Explainer
Creed
Migration
9 min read

Why we welcome strangers

As World Refugee Day approaches, Barnabas Aspray explores a powerful command to embrace and welcome ‘the other’.

Barnabas Aspray is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at St Mary’s Seminary and University.

Between and around two escalators in a library, stand paintings of different people.
Inner Place is an art work in Kassel Library showing people who have arrived and become part of a society.
Jan-Hendrik Pelz12, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Over 100 million people in the world have fled their homes to escape persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, or some other threat to their life and safety. Known as forced migrants or displaced people, these people are unable to return for the same reason they left. Every year their number grows, so every year it is at a record high.  

Does Christianity have anything to say about this global crisis?  The answer to this question is a resounding ‘yes’. Although forced migration is a larger issue today than ever before, it has been a problem throughout human history, and the Christian tradition has a lot to say about it. 

Be Clear about facts and definitions 

A Christian response starts with the wisdom not to let sensationalist media dictate our understanding of the situation. We are frequently given an image of a deluge of immigrants arriving at our borders, an overwhelming quantity of people for which we do not have space or resources. But this image is not accurate. 

Some countries in the world are indeed overwhelmed with refugees, but the UK is not even close to being one of them. The UK is not even in the top 25 host countries, and refugees make up only 0.2 per cent of our population. In fact, 83 per cent of the world’s refugees are in developing areas far less equipped to respond than any wealthy Western nation.  

Learning the difference between an ‘asylum seeker’, a ‘refugee’, a ‘migrant’ etc. can also clear up a lot of confusion.  Here’s some definitions that may help. 

Citizen: someone who stays at home in their country.  

Migrant: someone who has freely chosen to live in a country not their own. 

Internally displaced person: someone who has been forced to leave their home to preserve their life or safety but has not crossed an international border. 

Forced migrant: a displaced person who has crossed an international border. 

Asylum seeker: a forced migrant who claims asylum in the nation they have entered. 

Refugee: a forced migrant who has been granted asylum by the nation they have entered. 

Refused asylum seeker: a forced migrant whose asylum claim has been rejected. 

Yes, it is complicated. There’s even a flowchart to guide you through the various definitions. 

Determining a migrant's status flowchart.

A flow chart for determining a migrant's status

The situation in the UK is rapidly evolving and that chart may become out of date in the near future. There are moves by the government to make claiming asylum illegal or to remove people to Rwanda under certain circumstances. This chart also leaves aside the question of the legality/illegality of migration, a complication that would distract from the purpose of this article.  

A command to welcome strangers 

Throughout the Bible, displaced people are seen as one of the three most disadvantaged groups in society and most deserving of special care and compassion. Again and again, it enjoins special support for ‘orphans, widows, and strangers’ as those who are least able to support themselves.  The reasons for this are obvious. If you are displaced, you have fled your home, earthly possessions, employment, and most likely your family, bringing with you only what you could carry. You have arrived in a foreign culture full of people who do not know you, have no familial or citizenship obligations to you, who may speak a different language, and who will almost certainly treat you with suspicion and distrust.  

Because of this natural disadvantage, our obligation towards strangers is embedded deep in the law of the people of God. Here’s my translation of what’s said in an early book of the Bible, Leviticus: 

‘When a displaced person [ger] moves to live among you, you shall not do them wrong. You shall treat them as the native among you, and you shall love them as yourself, because you were displaced people [gerim] in Egypt’.  

Or in a later book, Numbers: 

‘There shall be one statute for you and for the displaced person [ger] who lives among you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the displaced person [ger] shall be alike before the Lord. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the displaced person [ger] who lives among you.’  

More than thirty times the Old Testament repeats the command to treat displaced people just as you would treat a native. This makes it one of the most frequently repeated commands in the whole Bible.  

We are told to embrace and welcome ‘the other’, not because they are other, but on the basis of a prior sameness: we are all human beings created in God’s image. 

