Rwanda has become the latest battleground for the soul of the West.
by Gavin Ashenden:
Last year 23,000 illegal migrants crossed the channel by boat, provoking angst in the UK collective conscience. Which is the worthier moral course? To accept them all, discarding the rule of law, enabling the people smugglers lucrative and evil business, or enact a gesture of discomfort and enable deportations for those who have broken the law?
The Christian (mainly Anglican) establishment say they know what God wants. Open borders, no rule of law, no limits. Others are not so sure of their theological or ethical clarity.
All this takes place in a context where the public face of Christianity is increasingly slipping towards the harder political Left. This isn’t new. It’s a tendency that’s intensified by the dominance of rationalism in relation to a solution of life in the Spirit.
In fact, this forms the basis for ‘Ashenden’s first law of metaphysics’: that the political expression of the faith of the Church is inversely proportionate to its depth of spiritual authenticity. In other words, the less real prayer, penitence and experience of God, the greater the temptation to engage in politically charged activism.
Which takes us back to Rwanda.
As with all problems, things look clearer when we define our terms. What is the difference between an economic and a political migrant?
Who is our neighbour? What does compassion look like, and as a subdivision of that, what is the difference between soft and hard love?
What is justice when choosing between an illegal immigrant, a trafficker, a pensioner who cannot get an operation on the NHS and a migrant who has gone through the legal route?
It’s always tempting to go for the easy ones first, so let’s look at how Jesus in the Gospels helps us define our neighbour.
See also:
Cancelling the Church for opposing the Rwanda policy is deeply un-Conservative, by Marcus Walker, New Statesman:
The main problem is not an Archbishop opposing government policy. It is the lack of diversity of opinion among the bishops, and the knee-jerk response of government to consider ripping the voice of the church out of the British constitution.
The British asylum plan defended by the Rwandan Anglican archbishop, by The Bharat Express News:
Laurent Mbanda says sending refugees to Rwanda is not immoral and that Rwanda was ready to welcome those in need of accommodation.
Archbishop calls for ‘safe routes’ to the UK, from Christian Today:
“… deportations — and the potential forced return of asylum seekers to their home countries — are immoral and shame us as a nation”, said Justin Welby
Entire Church of England leadership calls Government’s plan to send failed asylum seekers to Rwanda ‘immoral’, by Jacob Thorburn, Mailonline
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