The Duke Presbyterian Campus Ministry (PCM+), a ministry of 60+ Duke undergraduates, strives to follow the Christian mandate to love the neighbor and welcome the stranger. We find Friday’s Executive Order indefensible from a Christian perspective, as it is an affront to the dignity of our Muslim neighbors, our refugee neighbors, and our neighbors desiring to immigrate to the United States.
We worship a Savior who was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew. He was a refugee himself at birth and faced persecution for much of his life. His parents were refugees, fleeing King Herod’s terror to keep their son alive. His people were refugees, having spent forty years in the desert after their flight from Egypt. The Christian story calls us to have compassion toward refugees and foreigners because ours is a story of refugees. To respond to contemporary struggles with fear and hatred is a rejection of the Gospel.
When Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” he summarized the 10 commandments by instructing us to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. That includes refugees. It includes Muslims. It includes people from down the street. It also includes people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and all over the world.
To our Muslim brothers and sisters and all those affected by this policy: we see you, and we stand with you. To our fellow Christians on this campus and around the world: we ask you to join us in rejecting fear and hate and to respond with the love that our Savior, a refugee Himself, has taught us time and time again to extend to others. We ask you to join us in publicly standing against President Trump’s executive order: “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.”
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
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