The
persistent wind whipped tiny grains of sand hard against the young man’s face.
He squinted and pressed his lips tightly together. Giving another passing
glance to the west he stepped back from the precipice and walked closer to
sheltering trees where his companion sat meticulously snacking on a package of
cheddar cheese crackers. As the young man sat, the older man, who was leaning
against his pack, which was, in turn, propped against a tree, funneled the last
of the crumbs into his cupped palm and popped them into his mouth.
The young
man fumbled with the straps of his pack but finally retrieved a three-legged
stool for which he found a mostly-solid surface of rock free from the sand. He
sat heavily and looked out at the vista before them. The turquoise expanse of
Lake Superior spread out before them, its waves a distant rush as they met the
foot of the cliff a hundred and fifty feet below. The tawny rock face of Grand
Portal Point was constantly cleared by the winds coming off the lake but always
a new layer of fine sand appeared, swept from the eroding cliffs and deposited
like a veil over the outcropping. Thus Superior’s “Pictured Rocks” were always
eroding; always evolving.
Morning
cloud cover had given way to a pristine blue sky dotted with perfectly
constructed white clouds begging to be identified and named.
Another pair
of hikers appeared from the tree cover and made their way onto the point. They
took their pictures of the majestic panorama daring themselves ever closer to
the rock face. The older man smiled as
he considered that every hiker took the exact same pictures here. Unique as
their experiences may be, they all took the same photos. The pair walked
eastward along the shelf before rejoining the trail further on.
“Do you
think,” the young man began, “if you just ran full speed and jumped you’d be
able to hit the water?”
“I’m sorry?”
the older companion asked as he turned to see the young man staring down at his
cell phone. “Oh geez. You know you have a problem right? How do you even have a
signal?”
“It comes
and goes kind of sporadically.”
“To answer
your question, I think you’d underestimate your jump, plummet, and smash
repeatedly into the cliffs on the way down. Then those seagulls over there,” he
pointed, “would feast upon your corpse. What prompted that question?”
“just
current events.”
“Ah. I
assume you’re referring to the ongoing discussion on immigration and refugees.”
“I really
need to just stop going online. Especially on social media. It just makes me
sick.”
“Yes, and
also you should stop ignoring one of the most beautiful places you will likely
ever see to look at your cell phone.”
“A lot of
what has been going on lately in politics bothers me,” the young man began,
“but as a believer, my first allegiance is to the kingdom of God. I’ve always
viewed this country just as the place I happen to live. I do thank God for the
opportunities that He has given me living in America but I’ve always thought
that I shouldn’t identify too personally with it. There are times though, that
the moral concerns I have as a Christian overlaps with what we would consider politics.
This issue, this decision to suspend or reduce refugees from these countries,
it just bothers me as a believer.”
“How so?”
“I just see
all the commands in scripture to take care of the foreigner living among you.
To care for the widows and orphans and the under-priveledged.”
“But does
that necessarily apply to the actions of a government? The government isn’t the
same thing as an individual Christian.”
“So you’re
saying that we’re called to care for the underprivileged in our neighborhoods
but you’re fine with the government keeping those people out of our
neighborhoods?”
“Come on.
Don’t twist what I’m saying. As New Testament, Gentile believers, we’re not
bound by the Mosaic law, which, I’m assuming, is where you’re pulling a lot of
the language about foreigners.”
“True, but
even though were not bound by it the same way the Jews were, we still find
value in it by looking at the heart of the command and searching out what that
says about the Lord. I mean the whole purpose of the nation of Israel was to
serve as a type of mirror so that the world might be able to understand who
their God was; what kind of person He was.”
“All the
same, the government is different from an individual believer.”
“I agree, in
principle. If we lived under an authoritarian regime (and even though it may
seem like we do now, we don’t) then I would have no expectation that the
government would honor the law of God. I wouldn’t expect it to. Our country,
however, was created in such a way to be moldable by the collective wills of
individual people. The ‘government’ therefore is really the collective beliefs
of each of us. Looking at it from that viewpoint, I cannot let myself off the
hook because if I do, then others will simply shape public policy into their
own image.”
“But the
Lord views them differently.”
“But if
that’s the case, how can believers get upset at the way the government allows
abortions or gay marriage or the way it treats blacks? If we can make a blanket
statement to say that ‘the government isn’t bound by moral concerns the way
that an individual Christian is’ then how can we even hold the government up to
any type of standard?”
“But a
government is different than a
person.”
“That sounds
like an easy excuse to wash your hands by saying ‘well the government is doing
it, not me.’ If anything, as Christians in a representative democracy, aren’t
we really the ones to blame? If the government is made up of the collective
will of the people and the will of the people is turning away from the Lord,
isn’t it our fault for not effectively training and making disciples? Who have
we to blame but ourselves?”
