Refugee blog

Researching into our group project topic has been quite interesting. Our topic was global refugees and their relation to the bible. At first, I thought this would be a very easy topic to relate to the bible because of the exodus story and other things like that in the bible. When I was searching for topics on Jstor though, I found out that it was not going to be that simple. Many of the scholarly articles that were on Jstor were only about the issue of immigration and only briefly may have mentioned the bible, but there was nothing that I could find that had much substance to it about the issue of refugees and the bible. However, I was finally able to find some articles directly relating refugees to the bible and what the bible says about it. It was very interesting though to see that after all of my searching, none of the articles I had found particularly spoke much about exodus which is the most relatable biblical story to refugees in my mind. Instead of talking about how we should relate to the refugees plight due to the exodus story, the articles I found discussed how Jesus’ teaching should be reason enough for us to be sympathetic towards the refugees. Jesus teaches us that compassion is needed when dealing with those that are less fortunate than us, and if we apply these teachings to the current refugee situation in the world, the articles believed that it is cut and dry very clear that we should be accepting of all refugees and offer our help instead of marginalizing them as the outsiders in our society. One article discussed not just Jesus’ sermons or particular teachings to prove this point, but it also went as far as to cite an example of Jesus interaction with another human being and how he exemplified compassion. When greeted at the well outside a town by a woman of a far lesser status, Jesus did not look down on her or anything of that nature, instead he greeted her as a human being and talked to her on a personal level and was able to connect with her even though she comes from a far different and much more marginalized background than he did. This is the approach I have come to see from my research that we should take when dealing with anyone who is marginalized or of lesser status. Instead of looking down on them, greeting them as another human being and understanding them on a personal level before casting any judgement should always be the approach taken.