About “Jesus was a Refugee” Argumentation

Gaslighting disguised as piety

Yes, I know this is not the freshest topic. “Social Justice” Christians of various stripes have been pushing that “Jesus was a refugee” bit for years with the implication that if you don’t welcome those poor poor “refugees” that flooded across our borders and are still flooding across European and UK borders, then you must be a hateful hater who hates Jesus. A recent “He gets us” ad is a classic example.

Although I’ve written a bit about the Invasion, for example . . .

. . . I’ve not written much about “Jesus was a refugee” argumentation. But a bishop prominent in my Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) joining the act has provoked me. And you know how I can get when provoked. So, yes, I will now debunk without let or hindrance.

First, it is a stretch at best to call the Holy Family refugees. Yes, they left their home to flee persecution, and that hardship is not to be diminished. But that is about the only way they were refugees. They traveled from one region of the Roman Empire to another region of said empire, Egypt. And Egypt was no strange place to Jews of the time. Alexandria had a large number of them.

If you want to make a modern analogy, the flight of the Holy Family was more akin to a family fleeing a violent stalker and/or predatory governance in California to cousins in Texas. Like all analogies, this is an imperfect one. Travel was more difficult back then for one thing. The evil of California governance is more subtle than that of Herod. (Or is it? Anyway…) But it is still inaccurate to call the Family refugees. I may seem pedantic to some. But category errors are sometimes weapons of the dishonest and deluded, and this is such a case.

Yet if that were the only problem with “Jesus was a refugee” argumentation, I would let it pass. What is much worse, almost blasphemous, is making the Holy Family akin to those who have invaded the U. S. and the West the past ten years. The Holy Family were far more refugees than these and very unlike them in a number of ways. (And to be fair and clear, the aforementioned bishop did not commit all the errors mentioned below. I’m addressing the argumentation as a whole.)

The Holy Family were not invaders, law breakers and liars.

Don’t gaslight me that Biden let the invaders in, therefore it was legal, and they are legal, and it was no invasion at all. The Biden Regime willfully did not enforce immigration law. Invaders for their part, organized, often by NGOs, and in huge numbers, gamed the willful disfunction — treason really — by claiming to be refugees, when most were just seeking a better country to live and too many a richer target for crime. Not only that, the vast majority of the border crashers called to court dates did not bother to show up. So most came with the intent to evade and break our laws, not obey them. And — contra much gaslighting — illegals, especially those who entered the past ten years, do commit a disproportionate amount of crime, both in the U. S and Europe.

The Holy Family was an actual family.

An alarming amount of the recent invaders are single men of military age. And too many of the women and children that entered were and are being trafficked, some under the guise of being part of fake families or going to fake families and predatory “sponsors” already in the country. Are most of the migrants like that family in the “He Gets Us” ad? No.

The Holy Family was not a mass invasion.

Yes, now I’m getting even more obvious. I know.

The Holy Family did not make undue demands on their hosts.

Invaders are overburdening schools, housing, health services and law enforcement in many cities across the West. And the entitlement of many of them is infuriating. Don’t even get me started.

The Holy Family were not country shoppers.

Jesus and family fled from persecution to a neighboring province. Most of today’s migrants were not fleeing persecution, religious or political. And today’s migrants cross any number of borders to countries with the best social benefits and the most government willingness to enable their act. This is one reason the feckless UK has been overwhelmed even though it is surrounded by water. This is a big reason millions have practically allowed themselves to smuggled by criminal cartels to enter the U. S.

The Holy Family willingly went back home.

And that while Jesus was still a child. By contrast, most of the recent migrants are notoriously reluctant to go back home.

Now, of course, there are refugees who are refugees indeed. We should do our part to assist them with practical love without overburdening citizens or undermining Western culture.

But treating the mass migration of recent years as a bunch of poor poor refugees we should welcome has been a disaster, an intentional disaster really on the part of governments and NGOs. For church leaders to echo the “refugee” gaslighting assists this massive scam with its grave harm. It is ministerial malpractice. We’ve put up with this malfeasance from both church and state for too long, years too long. Enough!

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Out of necessity I’ve painted with a broad brush on this post. For those interested in more detailed dives into immigration/refugee policy, I recommend J. J. Carrell’s substack.

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BONUS QUESTION: Is the lead-in image satire or not satire?

Give an answer in the comments.