Would you help her? Protest! Hide her! Go to jail to protect her! Would I, I keep asking

My father-in-law lost his first wife in a horrible accident on an icy Oregon road. A few, years later he married again, a Christian woman who was a cook at a Christian school. She was a nice lady, who loved her husband and cared for him though years of dementia. But she did have one quirk, she was a racist. When setting behind her in a car my husband teased her, your neck is kind of pink. But really it was red. When she stated that she believed the Japanese really deserved to be interned during the second World War, we asked why they didn’t intern the Italians. Her first husband was Italian. She stated it was because the Japanese were sly. 

Just this morning I read an article from Christianity Today about the internment of Japanese Americans during the second World War. The author, Raymond Chang, writes about visiting one of the internment camps and also about the livelihood and property lost by the imprisoned Japanese. In Chang’s article, “We Should Not Be Silent This Time he writes of those who were Christians: 

“The gospel was certainly the good news that the incarcerated Japanese American Christians clung to. In the face of immense hardship, they refused to let their faith be extinguished. 

They gathered in makeshift chapels and worshiped in the camps, finding solace in the stories of exile in Scripture and trusting that God’s promises were greater than the fences that confined them. They called on the God of justice and mercy, and God met them there.”

 I keep asking these questions, to myself as well as my reader. If you had a neighbor or friend who was an Afghan who faced the almost certain possibility of being deported back to her homeland where she would most certainly be killed, either because she is a Christian or because she had helped the United States government in their war against the Taliban, would you help her? Protest! Hide her! Go to jail to protect her! Would I, I keep asking. 

One of my favorite heroes is Sophie Scholl, a member of the White Rose movement during the nazi years. The White Rose, a Christian group, wrote pamphlets about the injustices, the persecutions, happening during those years. They would leave their writings anywhere and were caught leaving them at the university of Munich. Most of them were beheaded for their actions. 

 The director of the movie about Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement made this comment about her:

 “I admire her courage. She turned down the ‘golden bridge’ offered her by the integration officer Robert Mohr—thus practically signing her on death sentence. I find that quite startling: how does such a life—affirming positive-minded young woman like Sophie Scholl come to terms with the fact that her life is being taken away from her? And of course as an atheist I ask myself: Is it easier to face death as a believer?” 

nd so I keep asking the questions. There is the gay man, not a gang member, sent to the terrible prison in El Salvador. One congressman keeps asking Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, if she can just find out for Asylee’s mother if he is still alive. She won’t. There is the little girl with brain cancer, a US citizen, sent with her parents to Mexico, at first no time for the seizure medicine she needs—and no right to stay in the United States with her parents until her treatments are finished. No mercy for anyone. 

But there is mercy from God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—who overshadows his people and carries them. So too we are called to have mercy as his children. But still the questions?

 

Timothy Snyder's on How to Avoid or Resist Tyranny: His quotes with my thoughts #17

I have written some about an orphanage in Baja that me and my family often visited because my husband’s brother worked there. He was eventually to marry a lovely Danish woman who also worked there. I at one time went to visit her when she was sick and by herself. I found myself in an uncomfortable position.

 I at that time was working in a ministry dedicated to apologetics and trying to help friends and families of what we then called cult members. My expertise was mostly working with those whose family members were involved in cultic and abusive churches who insisted they were Christians. I became aware while at the orphanage that just such a situation was developing there. A pastor was treating other workers as though they had no meaningful goal or purpose. They, in reality, were begging for freedom—they were not even allowed to have a key to a storage room where the equipment they used was kept.

 It seemed that most of those upset were the Mexicans who lived and worked there. One of my concerns was that during the meeting to sort out the problems, leaders, some Americans, kept insisting there must be unity because Mexico was being taken over by communist who were already coming near Baja. So the implication was all will be lost if you don’t all listen to your leaders and stay in unity. In such a situation the real problems don’t get discussed or taken care of, rather it is suggested that it is an exceptional time which must be addressed in a different way. 

 Over the years there were changes and the orphanage thrives. But this use of fear words can be used by leaders to gain power over others. Timothy Snyder in his book, On Tyranny puts it exactly right:

Listen for Dangerous Words: 

“Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.” Those words are very familiar to this time and this place. Yes, we do have extremist groups and we have experienced terrorism. But not to the extent President Trump and others keep pushing. For instance, in her book, Start With Welcome, Bri Stensrud writes: 

“President Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly emphasized, ‘The majority of the people that move illegally into the United States are not bad people. They’re not criminals. They’re not MS-13.’ Most immigrants come to the United States to pursue educational and economic opportunities and have little to gain by committing crimes.” 

 The United States, sadly, has a history of maligning and hurting immigrants. After the Chinese had worked at some of the most dangerous jobs on the railroad, particularly in California, they were banned from the United States. Both Catholics, the Irish and the Jewish people were discriminated against. The Japanese were, as most know, interned in camps during the second World War. Most of them lost their homes and business. And of course, just recently some Haitians in Ohio were falsely accused of eating their neighbor’s pets. It is too easy to pick on the vulnerable.

 Snyder points out the times authoritarian leaders and governments use the scare words to take away freedoms from their people. There was the Reichstag fire in Germany, for the next twelve years Germany was no longer a democracy because of the “emergency.” Putin used such “emergencies” to gain total power in Russia. The fear words will be used. Already we hear that millions of terror groups, gangs, have been sent into the United States, We are at war with them and it is an “emergency.”

 So where does the Christian stand in all of this? 

Under the cross which means for now speak the truth and as some are saying care for the weak, the hurt, the accused, the slandered and yes even the enemies. Honor rulers but with truth. It is not honor for rulers to allow them to lie and never refute the lies because Scripture tells the believer to both speak truth and honor rulers. And then there is this: 

The Lord is my shepherd. 

I shall not want. 

He makes me lie down in green

 pastures; 

He leads me beside quit 

waters. 

He restores my soul; 

He guides me in the path of 

righteousness 

For His name’s sake.  

Even though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, 

 I fear no evil, for you are with

 Me. 

Your rod and your staff they 

Comfort me. 

You prepare a table before me in 

The presence of my enemies. 

You have anointed my head 

 With oil. 

My cup overflows. 

Surely goodness and 

Lovingkindness will follow me 

All the days of my life, 

And I will dwell in the house of  

The Lord forever.