees.\u00a0 As of November 18, 26 governors<\/a> had issued such statements.\u00a0 Legally, of course, governors cannot stop refugees, but they can make it very hard on them, by withholding state funds to help them resettle, by refusing to issue state identification, or by increasing the already rigorous screening process for certain refugees or immigrants.\u00a0 On November 20, the House of Representatives voted to suspend the program allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the United States.<\/p>\n This presents a good occasion for recalling some of the reasons Lutherans support this important work.\u00a0 The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) has issued a response to these developments<\/a>, noting poignantly, “To close the door on resettling Syrian refugees would be nothing less than signing a death warrant for tens of thousands of families fleeing for their very lives.”\u00a0 But there are other reasons Lutherans continue to accompany immigrants and refugees beyond the dire consequences many of them currently face. <\/strong>\u00a0(For some background to a Lutheran view on undocumented immigration, see this earlier post<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Christian ethics, in general, and Lutheran ethics, in particular, begin with memory.\u00a0 The Hebrew Scriptures tell a story of our ancient ancestors enslaved in Egypt.\u00a0 They were strangers in a strange land, but God led them to freedom, and it is this action of God that lays the foundation of their own vocation toward strangers: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). The special concern for widows, strangers, and orphans in the Hebrew Scriptures is rooted in God’s care of the people when they were helpless and landless.<\/p>\n It isn’t an overstatement to say that, for Lutherans, the whole of the moral life is memory.\u00a0 From a religious perspective, good works aren’t done out of blind obedience or to earn a spot in Heaven; for Lutherans, good works are done out of gratitude for the grace of God that saved us when we could not save ourselves. They are done in memory of God’s ways of acting toward us.\u00a0 We were wandering spiritually, and God welcomed us, comforted us, and saved us.<\/p>\n Lutherans, too, can look at more recent history of our own displacement.\u00a0 After World War II, nearly one in six Lutherans in the world was a refugee or a displaced person.<\/a>\u00a0 Some found permanent homes in Europe; others languished in camps.\u00a0 Thanks to advocacy in part on their behalf, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act of 1948<\/a>, which opened the doors to wandering peoples.\u00a0 Many displaced Lutherans found homes in the United States because this country opened its doors, even accepting those German Lutherans whose country had been at war with the US.\u00a0 Once here, the National Lutheran Council and other faith-based agencies were critical in helping the refugees resettle.<\/p>\n Spiritually and historically, we are a wandering people whose lives have often depended on the hospitality of others.<\/p>\n As a white, straight, cisgender male, I cannot once recall being asked to speak for all white people, all cisgender men, or all straight people.\u00a0 But I can recall numerous times when I have heard other people asked to speak for their entire race, their entire ethnic community, or their entire gender.\u00a0 This is perhaps one of the most complex and pernicious elements of privilege.\u00a0 My privilege lets me assume I will always be treated as an individual, rather than as merely a representative of an entire group.<\/p>\n As social media exploded with invective calling for the banning of all Syrian refugees because of the nationality of an alleged Paris terrorist, it was no surprise that my suggestion of increasing surveillance of all men went unheeded.\u00a0 After all, men represent the vast majority of terrorists both foreign and domestic, men are overwhelmingly responsible for mass shootings in the United States, and men are far and away the perpetrators of violence in the home.\u00a0 If we are serious about protecting communities from violence, perhaps we should start with policies that circumscribe the freedom of men.<\/p>\n Of course, that won’t happen, because men are still privileged the world over, so their gender is not lifted up as problematic in the same way that ethnicity or nationality might be. Those in the center have the privilege of being treated as individuals, while those on the margins are viewed merely as a group.\u00a0 We saw a similar dynamic at work in regards to anti-Asian racism during World War II.\u00a0 While German Americans and Italian Americans had numerous exemptions from internment that kept their population in camps very low, Japanese Americans had virtually no exemption from internment and were imprisoned with little question, despite the fact that all three countries of origin were at war with the United States.<\/a>\u00a0 Those of European descent were treated as individuals and separately interrogated, whereas those of Japanese descent were treated as a group, with few individual considerations.<\/p>\n For Lutherans, this type of discrimination is not merely problematic; it’s heretical. It is a denial of the foundational belief that humans are created in the image of God.\u00a0 This doesn’t mean that we naively assume everyone is a good person.\u00a0 Created in God’s image doesn’t mean “nice.”\u00a0 It means that each and every human being is a creature with dignity, worthy of our care.\u00a0 This transcending identity – image of God – is expressed through a variety of penultimate identities – racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, and many more. But our foundational identity as images of God grounds each in dignity. What makes a person worthy of our care, our hospitality, our protection?\u00a0 Their very creation in the image of God. This is privilege that is universal.<\/p>\n This doesn’t mean we have to like everyone.\u00a0 Nor does it mean we cannot punish persons when they do wrong. But it does mean we must respect their dignity, and doing so demands that we see what lies beneath their other identities, particularly when they differ from our own.\u00a0 It means a willingness to hear their story, to let them speak, to see them as more than just a Syrian or just a Muslim or just a Christian. It demands an openness to seeing God through them. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it”<\/em> (Hebrews 13:2).<\/p>\n It is natural to feel afraid after events like those of last week.\u00a0 But, for Lutherans, fear cannot be what marks our behavior toward neighbors.\u00a0 Lutherans believe that God has set us free from sin and death so that we can serve the neighbor confidently and boldly.\u00a0 We have life so that we may serve our neighbors.\u00a0 Presiding Bishop of the ELCA Elizabeth Eaton<\/a> puts it well:<\/p>\n#1 \u2013Remembering who we were<\/strong><\/h2>\n
#2 \u2013 Seeing who we are<\/strong><\/h2>\n
#3 \u2013 Becoming whom we are called to be<\/strong><\/h2>\n