“But still — may the cup of crisis pass from us, and soon.”
Ross Douthat, a Catholic convert at 17, writes the compelling text Bad Religion, How We Became a Nation of Heretics (heretics defined as a person holding an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted) in which he challenges the reader to feel safe and empowered to be political without being partisan. Much like author James Hunter, Douthat decries Christians who are so stuck in their morality and partisanship that they are unwilling to question or stand up for a belief that is contrary to their chosen political party. As an example, he points to a democrat like John F. Kennedy who was prolife (which was acceptable at the time but would now be considered blasphemous.) “His comfort with complexity, and with those who disagree with him—along with his somewhat unconventional upbringing, his unorthodox ideas on abortion law, and his embrace of both popular culture and highbrow literature—make him a surprising conservative writer. More surprising than most of his Timesreaders would ever know, and compelling in ways his fellow conservatives may not like to admit.”[1] While Hunter encouraged Christians to completely step away from politics, and move into faithful presence, Douthat encourages involvement, as long as Christians find moments where there are sides of contradiction – “here is an issue in which it’s clear that my highest loyalty is to the New Testament rather than the Republican Party platform.” Douthat sees political polarization as detrimental to our culture and faith. “The party system has split along racial, cultural, and religious lines, creating a kind of tribal system where each party’s supports regard the other side with incomprehension and loathing.”[2]
Even with his conservative positioning, I appreciate and value Douthat’s commonsense (and biblical) approach to discernment. He is willing to step aside from the Republican agenda if it makes sense – and is biblical. He speaks eloquently regarding the conservative stance on homosexuality and abortion as he states Christians should “be more wholistic with moral outrage” and include wealth, prosperity preaching, pornography, divorce, etc. as “equally” sinful. If they are not regarded as equal, conservatives should step away from the debate. Regarding politics, and as a perfect lead-in to Douthat’s views on refugees resettling in the United States, he makes the following brilliant assertions in his Breakpoint podcast:[3]
- “Politics is downstream from culture.”
- “It should be ok to contradict belief and politics.”
- “What is my own side getting wrong and what can I do about it?”
- “There’s an awful lot of ways to fall down.”
- “Christianity has always depended on unexpected resurrection.” and
- “The most important battle has already been won.”[4]
According to Douthat, There are “two ways to think about the potential dangers involved in admitting large numbers of refugees from the Middle East’s present chaos” into Western countries, and both of them have rather different implications for Europe than for the United States. “But cultural change is a complicated thing, built on narratives and symbols and intuitive leaps.”[5]
Douthat points out that European countries are more at risk when accepting refugees because of their proximity to the Middle East and the Schengen Area. “Dangers are much more clear and present for Europe than for the United States. The first problem, of easy terrorist movement, is worse on the continent not only because of Europe’s sheer proximity to the Middle East, but also because of the way the continent’s Schengen Area works: If your passport (forged or real) gets you into one Schengen country, then you can enter all the rest (well, or at least until recently you could) without facing any kind of border check at all. That effectively means that Greece and Italy and Spain are doing the work of border control and refugee screening for France and Germany and Sweden, which is rather like if New Mexico, Mississippi and Alabama bore the primary responsibility for screening refugees to the reset of the U.S.A., with only ad hoc support from the federal government.”[6]
But Duthout profoundly acknowledges (even as a conservative) that border security operates differently here in the U.S. It’s centralized and federalized, as is refugee resettlement, and “while it’s obviously subject to various forms of incompetence it isn’t in the hands of local officials whose incentives (and cultures and languages and bureaucratic effectiveness) differ radically from the governments of their wealthier neighbors, as it presently is in Europe.”[7] The United States also has the advantage of the Atlantic Ocean – almost all our refugees arrive by plane. The Atlantic Ocean is a mechanism of “pre-screening for us; boats full of Syrian (or “Syrian”) migrants are not regularly washing up on the Outer Banks or Nantucket.” So, essentially, we are far ahead of our European counterparts with our systems and processes in resettling refugees.
Believe it or not, the U.S. has a far better track record than Europe when it comes to assimilating Muslim immigrants and preventing extremism from taking root.[8] So aside from the question of moral responsibility — “where I think you can make a case that the U.S. bears more responsibility for the miserable fate of people in the broad zone of our Iraq intervention than do the nations of “Old Europe” that opposed that intervention in the first place”[9] — it appears that the American governors trying to keep refugees out of their states, and the “Republican politicians making hay over the issue”, are not accurately understanding and assessing the actual risk of refugee resettlement.
Douthat believes that questioning how we’re handling refugee policy is reasonable…but unless the United States is planning to never take asylum seekers from the Middle East again “it’s hard to see a good case for a sustained moratorium on admitting any refugees from a regional nightmare that our own policies, across two administrations, have helped create and worsen.” If the U.S. thinks we shouldn’t take any refugees because we can’t feel one hundred percent secure about the vetting process, then we should probably stop issuing student visas and tourist visas to Middle Easterners (and not only them) as well. “But if we think, as we should think, that perfect security is a fantasy, then the differences between our position and Europe’s seem sufficient to make a moral and prudential case for going ahead with the refugee numbers that the Obama White House had in mind, or even the higher numbers (50,000? 60,000?) floated by the Democrats; the likely risks are simply not high enough to justify a halt.”[10]
According to Douthat, what we’re debating right now is really more about American feelings (our sense of security versus our sense of righteousness) than it is about macro-level solutions to the refugee crisis. “What that macro-level solution might be I don’t pretend to know.”[11] It probably needs to involve helping refugees where they are at the moment (in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey), rather than encouraging the idea that the only truly moral solution involves assimilating them all into Europe. For the concerned citizens in the U.S. we need to do our part to aid humanitarian efforts; and our government needs to determine what they can do both home and abroad.
