World Relief Recalls the Samaritan But Forgets the Watchman
When exhorted to, "Love your neighbor well" by some of the nation's most respected faith leaders, all Christians, including those of us in public policy advocacy in Washington, D.C., would do well to listen carefully and heartily apply the message. This application of neighbor love was surely the motivation behind so many signatories to a recent World Relief letter to the Trump Administration regarding its executive order on immigration published by a paid ad in the Washington Post.
Interestingly, other Christians who actually welcomed the executive order are also motivated by love of neighbor. For its part, World Relief identifies its calling as help for "least of these" including "the stranger in the land." Similarly, the biblical calling of the "watchman" (ancient watchmen who stood on the city walls to warn people of the enemy's approach), seeks to protect the weak and vulnerable from those who would do them harm.
There is no doubt that mercy ministry is difficult work that, as Francis Schaeffer often said, will cost us something. It is not easy to cancel our travel plans, cross the road, pull someone out of the ditch and pay for their care in the inn. We have the highest regard for those who do this work.
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Why not similar regard for those called to be watchman, who so often risk their lives and seek to protect the least of these from random violence?
A conundrum need not exist. Those called to be a modern Christian watchman are prosecutors or even an officer who risks his/her life on patrol. They might work at the FBI, the CIA or Homeland Security. Maybe they sit at a computer screen at the National Counter Terrorism Center and try to understand the network of overseas terrorist leaders and the persons they communicate with inside the United States. They exercise extreme vetting every day. Why, because lives of innocent people are at stake, people the watchman is called to protect.
Our lives are full of extreme vetting. We do extreme vetting before we hire a children's ministry head to make sure the individual is not a serial pedophile. Yes, we would be denying this pedophile a job because love of neighbor trumps our personal desire to hire a jobless person. We spend the time and resources to make sure a van driver does not have a history of drunk driving. We target human trafficking prevention at those most vulnerable. We choose a doctor, a tax accountant, and even a tree trimmer with diligent research to make sure that we do no harm. We do this because we love our neighbor.
The calling of the watchman involves diligent focus, constant rethinking, and pulling every string to make sure, because a miss means a miss of someone like the Tsarnaev brothers. It means allocating resources and energy to protect neighbors we may never meet. The FBI reports there are 1,000 open ISIS cases. And they report that 385 of the 585 US terrorist incidents since 9-11 have been perpetrated by persons born overseas. Seventy-eight of these involved refugees.
I asked a counter terrorism specialist about this during coffee hour at church and was told "we are barely able to focus on current cases, we cannot do our job if the number of cases doubles. We will miss things and won't know what we missed until its too late."
There were tears of compassion in the eyes as he answered: he does not want his neighbors to be brutally harmed in a park, at school, or at a shopping mall. He does not want to double the population from whom so many terrorists have come. At this moment I am wondering whether the signers of the World Relief letter knew anyone called to be a watchmen of America's potential terrorist population.
One such person is Mary Doestch, a 25-year State Department veteran of middle east refugee work who describes in great detail the lax vetting and abuses of the refugee system and the resulting danger to our neighbors. Mary wrote a whistleblower letter to Congress, easily read on the internet. She dedicated her whole life to helping refugees but she has serious questions about unvetted persons from unstable nations who have a history of terrorist violence. I wondered whether the signatories to the World Relief letter considered her point of view.
Like the person called to mercy ministry, each day the Christian watchman gets up and prays for diligence, focus, wisdom and providential breakthroughs. It is fair then to ask the signatories of the World Relief letter:
1. Did you talk to any Christians called to work in national security or the FBI? If not, why not? Did you try to understand their sense of calling to protect their neighbor? What about their role in the body of Christ? What weight did you give it?
2. Did you ask whether World Relief has a pecuniary interest in opposition to the Executive Order; always a good question since Work Relief has received hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to resettle refugees.
3. Did you ask about the integrity of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), beleaguered by sexual abuse of unaccompanied minors, unable to address rampant human trafficking among refugee populations and generally one of the most corrupt and mismanaged entities in all of the federal government?
4. Did you take a quick look at Congressional testimony on the subject?
I want the best biblical thinkers and communicators to challenge us with a prophetic voice; I need strong corrective communication that is Christ-centered. I know they have worked hard for many years to speak and write biblical truth. But I also long to see our leaders do their due diligence before signing on to public letters to the President or any policy maker for that matter. I long also for them to seek mature Christian wisdom from all parts of the body of Christ including the watchman.
The World Relief letter says national security and welcoming refugees can exist side by side. I hope those who signed the letter will look a both views side by side. It will require a little work, but will enhance the prophetic voice that we all need to hear about loving our neighbor well.