Why such a huge emphasis? Undoubtedly because of the natural human tendency to do the opposite, to discriminate, to ostracize foreigners. Xenophobia, racism, and ethno-centrism are constant temptations. We are told to embrace and welcome ‘the other’, not because they are other, but on the basis of a prior sameness: we are all human beings created in God’s image. We all belong to the same category, participating in the same human form. Christianity knows that we need to be trained and constantly reminded to see otherness, not as a threat, but as part of the beautiful diversity of God’s good creation in which each of us uniquely reflects part of God’s image, and where the full image is only seen in all of us at once. Humanity is in the image of God more than any individual human. 

Jesus himself fled his homeland to escape being killed. Moreover, the writer of the story underscores that this was not an accidental happenstance in Jesus’ life but a necessary fulfilment of prophecy. It was necessary that Jesus be displaced, just like it was necessary that he die and rise again in order to fulfil his mission. Jesus’ experience as a refugee identified him with all displaced people throughout history. To further emphasise the point and make sure we can’t possibly miss it, Jesus told a parable about the final judgment in which our salvation turns on whether or not we identify him with the displaced. 

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”  

There’s no question here about the overall attitude towards strangers that Christian faith enjoins upon its members. But commands are not the main way God communicates. This is because commands rarely get to the heart of why we behave a certain way, and they do not have the power to change the motivations of our hearts. Christian faith wants us to love and welcome strangers, not because we ought to, but because we want to, because we can see how it enriches our lives and communities. So why don’t we want to welcome the displaced? That is the more important question. 

The reality is that welcoming strangers does make us vulnerable. It may interfere with our comfortable lifestyles, and it may refashion normal British life in unexpected ways. 

I said earlier that ‘treat the displaced person like the native’ was one of the most frequent commands in the Bible. But ‘don’t be afraid’ is the most frequent command by far. It’s one we need to hear when considering the welcome of strangers. The media has made a scapegoat out of migrants in recent years, just like it used to scapegoat Jewish people and other ‘others’ at various points in history. As a result, much of the UK population is primed to treat non-natives with suspicion. We are terrified of being overwhelmed by foreigners invading our communities, terrorising our neighbourhoods, and changing culture beyond recognition. 

These fears are vastly overblown, but they do not come from nowhere. The reality is that welcoming strangers does make us vulnerable. It may interfere with our comfortable lifestyles, and it may refashion normal British life in unexpected ways. It will certainly involve some sacrifice of things we are used to and enjoy. But Jesus never promised that the path of virtue would be easy, comfortable or risk-free. What he promised is that it would be worth it, and that he would take care of all the areas that really matter (to which wealth, comfort, and nostalgia about changing culture do not belong). 

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? … But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  

If our words or actions are based out of fear, then we are not alone. But fear cannot be the basis for our decisions.  Letting go of fear and radically following Jesus no matter what the cost will take us on a great adventure – the adventure we were created to be on.  

What does that adventure look like? In our own age, God has given us the task of enriching our lives and diversifying our culture by welcoming Jesus in the form of the stranger.  

Take practical steps forward 

What can be done by an ordinary Christian in an ordinary church in the UK? 

There is so much that can be done both at the political level with immigration law and at the local level with the refugees already among us. The best place to start is to get in touch with one of the amazing charities who already work in this area, let them educate you about the issues, and offer financial and/or volunteer support. 

  • Jesuit Refugee Service is one of the largest and longest-standing refugee charities. Backed by decades of experience and expert scholarly research, they do all kinds of work not only with refugees but with detained asylum seekers and those who have been refused asylum.  

  • In Manchester you could get in touch with the Boaz Trust who do fantastic work with all kinds of displaced people. Their founder also wrote a powerful book that is well worth a read. 

  • Refugee Education UK is always looking for volunteers to work with young people towards a hopeful future through providing greater access to education.  

  • Welcome Churches seeks to build a network of equipped and educated Christians around the nation who can rapidly welcome new refugees and asylum seekers as soon as they arrive in a new town or city.  

  • Christian Concern for One World offers a rich spread of resources to educate, inform, and network anyone who cares about working with the displaced.  

All these charities will put your time and money to good use, as well as introducing you to refugees you can serve and benefit from building a relationship with. Go!  