The young
man pulled his water bottle from a pouch on his pack and took a long swig of
the moderately warm liquid. He had long since developed the ability to drink
water of varying qualities at lukewarm temperatures. It was the result of
numerous backpacking trips.
“Sorry,” he
began, “I don’t mean to get personal. It just seems to me that so much of this
decision is made out of fear. Fear of terrorists. Fear of Muslims.”
“There’s a
difference between making a decision about vetting potential threats and being
anti-Muslim. No one is being anti-Muslim. This isn’t a religious decision.”
“I don’t
know that distinction seems pretty suspect. Plus, this was made a religious decision when the President said he’d give
preferential treatment to Christian refugees.”
“You don’t
want to rescue Christians from oppression?”
“Of course I
do, they are my brothers and sisters in Christ but I feel like it sets a really
bad precedent. I mean what happens when a different President or a different
administration gives preference to a different religion or decides to take away
the rights of believers? What happens when some administration becomes scared
of Christians? The precedent is set with the stroke of a pen.”
“I can agree
with that I guess.”
“I just feel
like this is going to come back to bite Christians in the butt. Not just this
specific issue but the ‘help’ Christians are receiving from this
administration. I just feels like so much lip service to me; blatant pandering
to get our votes.”
“But if it
helps us?”
“I guess.
But shouldn’t we be looking out for more than simply our best interests? Isn’t
that one of the main themes in the parable of the good Samaritan?”
“Parables
are tricky.”
“Tricky,
yes, but I think that while we often misinterpret them in looking too closely
for details, we also under-apply them in not looking at them thematically. You
cannot read the parable of the good Samaritan and not read into it a commentary on nationalism and preferential
treatment especially considering the audience was Pharisaical Jews who
considered themselves the heirs of privilege. I mean, doesn’t that sound
somewhat familiar?”
“I have no
objection to Jesus’ command that we should be caring for our neighbors whether
they be Christians, atheists, Jews or Muslims. At the same time though, as a
Christian, as a father, would you rather your children be raised in an environment
conducive to the lessons you’re teaching them or one opposed to it?”
“See when
you put it like that I still struggle. I want my children, should I ever have
them, to really believe and put their trust in Christ. I don’t want it to be a
cultural thing. I want them to know that they are actively making a choice
between one thing and another thing. They’d have to do that now anyway. There’s
a difference between being culturally Christian in America and being a follower
of Christ. I mean they don’t have to
be separate things, but most of the time they are. If, let’s say, there are
more Muslims living in this country, then the only difference would be that my
children would have to choose to follow Christ surrounded by Islam rather than
choosing to follow Christ surrounded by secular humanism.”
“But again,
this is an issue of security,” the older man began. “Are you saying you’d
actively choose to raise your children in a hostile, possibly unsafe
environment?”
“What is
unsafe? We control so little that really it’s all in the hand of God.”
“That’s a
pretty easy decision to put your nonexistent children in harm’s way to satisfy
your own moral superiority.”
“First off,
it’s not moral superiority; it’s treating others the way I’d like to be
treated. Secondly, isn’t that what missionaries do all the time? They take
their children out of their ‘safe’ homes and bring them into hostile and
perhaps unsafe environments? Why do they do it? They do it because they know A)
they’re not really in control of their children’s safety anyway--- God is, and
B) they view the cause of preaching the gospel as more important than their own
comfort and security.”
“This is
different though, this is inviting disaster into our homes.”
“What are we
but witnesses for Christ too? I mean is the call on our life any less than the
one called to be a missionary? We’re called to witness to those around us AND
those who are far away. What better way to do that than to bring the nations to
us?”
“For the
record, I’m not following you.”
“Look,
campus ministries like Cru and Intervarsity have known and planned for years on
the fact that many foreign nationals send their children to American colleges
for school. These countries are the very ones that are the most hostile to
missionary activity and where it’s desperately hard to be a believer. But they
send their kids here. These campus ministries know that and look at this as an
opportunity to minister to these children whom it would be neigh impossible to
witness to in their home countries. What does this new action do for that? “
“I guess it
makes it harder.”
“Absolutely.
It puts barriers up to the progress of the gospel. More than that, there is the
underlying narrative, correct or not, that the West (and by association,
Christians) are actively opposed to Islam and really anything that doesn’t look
like them. They think we hate them. Of course, we know that there are
differences between being opposed to spiritual forces and the sin that goes
along with it and hating people. But
that’s a nuance that’s easily missed. What this course of executive action does
is feed into that narrative: that Christians hate Muslims. Now, when we try and
witness to our Muslim neighbors, whether that’s here in this country or a
missionary across the world, we can’t start by introducing them to Christ,
we’ve got to do all the back work to convince them we don’t hate them first”
“You have a
point but don’t we have to do that with anyone we are trying to witness to?”
