LETTER: What would Jesus say?

I look around the valley and see many churches and signs supporting the Ten Commandments, and then I read the letter sent by the county commissioners announcing their opposition to bringing any refugees into our county and several hundred citizens applauding in support.

I can’t help but wonder, "What would Jesus say?"

As I view the men, women, and children fleeing from deadly violence in one of the most turbulent places on earth, our refusal to even consider offering refuge baffles my understanding of Christianity. Would Jesus take in a Syrian refugee? Would he extend compassion? What would Jesus require of us? The answer is obvious.

 I don’t profess to be a biblical scholar, but one can find many scriptures about helping the less fortunate. To start with, the golden rule suggests you do unto others as you would have done unto you. Can you imagine struggling to survive and trying to save your children from starving and protecting them from being killed or raped? What response would you want from a supposedly Christian country?

Perhaps, Jesus meant we should only help those who are just like us, but throughout the Bible are passages making it clear we are to help and support the weak and needy. “He defends the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19).

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Luke 6:33). “Because the poor are plundered … I will place him in the safety for which he belongs” (Psalm 12:5).

The Judeo-Christian ethic provides a social contract that we rise above our own selfish interests to help those who are less fortunate and struggling. Can you imagine Jesus turning his back on thousands of families whose homes have been bombed and are trying desperately to escape the oppression, torture, and abuse of a brutal regime in a country collapsed into chaos?

America is founded on respect for religious tolerance and diversity that aspires to a standard of ethics and morality that goes beyond a particular religion. You do not have to be a Christian to ascribe to these basic moral values, but it does make me wonder how anyone who claims to be a Christian could endorse the letter from our county commissioners.

Have the terrorists truly won their war and made us so fearful that we put aside our core values? I would hope that at least some of those who attended the commissioners’ meeting are haunted by guilt for supporting the commissioners’ position, and shame on the commissioners for showing so little courage in the face of a human tragedy.

—Carol Santa, Marion