First, I want to wish a blessed Thanksgiving to all.

My Berean colleague Mark Smith wrote a very good blog addressing the response of the West and Christians to refugees in light of the Paris attacks of last week.  I would like to extend the discussion to address how the West, including the United States government, ought to respond to the terrorist problem posed by some of those refugees and mainly from ISIS/ISIL/Daesh (from whom the Paris attackers came it appears).

First of course let’s be clear.  All refugees are not terrorists.  Nor are all Muslims terrorists,  But if even less than 1% are already radicalized or about to be radicalized, we still face a pretty significant problem.  I, like Dr. Smith, do not believe the choice of the United States is either porous borders or completely closed borders.  I agree that careful, thorough, unbiased (by political agendas), well-defined screening processes are the key in the short and long runs.  The screening does not have to include so-called “religious tests” as President Obama so inaptly accused critics of desiring (see http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-calls-helping-christian-refugees-shameful-while-state-claims-s-exactly-what-it-s-doing_1066126.html).  But tests that are objective and neutral are easily implemented.  But that still leaves open the problem of ISIS.  What ought we to do?

Once again, Scripture is not directly determinative here.  Prudence is allowed, within very broad biblical principles.  Here is the scenario.  ISIS is mainly situated in Syria.  It has enemies in the region, but apparently not the kind that are in severe ideological-religious opposition.  It is the dogmatism of ISIS in its Islamic religious ideas that seems to be the driving force for what it does to those living in the region and toward the West in general.  Syria’s Assad does not have the ability or will to go after ISIS.  The Kurds have the will but not the capability as of now.  Turkey might help but is afraid of what the Kurds might want in terms of territory in Turkey for an independent state.  Israel is waiting because if it took unilateral action it could face a severe backlash (as always), and it is not clear Israel has what is needed by itself anyway.  That leaves the United States, the UN, including Russia, and NATO.  The United States does not as of now have any clear policy, just rhetoric.  I am not optimistic that the UN will do much—but on this, especially after the Paris attacks and the Turkish downing of the Russian bomber, I may be wrong.  I don’t know what to say yet about Russia.  Though they are not particularly trustworthy, they may be doing more than anyone right now, as, I should add, is France in the last few days.  After the downing of the Russia bomber I am not certain what NATO might to or whether it will do anything.  But as for any unified policy, there just isn’t one yet.  That issue isn’t the same as the refugee problem, but the overlap is very significant—one seems to be causally related to the other.

But first we simply must understand what we are facing, something many seem to wish to ignore or redefine in less than accurate terms.  Those who have been radicalized into ISIS resemble to my thinking, something analogous to the “true believer” Communists before and after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.  They are devoted, absolutely committed, and disciplined in line with that focused commitment, to the cause, and they are willing to die for the cause.  We don’t often see that level of commitment in the West and it shocks us.  The object of this fervor is no less than a particular interpretation of Islam, focused on a global conquest in expectation, oddly,  of the “Twelfth Imam” and a worldwide caliphate.  This has been labeled Twelver Shiism, although the radicals are actually Sunnis. In other words, the radical jihadists have just borrowed elements that are common to Islamic “fundamentalism” .  It has been around for a few centuries, but when it was recently resurrected and incorporated into modern and radical Islamic thought, it added a special fervor to its recruits.  (see Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 3 volumes).  So it just is not true to say that terrorism has no relation to Islam, or that we can’t call radicals “radical Islamic terrorists.”  Religion is part of modern terrorism if it involves Muslims in the acts of terrorism and they justify those acts explicitly by reference to their Islamic beliefs.  Now some argue that this kind of “religion” is actually not Islamic religion at all, but a distortion so severe that it isn’t even religious.  But that just doesn’t make sense.  It is distorted if you are a westernized Muslim or a moderate Muslim, but it is still a part of Islam, albeit, arguably a heretical part.  Were the early Munsterite Anabaptists not part of Christianity, broadly speaking, because they declared that unfortunate German city the “New Jersualem,” cut off heads, made polygamy mandatory, and whose leaders proclaimed themselves messiahs?  It was a heretical form of Christianity, but I am sure all liberals everywhere would say we have to “own it.”  If that is so, then Islam must own its particular brand of heresy.

But if all this is true, then how do we address the refugee problem?  I personally do not favor a completely isolationist stance.  But the United States is a sovereign nation which has the right to determine under what conditions individuals are admitted to the country.  Even in the Old Testament Hebrew Commonwealth, which allowed “strangers and aliens” to become residents, the Law also demanded that they obey the law of the land, that is, the Mosaic law, applicable to every other citizen.  It seems to me there is nothing at all wrong or uncompassionate in requiring a strict screening of every potential entrant(whether Middle Eastern or not).  Arrangements can be made for temporary housing in secure areas until the screening process is finished.  If no data can be found on which to make a determination, it seems that entrance cannot be allowed, for the sake of security and safety of citizens already here.  We are not in this scheme denying shelter to “widows and orphans,” as President Obama has said to mock conservatives.  In fact, am I correct in saying that somewhere upwards of 90% of refugees are males, not widows and orphans.

In the long run, Donald Trump was on to something, when he said one solution was to clear out areas of Syria and Iraq as safe homelands for refugees. I don’t like the way he put it.  What I hope he meant is that the areas these people came from must be made safe and stable for all.   I don’t know the feasibility of such an idea, but one would think these refugees would prefer to live in their own homelands.  I would certainly prefer to live in my native land.  Certainly some refugees want to come here because they have heard of our generosity in services—welfare, education, etc.  I would much rather they wanted to come to work hard and to make their lives better through means other than the conferral of benefits.  And I do have some concern regarding the issue of assimilation, but not cultural assimilation—cultural assimilation is not central to a nation.  After all, we still celebrate Italian, Greek, Polish, etc. festivals.  We see diverse musical traditions.  We appreciate cultural differences.  But we cannot have civilizational diversity, that is, we cannot disagree on foundational issues relating to our legal and political system, our structure of rights and duties to each other, and the like.  We of course can dissent in our speech (that is actually embedded in our legal-political system and is therefore foundational).  But to allow every group to do whatever it wishes on those matters is to invite anarchy and in some cases, violent revolution or simply to open the gates to terrorism.

I admit the refugee issue is a thorny problem.  Solutions won’t be advanced well with the rhetoric of the extremes—no refugees at all or completely open borders.  And I believe the “middle way” I have alluded to is one also consistent with a Biblical solution as seen in the Hebrew Commonwealth.  But in adopting this way—if we did—we cannot forget that terrorism is a real threat and that presently the greatest threat comes from radical Islam—and that it is actually Islamic.  That is a crucial fact if we are to make headway.