Anti-Refugee Groups--Fallacy at its Finest

It is incredible to see the juxtaposition between groups who open-heartedly welcome refugees and the organizations that hold anti-refugee/immigrant sentiment, especially those who claim the name of Jesus Christ or identify themselves as Christians. This targets at the root of my personal worldview regarding the nature of humanity, therefore I will at least in part discuss the subject matter from this perspective.

The former (the welcoming group) is a reflection of a personal belief that runs deep, namely, that all are created in the image of God, therefore all should be treated with dignity and esteemed as valuable. The latter (anti-refugee groups) is deeply repulsive and woven with entangled threads of ignorance, hatred, and bigotry. One example of such a group is the Aryan Nations/Church of Jesus Christ Christian.

Fundamentally and very importantly, the fact that they claim Jesus Christ as an identifier of their white supremacist group is heretical and totally against the biblical command to self-sacrificially love your neighbor, despite race or ethnicity; and that Jesus Christ (specifically) “..is our peace…and tore down, in His flesh the dividing walls of hostility” between races (Ephesians 2:14). The Christian worldview holds that ultimately, people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation will be together in true and perfect unity. The Aryan Nations Church of Jesus Christ group is both anti-Christ and anti-people who are not like them.

Photo credit: Quora

To move past what I perceive as most fundamentally wrong about this group’s identity, I see an incredibly dangerous outworking of what they believe, including their support of Adolf Hitler as a modern neo-Nazi outpost. Some of their ‘precepts’ that directly assault the practice of welcoming multiple races/cultures include:

·             “Religion in its most beneficial form is the symbology of a People and their culture. A multi- racial religion destroys the senses of uniqueness, exclusivity and value necessary to the survival of a race.”

·             “The White race has suffered invasions and brutality from Africa and Asia for thousands of years…”

·             “People who allow others not of their race to live among them will perish, because the inevitable result of a racial integration is racial inter-breeding which destroys the characteristics and existence of a race. Forced integration is deliberate and malicious genocide, particularly for a People like the White race, who are now a small minority in the world.”

·             “These are sure signs of a sick or dying Nation. If you see any of them, your guardians are committing treason: Mixing and destruction of the founding race…” (Lane, 2013)

Photo credit: CTV Barrie-CTV News

This group’s thoughts and doctrines are logically fallacious in themselves, and that is even before we begin to talk about how morally reprehensible it is. Racism in general is increasingly on the foreground of current problems we see in America and throughout the world, but to see the frame of mind so explicitly portrayed is astounding.

On the other hand, as we know, there are many who counter these vain efforts to extinguish ‘other races’. They shine light in the dark margins of hatred by lovingly welcoming the stranger, despite race, religion, or background. This video from the UNHCR demonstrates the immeasurable good that comes from this as a group of such individuals do so in the video here.

Photo Credit: Pünkösdi Teológiai Föiskola

 

References

Lane, D. (2013). 88 Precepts by David Lane (P.O.W.): Member of the order. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20130327003354/http://web.archive.org/web/20070202231101/http://www.aryan-nations.org/88_precepts.htm