“Perhaps,
but why create more barriers than are needed?”
High above,
a silhouetted shape drifted in and out of the pair’s peripheral vision. It rose
and fell with delicate ease upon the updrafts sweeping along the cliff bank.
The bird seemed held aloft by unseen strings of a master puppeteer rather than
spirited upon the wind. Both men stopped to watch the raptor, which it clearly
was, as it rode upon the winds, lifting ever higher. Some gulls, stirred at the
sight of the predator took to the air, cruising out over the lake to safety. They
watched the bird coast effortlessly over the outcropping gazing down with its
piercing eyes searching for prey. The animal seemed to hover with no indication
of movement save the tilting of its streamlined head. Then, like some element-wielding
phantom it rose swiftly along its zephyr-strings and disappeared up and over
the canopy of leaves. The men paused in silent contemplation slowly lowering
their gaze.
With
trepidation the young man began again.
“Beyond the
human dignity considerations,” he said quietly, almost apologetically. “One of
the things that scares me the most is why
these decisions seem to be being made. The pretense of a terrorist threat
from refugees seems a pretty flimsy one as there hasn’t been a terrorist attack
by an immigrant from one of these seven countries in thirty years.
More than
any, the overwhelming defense from politicians and everyday citizens alike
seems to be fear; fear of an attack. I’m not one to often claim someone has a
phobia, but most of this reaction seems to be fear of Muslims rather than
actual security concerns.
As
believers, we’re not supposed to be living in fear of what might happen. We
believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God who actively rules over this
universe. We’ve been promised that He works things for the good of those who
believe and even though ‘our good’ often looks a lot different than we’d think
or want (and indeed what is ‘safe’) we still stand on this promise that He
knows what’s best and that He will work it out in our lives.
What scares
me is what can happen when people--- anybody, becomes callous enough to turn a
blind eye to the suffering of others. What disturbs me the most about the
holocaust, for instance, are not the Nazis--- I know that mankind is wicked;
what disturbs me most were the German civilians who went about their daily
affairs knowing, or at least suspecting what was going on but were so
overwhelmed by fear, social pressure, and self-preservation that they allowed
themselves to become indifferent. I’m afraid of them because I know how easily
I can become them.
God, let me
never grow indifferent to the suffering of anyone, Christian or not.”
The old man
continued to look down at his boots. He bent at the waist (with considerable
effort) and pulled loose an insufficient knot and retied it double. He slumped
back.
“We’ve got
to have grace. I suppose,” he began. “Grace with each other. I mean Scripture
is expressively clear about how believers are to behave to each other. But
especially in a situation where Scripture doesn’t say: “don’t do this”, we’ve
got to give each other grace, knowing that each true believer is trying to love
the Lord and love his neighbor as himself.”
“At the same
time though,” the younger said, “we have to be willing to examine ourselves and
why we are making the decisions we’re
making. Just because we’re saved doesn’t me that our motivations are free from
sin. The sanctification process is just that--- a process. It’s bringing every
thought, action, and motivation in line with that of Christ. We can, and do,
the right things for the absolutely wrong reasons and we do the wrong things
for the right reasons. Both are flawed. Both fall short of the Lord. Our aim is
doing the right things for the right reasons. For that we need the Holy Spirit.
But because we know the fallibility of our own heart, we need to have grace for
the heart of our brother.”
“Amen”
“and,” the
younger added pulling himself up from his stool, “we air on the side of caution
and loving others.”
He held out
his hand. The older man placed his left palm on the ground which was covered in
a mixture of sand and small sticks. He grasped the hand of the younger and was
lifted upwards. He took a staggering step back into the tree, not dangerously
but obviously winded. Shaking the dirt from his pants he wiped the sand from
his palms. The younger man had already replaced the stool and was hoisting his
pack onto his back. The man looked down plaintively at his own before taking
hold of the top strap and raising it up. He felt the weight of the pack lessen
as his companion bore up the full weight of his own pack as well as his
own. Grateful for the reprieve, the
older man slipped his arms in the shoulder straps and buckled the waist. Still
free of the full heft of the pack he wiggled a little to get the weight
properly displaced on his hips. Only after nodding that he was ready did his
young companion release the pack onto his shoulders. He felt the first steps
under his feet; the shifting sand, the solid rock beneath. The trail followed
the edge of the point for about a hundred feet before disappearing back into
the shaded forest. Bright daylight faded into dappled shadow as he veered away
from the cliff keeping always his eyes upon his brother ahead of him.
