Syrian Refugees - Part 1

For a while now, I have been thinking about how some issues we face in our culture today are so complex, that they are really hard to discuss.  These issues have so many different facets and angles that discussions tend to stall out because the two sides discussing the issue are not actually discussing the same side of the issue.  With this in mind, I had the idea to take some of these controversial and complex issues and try to look at them from one angle at a time.  I feel as if the Syrian Refugee discussion is a good discussion to try this approach out with.  

After the ISIS attacks in Paris, the question of whether or not to allow Syrian refugees into America became the hot topic in the news and social media.  I have seen a lot of good points from each side of the debate as well as some pretty bad points and misinformation.  After reading a lot of posts and articles about the situation, I see several angles which I would like to discuss about the issue.  The first angle I will talk about is what is the Christian response to refugees?  How does the Bible inform our individual response to refugees?  What does the Bible say about safety?  Next I would like to discuss what is the government's responsibility towards refugees?  This is going to get into the role of the government?  This and the Christian response are separate issues entirely, yet both have to factor into our own position on the issue.  Next I would like to have a post about the different ways to enter America.  What makes a refugee a refugee?  How is that different from other ways to enter the country?  I would then like to post about security risks for the different ways to enter the country.  I would also like to discuss the nature of Islam in a post.  What makes a Muslim a Muslim?  Are they required to kill non-Muslims?  Finally, I will post about how does religious freedom interact with this issue?

This is not an exhaustive list.  I will add more facets to the discussion if I think about them.  If you have any you would like discussed let me know.  I am going to post these posts on this blog and then link to the blog on Facebook.  Please feel free to comment and discuss, but please limit your responses to the particular angle being discussed in the post.  I reserve the right to copy comments I feel were made on the wrong post and move them to the correct post.  Hopefully some consensus can be reached for each individual angle.  At that point, people can decide how they want to take all of this information and turn it into an overall opinion.  I think it is important to not rush to black and white conclusions without looking at all the angles though.  Hopefully this series will help with that.  If this is successful, I may try tackling some other tricky issues later.

Thanks for your cooperation! I hope this is a beneficial experiment for all of us!