“For reasons of prudence, millions of Syrians (and Iraqis, and Libyans, and …) shouldn’t end up in Greece and Hungary and Germany. For reasons of prudence and logistics and democratic politics, they won’t end up in America. So they need to be helped, and soon, close to where they are right now.”[12]
“But still — may the cup of crisis pass from us, and soon.”[13]
[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/ross-douthat-new-york-times-conservatism/
[2] https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/fear-and-loathing-in-american-politics/
[3] https://player.fm/series/the-breakpoint-podcast/ross-douthat-bad-religion
[4] https://player.fm/series/the-breakpoint-podcast/ross-douthat-bad-religion
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-obama-era-brought-to-you-by-the-iraq-war.html
[6] https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/europes-refugee-problem-and-ours/
[7] https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/europes-refugee-problem-and-ours/
[8] https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/europes-refugee-problem-and-ours/
[9] https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/europes-refugee-problem-and-ours/
[10] https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/europes-refugee-problem-and-ours/
[11] https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/europes-refugee-problem-and-ours/
[12] https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/europes-refugee-problem-and-ours/
[13] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/are-we-unraveling.html
About the Author
Jean Ollis
9 responses to ““But still — may the cup of crisis pass from us, and soon.””
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Great job on this post Jean! My favorite line was…”He speaks eloquently regarding the conservative stance on homosexuality and abortion as he states Christians should “be more wholistic with moral outrage” and include wealth, prosperity preaching, pornography, divorce, etc. as “equally” sinful. If they are not regarded as equal, conservatives should step away from the debate.” I get so tired of Christians singling out only certain sins while turning a blind eye to the rest. Great also that you found some refugee info as well. Have a great weekend!
Jean,
I like your statement “stuck in their morality and partisanship that they are unwilling to question or stand up for a belief that is contrary.” We are called to “resist” evil, oppression, and injustice. Peter says, “resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Pet. 5:9); James says, “Submit to God, resist the devil” (James 4:7-8), and Luke says, “Pray and don’t lose heart” (Luke 18:1). My wife’s life verse is, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).
I like the podcast bullet points from Douthat, thanks for sharing those. I have a heart for immigrants to the U.S. JoAnne and I did mission in several cross-cultural contexts, and I have served for the past 7 years in the Middle East context. So, I feel your passion, pain, and desire to help those who are least reached or hard to reach because of our policies at home. Cross-cultural missions have come to the U.S., will we hear and answer the call?
Stand firm,
M. Webb
Hi Jean,
Well done connecting this so eloquently with your topic. I was not aware this was true, “Believe it or not, the U.S. has a far better track record than Europe when it comes to assimilating Muslim immigrants and preventing extremism from taking root.” Interesting!
I also thought a lot about the assertion that the US bears more responsibility for Iraq refugees due to the war, because of our involvement in it. You have helped me to understand this and I see your point. Well made!
Keep up the good work, Jean, and enjoy your Spring break…
Jean,
Great connection to your area of interest. I wonder how you see the refugee crisis and the US handling of it as part of the heresies highlighted by Douthat. It is that we have enmeshed politics with religion or does it have more to do with our current isolationist tendencies? Is there a more orthodox approach to this issue that should be pursued despite political leanings? If so how do we communicate that in a manner that will be heard by all sides?
Jean, I fielded a question in bible class a few weeks ago concerning the topic of homosexuality, and why it gets taught more in churches today as sinful, as do other topics like divorce, fornication, stealing, murder, etc. I think our society loves the next big platform issue to fight; right now it is homosexuality and gay marriage…perhaps next week it will polygamy or motorcycles. However, when the church does this, we tend to shift focus sometimes from the real issue…at least in my opinion, which is the integrity of God’s Word. Instead, we become political in our discussions and instead of shining light on the Gospel, we shine it elsewhere.
In the case of the refugee crisis…and I do believe it to be a crisis…we have found Christians pulled on both sides by their patriotism for America and their Christian duty. Though I too believe there is a need to do the “Christian” thing in regards to that topic, I also worry that there is a strong political game being played.
So just curious; any idea how a patriotic person who sees a refugee issue as a threat upon their national image can rationalize that concern in order to the Christian thing? (I hope I asked that clearly)
Jean very good conversation about refugees. I apprecaite every week learning more about this topic. you are making us all experts. These last two weeks I think have rally added to your dissertation. great job
Jean, this is so good! I love how you connected to your topic, though it seems you had to look beyond this book to do so. It’s funny that Europeans are more welcoming of refugees even though the risk is greater here. I will say that I have had to show my passport a lot more these days, even when traveling within the Shengen Zone.
What’s also intriguing to me is that even though the culture in general seems more welcoming to refugees than the US culture, there are still many voices within the French evangelical body speaking up, calling the church to an even greaater posture of hospitality. I love it when I see the church leading in the right direction.
Jean. Way to go seek out what the author sees as important to the topic that is on your heart. I have a friend that I am talking to this week that has a church parishioner being deported in a couple of weeks. This is an issue that many try to hide from or see as one that is someone else’s problem. I do hate that we live in a world where the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Keep this issue in front of those that need to hear it.
Hi Jean,
I’m writing my responses “late” this week and it’s already well into Holy Week. As I read your excellent post, I was struck by some of the quotes you lifted from Douthat in a podcast. In particular: “Christianity has always depended on unexpected resurrection.” and
“The most important battle has already been won.” Those seem like the salient points for me right now as we approach Easter. The way that Christ has already done it all for us on the cross and in being raised (so that “most important battle” is handled), and the reliance of Christians on the “unexpected resurrection.” I think we’re more comfortable making plans and programs for the “expected outcomes”, but God is at work in more mysterious and awesome ways than that. Anyway– thank you for your writing on this.