My Migration

It’s been a while since I last posted. Now that I’ve finished complaining about my adventures through the bowels of the NHS, I find that I have little to say that I’ve not already said. I’ve also had other things going on in my life that have left little time or energy for pontificating on the internet.

Unfortunately for you, however, there is now something I want to say.

I’ve spoken before on the subject of immigration, but I’d like to touch on it again. It’s still very much a subject in the news and the public consciousness, whether it be with regards to Brexit and the EU, or Donald Trump’s rhetoric, the ‘caravan of migrants’ heading through Central America or the tear-gassing of women and children at the US border.

Last time I discussed this, I mentioned that some people use their Christianity to justify the exclusion or rejection of immigrants. This is something that I think bears further examination, since it strikes me as so very wrong-headed.

“It is not my intention that this become a political blog”. I’ve said it so often now that I think we must assume that the lady doth protest too much. It is intended to be a blog of theology and writing, but any theology that doesn’t impinge on one’s political beliefs is not worthy of the name. If you think a person should keep their religion out of their politics, I would suggest that you understand neither. Immigration is, or has become, a political subject, and where you stand on it dictates and is dictated by your political affiliations.

I’d also like to touch on the distinction made between asylum seekers and economic migrants. It’s a legal distinction, but it’s also a label people use to determine whether a person deserves to be allowed into a country. There’s very much a sense that we’ll help asylum seekers because it’s the right thing to do (although often we seem to do so only very reluctantly), but economic migrants are just free-loaders coming to take advantage of our economy and culture, rather than staying at home and trying to make something of their own country. Even in the case of asylum seekers, you sometimes see comments to the effect that they should stay in their own lands and fight against whatever horrors they’re fleeing, rather than turn tail and head for safety. I think in this latter case at least, we can dismiss it as the unrealistic and inhumane nonsense that it usually is.

Within the discussions on immigration, the concept of some sort of points system is often mooted, like the one currently in place in Australia. ‘Migration isn’t bad as such,’ the thinking goes, ‘but we only want people who can be of use to us, who can contribute to us and our society’. This makes sense from a purely practical, economic point of view. What it has in pragmatism though, I can’t help but feel it lacks in simple compassion. It also feels rather short-termist. The person who lacks ‘useful’ skills now might very well have them before long, if given the chance to acquire them.

Throughout Christian history and Christian culture, the analogy of travel has been used to describe the individual’s journey through life. “One more step along the world I go”, “A Pilgrim’s Progress” etc.

However, it is not a pointless journey. It is not an aimless wandering in the wilderness. It is a journey with a destination in mind. It is, one might say, a migration. It has a goal, and that goal is a place and a Person. We are, all of us, travelling towards the Kingdom of God. Some more slowly than others, it is true, some unknowingly or unwillingly, but we’re all on the path, and we’re all facing in the same direction, with no ability to turn back.

The questions is; are we asylum seekers or economic migrants? On what basis do we expect to be accepted into our destination?

I cannot truly claim to be an asylum seeker. True the world is dark and full of terrors, bad enough to wish to flee from (although I’m well aware that I have been personally exposed to very few of them indeed). However, asylum implies some legal framework that identifies genuine refugees and imposes an obligation to take them in. I don’t believe that God is under any such obligation.

Why do I wish to enter the Kingdom of God? Why am I travelling there? Do I have any useful skills that the Kingdom lacks? Can I contribute in any meaningful way to God? Is there anything that He needs that I can provide? Of course not. On what basis then, do I expect to be allowed to enter the Kingdom? I am a freeloader, an economic migrant, expecting unearned rewards. I have nothing to give and Everything to gain. Why on Earth (or, rather, in Heaven) should I be given it, instead of being turned back at the border, if not tear-gassed or shot for my temerity?

Despite all this, I am instead taught that I will be granted a place, if I want it. I have not and cannot earn it. I do not deserve it. It is not in exchange for anything I can do or give. Nonetheless I will have it. I am currently stateless, a wanderer, but I have been promised a citizenship that cannot be revoked, only rejected. The way may be narrow, but I believe that Heaven has few walls and many bridges. The toll has already been paid, the entry fee covered. My papers are in order, but the handwriting isn’t mine.