FAQs 

Your definition of ‘refugee’ doesn’t explain how the government decides who to grant asylum to. What is the government’s basis for giving someone refugee status?  

The UN holds its members to a definition of a refugee that was laid down by the 1951 Refugee Convention. This convention determined that a refugee is someone who, ‘owing to a well‐founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.’ For someone to claim asylum triggers a process whereby a nation determines whether or not that person can justifiably be said to fit that definition. There are many problems with this definition and most experts on refugee studies are unhappy with it for various reasons, but it is extremely difficult to establish a consensus on a new one.  

Why did you translate the Hebrew word ger as ‘displaced person’? 

Ger is one of four Hebrew words for foreigner. Nokri means any foreigner; zar means (roughly) someone not part of your group; toshav means a passing traveller or hired worker and sometimes a slave. There is some discussion over what the term ger means, but the growing consensus is that this refers to a displaced person. It’s certainly clear from the context in which the word is used that the person under discussion is unable to provide for themselves and lacks access to basic resources, and for a foreigner displacement is the most likely reason for this. For more information, check out Mark Glanville’s book, Adopting the Stranger As Kindred in Deuteronomy (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2018). 

 

Essay
Books
Creed
Easter
Poetry
7 min read

Of trees and truth: Tolkien on cultivating greenness

The literature of Herbert, Lewis and Tolkien all helps us see the seen and unseen better.

Jim is Director of the Marion E. Wade Center and Professor of English at Wheaton College, where he holds the Marion E. Wade Chair of Christian Thought. 

a row of flowers with green stalks and blue flowers.
Isabella Fischer on Unsplash.

Each Easter season I return to a poem called “The Flower,” written by the Anglican priest George Herbert and published shortly after his death in a collection called The Temple. In both its growth and its withering, the flower of the poem represents the poet’s spiritual life, and the verses speak powerfully to the renewal that only God can bring. “The Flower” opens in joyful exclamation— 

“How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and clean  

Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring” 

—but my favorite image appears at the start of the second stanza, where the poet marvels,  

“Who would have thought my shriveled heart 

 Could have recovered greenness?”  

C.S. Lewis took note of the second stanza as well. At the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College, Illinois, where I work, we care for nearly 2,500 of the books that Lewis had in his personal library, many of which include his notes and underlinings. Lewis’s copy of The Temple is no exception. The back pages of the book contain a carefully constructed index in Lewis’s own hand, and one of the index entries points us back to the concluding words of the second stanza of “The Flower.” Turning to the poem, we find a hand-drawn line, very likely added by Lewis himself, running down the page alongside the stanza. I find that line to be heartening—a pointer, perhaps, to a shared interest. And though the connection between poem’s verses and the book’s appearance is purely coincidental, I appreciate the fact that Lewis’s copy of The Temple has a weathered green cover.  

What I love about “The Flower,” and about Herbert’s poetry more generally, is that it helps us see the seen thing better, helps us pay attention to it, so that we may glimpse the unseen thing. By bringing the flower into clearer focus, Herbert helps strengthen the eyes of faith. Herbert does not present nature itself as divine—the flower is a metaphor, after all—but he does represent nature in ways that point to its beauty while testifying to who God is and who we are in relation to Him.  

How during this Easter season might we recover greenness in Herbert’s sense? The poetry of The Temple is an excellent starting place. But if you are looking for another literary guide, I recommend turning (or returning) to another writer whose works we collect at the Wade Center—J.R.R. Tolkien. Should you visit the Wade to pore over the annotations in Lewis’s books, you’ll also have the chance to examine the small oak desk upon which Tolkien penned The Hobbit.  

In a note to his American publisher in June of 1955, Tolkien wrote,  

“I am (obviously) much in love with plants and above all trees, and have always been; and I find human maltreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals.”  

The parenthetical “obviously” is significant. Though Tolkien didn’t view The Lord of the Rings as autobiographical, he was willing to admit that his love of plants and trees was on full display in his life and work.  

