The Pew Research Center recently published a survey which indicated that  White Evangelical Christians were the least likely to believe the United States should be involved in making room for refugees.   It is almost as if this group of Christians has missed the main message of Jesus about loving our neighbors as ourselves.     I’m increasingly sadden by the disconnect  between our faith values and our political values.     The primary focus of Jesus’s ministry was to teach us to love God and to love each other.  He had a broad word for “other” which included people who are not like us.   He said that what we did or did not do for the very least of God’s children, was like doing or not doing for him.   Loving Jesus means caring about and for the  least among God’s children.  Certainly the world’s refugees should have a place in all of our hearts.  Sojourners magazine carried an article about the study which you can find at this link.  (Evangelicals Least Likely to Believe US Should Accept Refugees)

We can’t ignore the crushing needs of the worlds poor and claim to be followers of Jesus.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived in Germany during the rise of Hitler.  He said then,  “Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear … Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the “Worship of Power”)

I don’t know what has happened to our Compassion level.  But I suspect  our constant political battles have  numbed us to  the words of Jesus.   I pray that all of us who are his followers  make room for the words of Jesus  to simmer in our hearts and minds . . . and then begin to live them out.