Refugees

One of the things I enjoy most about reading John Calvin (or even reading about him) is how surprising it tends to be. For a man history has labeled The Tyrant of Geneva, he has always struck me as remarkably prudent, grounded, and humane for his tumultuous time. Indeed, after a few minutes of vigorous googling (does that sound slightly dirty to anyone else?. . . no, okay.), I have determined that since there is no book out there titled Surprised by Calvin the door is open for someone to write that book.

Here is what got me today: his attitude toward immigrants and refugees. 

It is hard to broach this topic without getting political, so I'll get political. One of the key factors that will prevent me from pushing the button for Donald Trump here in a few weeks is his attitude towards immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers. I find it horrendous. We have dear friends who are Afghan refugees, their lives disrupted by a war we started, and are trying to make a go of it here in Denver. I know anecdotes make bad policy--a truth which must surely hold both ways: if one positive immigrant experience doesn't mean we should reinstate the call to give me your tired, your poor, and your huddled masses, then one bad immigrant experience certainly should not mean that we slam the door in their Muslim faces. That was a long digression, let me restart: I know anecdotes make bad policy, but there is no justifiable policy reason for tightening immigration in the completely arbitrary way a potential President Trump has suggested.*

Calvin's feelings for the immigrant and refugee emanate from a concern for the virtue of hospitality. Calvin lamented what he saw as the deplorable state of hospitality in his Europe. He complains that the "ancient hospitality celebrated in histories, is unknown to us." Any casual reader of Greek literature can attest that hospitality--xenia, in the original language--is a huge freaking deal to the ancients. A number of the main transgressions in the epics of Homer are breaches of hospitality. This issue of hospitality was so important to Calvin that one of the offices of the church--that of deacon--was almost exclusively responsible for meeting the needs of people within and outside of the church.

For Calvin, all the grounds required for extreme hospitality to others is that we are sharers both in the image of God: "whatever man you meet who needs your aid, you have no reason to refuse to help him. . . Say that he does not deserve even the least effort for his sake; but the image of God, which recommends him to you, is worthy of your giving yourself and all your possessions." In another place he draws on the same theme in much stronger language: 

God has impressed his image in us and has given us a common nature, which should incite us to providing one for the other. The man who wishes to exempt himself from providing for his neighbors should deface himself and declare that he no longer wishes to be a man, for as long as we are human creatures we must contemplate as in a mirror our face in those who are poor, despised, exhausted, who groan under their burdens.

And, should we be tempted to assume that Calvin is merely talking about our "neighbor" as other Genevan Christians, he finishes this line of thinking with the following shocking statement: "If there come some Moor or barbarian, since he is a man, he brings a mirror in which we are able to contemplate that he is our neighbor." Moor, for those wondering, would be sixteenth century speak for Muslim.

This is a fascinating, and as I mentioned earlier, surprising, language to me. It is not just that we are to be hospitable to those in our sphere, but we have here the Tyrant of Geneva saying that we should welcome Muslims into our homes since we share the imago Dei with them. What is surprising, in one sense, is that this is surprising. Calvin took Scripture seriously, including the parable of the Good Samaritan which enjoins just this sort of love and hospitality. 

But here is where it starts to hit home for me. Because people can say, with some rationality, that we ought to be super careful who we admit into our country, that the threat of terrorism demands that we take a tight stance on this issue. I agree, to a degree. But I trust the checks we have in place now and don't feel that a blanket refusal to admit members of a despised religious faith is being wise but being governed by fear, a far less Christian response to the world. And, what do you know, Calvin warns about this as well. After counseling wisdom in this matter, he writes, "let us beware that we seek not cover for our stinginess under the shadow of prudence." I have felt this temptation Calvin warns against so often in my life. Any impulse to means-test the aid we give can fall into this category. Calvin's antidote for this temptation is to not be "too exacting" and give forth our aid (and hospitality) with a "humane heart, inclined to pity and compassion."

*I didn't want to get political here for another reason: there are a lot of young evangelical types who sound off about immigration and refugees and make Trump out to be a monster who would never consider doing a damn thing to ameliorate the conditions of a refugee themselves. They like immigrants in the abstract, but don't have many particulars to lean on in their all-white enclaves. These people are annoying and must shut up.