Religious Freedom Advocate: Christians Should Be Concerned About Refugee Resettlement

A prominent religious freedom activist is hitting back at claims that concerns over refugee resettlement efforts is “un-Christian.”

In an interview this week, Faith McDonnell of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy specifically took issue with statements made by World Relief Director of Church Mobilization Matthew Soerens, the U.S. director of church mobilization for the evangelical refugee resettlement organization World Relief.

World Relief is one of nine agencies authorized by the State Department to resettle refugees inside the U.S. Soerens said claims that the U.S. government had an anti-Christian bias in its resettlement strategy was “baseless.”

McDonnell, on the other hand, said the government is now resettling an increasing number of Muslim refugees from areas where Islamist violence is raging, and those numbers are outpacing those of Christians from the same areas. She said the State Department needs to change its refugee vetting process.

She said in a recent interview:

There is this thing about “Are we going to respond with fear or compassion?” I think that is a false dichotomy. I think that you can be compassionate and still have the appropriate concern about the situation. They challenge American Christians and churches to respond biblically with Christ-like compassion and not give in to fear, which they insinuate is not only sinful but in some cases, they ridicule people for it.

Rick Warren saying that if we are not helping, he doubts our Christianity. I think that is really appalling. If we look at what is happening right now in Europe, is it really compassionate and Christian to subject Americans to that kind of nightmare, to the rape that is going on and the changing of the entire cultures?

We are voluntarily becoming dhimmis to Islam and seeing ourselves as second-class citizens in our own countries because of this … There is enough evidence to say that at least part of this is people who are choosing to migrate as part of Islamic hegira, to spread Islam in the West and to work on behalf of groups like the Islamic State to build the caliphate around the world.

You sound like a crazy person when you say that, but that sounded crazy when people talked about a caliphate five years ago and here it is.