Tolkien’s faith was on display in his writing as well, as Holly Ordway argues in her remarkable book Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography. Ordway’s first chapter begins with Tolkien’s own words on the matter: “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” As with Tolkien’s “obviously” so too with his “of course.” After calling our attention to the latter, Ordway persuasively demonstrates the truth of Tolkien’s words, exploring in detail how his religious convictions and practices were indeed fundamental to him and his work. “The Lord of the Rings is not an allegory of the Gospels or a tale didactically expressing Christianity,” she writes. “Rather, the whole world of Middle-earth and everything in it is infused with, rooted in, its author’s Christian vision of reality.” 

Ordway’s metaphor of rootedness is a fitting one, and—in our pursuit of Herbert’s greenness—it is worth exploring the entanglements between the obvious and fundamental aspects of Tolkien’s work: his love of “growing things” (to borrow a phrase from Treebeard) and his faith.  

Consider a few of the trees that we find across Tolkien’s writings.  

In his poem “Mythopoeia,” Tolkien responds to C.S. Lewis’s view (before Lewis converted back to Christianity) that myths are beautiful yet untrue. Tolkien begins the poem among the trees, expressing Lewis’s views as follows:

“You look at trees and label them just so,

(for trees are ‘trees’, and growing is ‘to grow’).”

The problem with viewing nature in such purely naturalistic terms, Tolkien goes on to suggest, is that it ignores the origins of terms like “tree.” It leaves out the humans who name the things of the world and develop myths about them and, more importantly, it leaves out the Source of such creativity. For Tolkien, human creativity finds its beginnings in God, and we reflect Him through acts of sub-creation. Thus he writes,  

“The heart of man is not compound of lies, 

 but draws some wisdom from the only Wise, 

 and still recalls him.”  

Whether it is the simple act of identifying a tree by name or the complex development of stories across time and place—what Tolkien describes elsewhere as “the intricately knotted and ramified history of the branches on the Tree of Tales”—our creativity flows from, and is a form of reverence for, the One who created all things. 

In The Lord of the Rings, we encounter not just trees but also the tree-like Ents. Referring to himself and the other Ents as “tree-herds,” Treebeard explains to Merry and Pippin that the Ents help the trees grow and develop:  

“We keep off strangers and the foolhardy; and we train and we teach, we walk and we weed.”  

In line with Ordway’s quotation above, Tolkien’s Ents are not meant to be read allegorically; however, the tree-herding activity of the Ents reinforces the theme of stewardship in The Lord of the Rings—a theme that echoes Scripture’s call to humans to care for creation and, just maybe, encourages us to take up similar work in our own places. (For further encouragement along these lines, check out Kristen Page’s book The Wonders of Creation: Learning Stewardship from Narnia and Middle-Earth, which grew out of Page’s lectures for our annual Ken and Jean Hansen Lectureship at the Wade Center.)  

And in Tolkien’s short story Leaf by Niggle, we encounter an artist desperately trying to work on his painting of, yes, a tree. This tree stands for our efforts to create art, which, though frequently frustrated and often motivated by self-interest in this life, may be purified and brought to fruition in the age to come.  

Tolkien’s trees testify to the beginning, middle, and end of Christian story. Among their roots and trunks and branches, we encounter illustrations of his views about creation, the proper ways to care for it, and its culmination.  

In a 1945 letter, Tolkien told his son Christopher about an essay by Lewis on the truth and beauty that we find in the story of Scripture. In the essay, which Ordway observes is likely his piece “Myth Became Fact,” Lewis argued that people of faith are, in the words of Tolkien’s letter, “meant to draw nourishment from the beauty as well as the truth” of the story. But what of the person without faith who “clings” only to its beauty? According to Tolkien, Lewis maintained that such readers “still in that way get some nourishment and are not cut off wholly from the sap of life.”  

Greenness for Herbert is ultimately the Lord’s doing. We should seek, therefore, to find nourishment in the truth and the beauty of Scripture, the source of the sap of life. Growing things spring up from these pages as well: fruit trees and fig trees and oak trees and olive trees; vines and branches; a new shoot springing forth from a stump, a crown of thorns, the wood of the cross. And as the Psalmist reminds us, the one who “meditates day and night” on the law shall be “like a tree.” When we read and digest the Word of life, we grow greener.   

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