I am a single member of a vast caravan of migrants travelling slowly but surely towards the border, with more joining all the time. Do I dare hope that I’ll be given admittance when I arrive? Barely, but I am told that nonetheless it’s true.

Knowing this then, how can I as a Christian ever consider turning away the traveller to my country? I discussed in that previous post the specific commandments regarding feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, welcoming the stranger, and doing to the least of these. That’s all true and well and good, but even if we had not been given those commands, how can we, knowing what we know and being what we are, turn our backs on the migrants of this world, regardless of their origins or reasons for coming?

Some time ago, I concluded that I was not Charlie. Now, I have to conclude that I am in fact a migrant. These are my people. I am one of them and so, whether you believe it or not, are you.

False Science and False Religion

One of the frequent attacks made against religion as a whole is that it is essentially just a scam run by manipulative fraudsters to cow the great gullible unwashed into obedience, and to give the fraudsters (i.e. priests) power and wealth in exchange for promises of pie in the sky. A quote from Mark Twain is frequently trotted out; ‘Religion was born when the first conman met the first fool.’

It is, unsurprisingly, an assertion that I do not agree with. However, a story on the BBC website this week made me sigh, because it appeared to bolster this assertion. It regards the church in Nigeria, and the fact that certain clergy are trying to enforce the (shaky) biblical injunction that all believers should tithe at least ten percent of their earnings to the church. In a country as poor as Nigeria, many of these clergy seem to be very (perhaps even suspiciously) well off indeed, with personal fortunes well into the millions of pounds.

The story quotes one of them as saying "Anyone who is not paying his tithe is not going to heaven, full stop." This makes me incredibly angry. Not only because it is appallingly untrue, is a disgusting theology and flies utterly in the face of the teachings of Christ, but because, as I said, it seems to be confirming all the worst assumptions and assertions of the angry online anti-theists. It is abundantly clear that these preachers are little more than conmen using religion as a scam to make themselves rich, and in the process driving a great many people away from God. Honest, sincere clergy end up tarred with the same brush due to the crimes of these frauds.

However, it also made me think. It’s true that these ‘preachers’ are no more than conmen, but they are nonetheless used as an admittedly unusually stark example of what religion ‘really’ is.

Doing so though is surely something of a double standard. The problem is that you can apply this argument to science too. These preachers, and their counterparts across the world, demanding that their followers send money to assure their salvation, are merely the theological equivalent of the stereotypical snake-oil salesman. Dr Andrew Wakefield was an accredited medical researcher, until he was found guilty of deliberately falsifying information on the safety of vaccines in order to make considerable personal profit.

As a result, a great many people around the world now erroneously believe that vaccines are linked to autism. Most avowed atheists tend to be very scientifically-minded, and rail against disbelieving the vast majority of modern science and medicine due to a few fraudulent assertions by a now disgraced scientist. Similarly, they’ll argue against ‘scientists’ funded by oil companies whose researches seem to show that climate change isn’t happening, in the face of the vast weight of scientific evidence. For some reason though, they don’t seem to realise that they’re doing exactly the same thing with regards to Christianity. They are taking manipulative frauds as being representative, rather than realising that they are, or ought to be, a disgraced minority.

Now, it’s very true that not all wealthy churches and clergy are conmen or grasping, greedy manipulators. Many have quite rightly pointed out the vast wealth of the Catholic Church, and the Church of England, and I am in total agreement with them. I see very little of the teachings of Christ in the gold and marble of the Vatican. Being neither an Anglican nor a Catholic, I don’t feel I need to work too hard to defend these, and certainly historically, the Catholic Church had become corrupt and money-driven. It’s largely what sparked the Reformation after all.

Sellers of fake medicine do not disprove the validity of the scientific method. To suggest that they do is obviously ridiculous. Sellers of false theology do not disprove the existence of God or the teaching of Christ. Apparently this is less obviously ridiculous for some reason. I’ll end with a slight mis-quote from G. K. Chesterton on exactly this when discussing miracles. “I hope we may dismiss the argument against wonders attempted in the mere recapitulation of frauds, of swindling mediums or trick miracles. That is not an argument at all, good or bad. A false miracle disproves the reality of miracles exactly as much as a forged banknote disproves the existence of the Bank of England- if anything, it proves its existence.”

