Using the source material

“I’ll tell you one thing I especially like about WORLD magazine,” William Bennett told me during a visit in his office in downtown Washington, D.C. “I’m glad for your position on immigration. I appreciate your open spirit. It’s rare enough among conservatives.”

I was surprised that this former secretary of education in President Ronald Reagan’s Cabinet and “drug czar” under President George H.W. Bush picked that particular aspect of WORLD’s profile and reputation.

“Well,” I told him, “we don’t really have a choice in the matter. The Bible is repetitious in reminding us that all of us were once refugees who needed someone to reach out to us with an open hand and a generous spirit.”

I’ll never forget Mr. Bennett’s slightly facetious and wry reply: “You Protestants would know that,” he said. “We Catholics aren’t allowed to read the Bible, you know.”

My memory goes blank when I try to recall the rest of that conversation, which took place some 25 years ago. But I do remember telling Mr. Bennett that he was giving us—Protestants in general and WORLD editorial people in particular—way too much credit. Neither at that point in our history, nor even now, could we claim a well-conceived Biblical exegesis to govern and define our position on the delicate, explosive issues of immigration, refugees, globalism, terrorism, and related matters.

And so much has happened in the quarter-century since we had that conversation. The world is a much more dangerous place.

Thoughtful believers will go back to see what the Bible tells us.

So what little coherency we might have enjoyed as a grid for thinking about immigration back then is long since gone. It’s not just that Republicans and Democrats disagree on the subject; not just that Bible-believing conservatives differ with liberals who don’t even pretend to explore what the Scriptures might say. There’s little agreement even within any of these camps.

That’s why, right now, a few weeks after President Donald Trump’s wildly controversial order limiting USA-bound travel from certain terrorism hotbeds, the nation continues in a messy uproar. There are probably dozens of major reasons why Americans are skeptical and bewildered when they try to address the matter.

For instance, I just heard a serious proposal that the United States should develop a way to affix a dollar value to everyone who wants to come and seek a better life here in America. If the applicant is a potential candidate to become a top-flight neurosurgeon, he deserves a high score. Oddly, if he’s a first-class vegetable picker and is willing to work in California’s hot Central Valley, he too might get a preferential rating. But for a thousand occupations in between—don’t bother!

Or, if you’re running for public office, maybe you’ll measure thoughtfully just how these inbound folks will cast their votes once they become citizens. Sounds good—but only at first.

No such crassly self-centered standards fit too well with Emma Lazarus’ generous message on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

In other words, your natural impulse—the God-given inclination of your heart—is not to keep finding ways to shut such needy people out, but to delight in discovering safe ways to welcome those who are genuinely needy.

In the pursuit of those impulses, you can’t help noticing how President Trump’s broad policies appear to reverse such generosity. To be sure, you also have to notice how silent his opponents on this issue (especially the Democratic establishment) are when they’re asked to propose some specific policies.

So you remember Bill Bennett’s inadvertent reminder a quarter-century ago. Thoughtful believers will go back to see what the Bible tells us. That Bible may not offer detailed formulas advising us just how many refugees to accept from each difficult nation around the globe. But if you do no more than pursue a quick word study of the term “sojourner,” you’ll learn the lay of the land. And the next time you find yourself part of a discussion about immigration (which may well be tomorrow), you won’t get caught in an embarrassing silence.