What the Bible Says About Borders (Part 2)
"Borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians," said European Union (EU) President Jean-Claude Juncker recently.
There are two striking errors in Juncker's view. First, borders are not a "worst invention." They are essential in a fallen world. Second, borders were not the "invention" of "politicians," but given by the world's Designer and Creator.
Juncker reflects a progressive-socialist utopian worldview that long ago rid itself of the niggling notion of God. It lost its reference point and bearings in a chaotic world. Feverishly trying to recover the Garden of Eden through constructing borderless utopia, Juncker and the progressivist globalists are giving us dystopia.
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Three days after Juncker's speech, DCLeaks made George Soros' Open Society Foundation more "open" perhaps than it wanted to be. The hackers revealed documents in which Soros staffers opined that the current immigration crisis is the "new normal." This is not necessarily bad from the globalist perspective because it gives groups like the Soros foundations the opportunity to exploit the situation for globalist interests. In fact, said the document, the European challenge signals "new opportunities" for Soros (and other globalists) to impact worldwide immigration policy.
Victor Davis Hanson points out in National Review that "Rome disintegrated when it became unable to assimilate new influxes of northern European tribes." Those immigrants, like many pushing at the borders of Judeo-Christian civilization today, "had no intention of giving up their Gothic, Hunnish, or Vandal identities," wrote Hanson.
There are two extremes in the attempt to establish immigration policy. The first might be termed the "callous, closed gate" approach. At the other end is that favored by Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and other globalists: the "capricious, cavalier gatekeeping" policy.
The Bible shows that "gatekeeping" is a critical component of the "theology of borders."
In ancient cities gates and walls constituted an entire system. Nehemiah's concern was not only rebuilding Jerusalem's walls but restoring its gates too. Guards watched from towers beside the gates. Elders, or community leaders, sat "in the gates" helping maintain the legal and commercial order of the city.
God's laws were to be written on the "doorposts" of one's home as well as the gates to the city. (Deuteronomy 6:9, et al.) The values of the family, city, and nation were to confront every "stranger" seeking entry.
The great crisis now for the West is that its founding principles have faded from the "gates" to the point they are unreadable to those who approach. The belief system is up for grabs.
This is why every immigrant (and citizen) should know the Judeo-Christian roots of the West and, in the U.S., pledge allegiance to the values represented in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution's Bill of Rights — at the very least.
Gatekeepers watching over the entry to the Hebrews' tabernacle and, later, the Temple, provide a historic example of those who should be the sentinels of the nations' core worldview and values: they occupied an "office of trust." (1 Chronicles 9:17-22)
Civil authorities now have been given a special "trust" by the people who elect them to establish policies that protect the heart and character of their nation. This is the context of Proverbs 29:18: Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint and they and their society perish. The "vision" is cast by the prophetic community that preserves and propagates the core values and worldview. Political leaders are to guard the gates, enforcing justice, while protecting the principles and values at the heart of the nation.
Peggy Noonan, in the Wall Street Journal, exposes the problem with the capricious, cavalier gatekeeping philosophy. Angela Merkel, for example, has cast "the entire burden of a huge cultural change not on herself and those like her but on regular people," those who lack "the resources to meet the burden." Merkel's cabinet, the progressive-left media "and cultural apparatus that lauded her decision were not affected by it and likely never would be," Noonan writes.
Mighty people in contemporary "gatekeeping" establishments — Information, Entertainment, Academia, Government, Corporations — can afford to be capricious and cavalier about borders. Like Leonardo DiCaprio they can order up private jets to pluck them away from surging mobs. They can follow the lead of open border advocate and Facebook tycoon Mark Zuckerberg, and build border-walls around their houses.
"The powerful show no particular sign of worrying about any of this," said Peggy Noonan. While those who want stricter immigration are branded "xenophobic," "narrow-minded," "racist," those who are "the detached, who made the decisions and bore none of the costs, got to be called 'humanist,' 'compassionate,' and 'hero of human rights,'" Noonan observed.
Jonathan Sandys — Winston Churchill's great-grandson — and I wrote a book, "God and Churchill." We devoted two chapters to Churchill's remarkable understanding that the core goal in the conflict with the Nazis was protecting "Christian Civilization."
Churchill sat alone in the "gates" of the Judeo-Christian democracies until other nations — like the U.S. — awoke to the threat to their interests. But Churchill knew early on the nature of the war and the "office of trust" given to him. After Hitler's armies had taken France, Churchill said in a speech, "I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin ... Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian Civilization."
As Jean-Claude Juncker shows, today's capricious, cavalier leaders have little understanding of the importance of borders, or how God Himself gave order to a fallen, chaotic world through "inventing" them.
Tragically, they lack the vision and passion of Winston Churchill.