Detecting God

Occasionally two events coincide and end up cross-pollinating (or, if you prefer, cross-contaminating) each other in my brain. Since this leads to subjects for posts other than me moaning about my medical misadventures, I don’t really mind.

In this instance, those two things are a book and a board game, but not in that order.

The board game is one we played last Monday, instead of our regular roleplay session, and which I’d never played before. It’s Scotland Yard, a game in which one person plays a criminal on the run in London, and the rest of you play detectives trying to track them down and capture them. Occasionally throughout the game, the criminal’s whereabouts are made known. From that point onwards the detectives only have vague clues as to where the criminal might be and in which direction they’re moving until they’re revealed again several turns later. They win by working together to close in on where they think the criminal is, trap them and capture them. If they fail to do this in a set number of turns, the criminal wins.

The book is one I received for Christmas; Proofs of God by Matthew Levering, which is a run-down of the arguments of various luminary theologians and philosophers throughout history.

I’ve only just started reading it. I’m still on the introduction, and I’ll admit that it’s rather denser than the usual popular theologies I normally read. It’s one of those books in which the footnotes take up more of the page than the actual text. Still, it looks like it’s going to be very interesting.

As I’ve said, I’m only on the introduction so far, but Dr. Levering  is discussing the definition of ‘proof’, and whether or not it is indeed possible to demonstrate the existence of God using reason alone. Reading this, it made me wonder how God views our fumbling attempts to prove His existence, and whether He finds it amusing. In His place I certainly would.

This led me onto thinking about our game of Scotland Yard. My wife ended up playing the criminal (which she did exceedingly well), and I remembered her look of amusement as the three of us who were playing the detectives squinted at the board, saying things like ‘Right, so she was here two turns ago, so she must have gone here, and then here or here. But going there wouldn’t make sense, so she must be here.’

Then, a turn later her location would be revealed, and it would turn out that she’d slipped through our supposedly impenetrable logic and was actually on almost the opposite side of the board, miles away from our pieces.

Scotland Yard starts not only with the existence of the criminal known, but the initial location too. Most theologians would argue that the existence of God is similarly known; it’s just the details that are unclear. Of course, a great many people would dispute even the existence of God, something which would make Scotland Yard a much more difficult and more philosophical game than the designers obviously intended.

Possibly a theological version could be made, in which the criminal is replaced by The Truth of God, and the public transport tickets the detectives (aka theologians) have to use as clues are replaced by various theological and philosophical schools. However the game would have to be based on the premise that God wishes to hide His nature from humankind, rather than it merely being incomprehensible to mortal minds.

Instead, we’re informed that God wishes to be known to all people. ‘Why then,’ we’re sometimes asked, ‘doesn’t He just reveal Himself and make everything clear, instead of providing only occasional revelations and leaving us to grope around as best we can with feeble theologies and philosophies and barely-educated guesses?’

A good question. To some extent, I guess it’s about free will. After all, if everyone knew that God definitely existed, and if we knew the exact arrangements for the afterlife, the universe and everything, it would rather skew people’s behaviour. Psychological experiments only really work if the experimentee doesn’t realise it’s happening. I’m not suggesting that existence is any kind of experiment on God’s part, but presumably he’d prefer our reactions to be honest rather than forced.

Obviously, for many of us our behaviour is already strongly influenced by what we think God wants, but the element of uncertainty, of Faith, keeps us guessing, keeps us searching, keeps us refining what we believe God is and what we believe God wants. I think that when that search stops and a faith ossifies, something extremely important is lost, and cultural constructs from ages and societies long gone exert an undue amount of influence. Not, I hasten to add, that they can be automatically rejected simply because of their age or cultural provenance; I’m no chronological snob. However, they mustn’t be automatically accepted either, simply because they are now ‘tradition’.

We don’t know the answers, but perhaps it is the search and the attempt that is important, rather than the answer itself. God wishes all to come to Him, not to inflict himself on all people. As Christians, it is our journey that defines us, not just our destination.

And for the record, my wife won the game. We never did manage to track her down.