Can We Talk About Safety?

When is the last time you played a board game or computer game?

Swam? Danced? Traveled by car?

I ask because I'm thinking of your safety.


You see, the odds of dying while playing a board game or computer game are 1 in 100,000,000. The odds of dying while swimming are 1 in 1,000,000. The odds of dying while dancing are 1 in 100,000 and the odds of dying when behind the wheel are 1 out of every 6,200 licensed drivers.

Yet, there is a major conversation going on in our country based on the safety risk posed by refugees. The theory goes: Islamic extremists will sneak into the USA as refugees and then commit terrorist acts.

But, let's hold this claim up to scrutiny for a moment.

What are the odds of being killed by a refugee terrorist?

1 in 3.6 billion.

Let me say that again.

You are literally 36 times for likely to die while playing Scrabble than at the hands of a refugee.

You are 36,000 times more likely to die doing the chicken dance at Cousin Carol's wedding.

You are 580,645 times more likely to die driving to see Hidden Figures at the multiplex this weekend.

My point here is not that you shouldn't drive or dance or swim, because believe me, everybody would benefit from going out to see Hidden Figures tonight. My point is that we risk our safety all the time. Risks that are statistically far greater than those found within the existing American refugee system.

And what do we take those risks for? Often for nothing more than our own convenience, efficiency, or comfort. Driving a car is not a requirement of livelihood, but we do it because we weigh the risk and we value getting to the grocery store faster rather than the alternatives. Yet here, we stand with literally tens of thousands of people, most of them women and children, dying, but our "safety" is apparently more important than their lives. But, Scrabble, that's worth the risk.

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If you consider yourself a follower of Christ, this next section is for you.

We serve a God who is jealous. This is not to say He is jealous like a six year old at his friend's birthday party looking at a pile of gifts, but that he is jealous like a husband watching his wife sleep with another man. He's not shy about using that exact illustration. Anytime the people of God chose to elevate some other value over His values, He calls it idolatry. When we do that, we are worshiping something else and something false.

And while I think the theological implications and directives of how Christians should treat refugees (along with all marginalized groups) are quite clear , I would rather drill down a little deeper into one particular idol I see rampant in the American church: Safety.

Christian radio bills itself as "safe for the whole family", 81% of white evangelicals voted for a presidential candidate who promised to "Keep America Safe Again", and I personally have had Christian leaders tell me they carry guns when they come to my neighborhood for protection. The problem of this all, of course, is that safety isn't a Christian value.

In fact, Christian values have led me to do a whole slew of things in my life that aren't considered "safe". I have friends who have been shot for Christian values. I have friends who have sold all their possessions and moved overseas for Christian values (even to Muslim nations). I have friends who are citizens of other nations that daily risk their safety just by identifying as Christians.

So where do we, the American Church, get off claiming any right to safety?

This idol of safety plays out in a myriad ways. Here's just one that I've seen repeatedly. The single greatest deterrent to college students coming and interning at our ministry hasn't been cost or travel or schedules, it has been middle and upper-middle class Christian parents, who declare it too unsafe for their kid to spend the summer in the hood.

This is the same idol that causes us to declare refugees to be unsafe (even though the existing vetting process is intense and no one who wanted to cause harm to America would ever choose the refugee route when far easier options exist).

It's the same idol that lead us in the past to deny the Imago Dei of Jewish refugees and turn them away.

It's the same idol that is behind so much rhetoric about undocumented immigrants.

When we elevate safety as a Christian necessity, we turn our back on our God.

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Tim Keller has said that there's not a problem with fundamentalism. It all depends on what your fundamentals are. And if one of your fundamentals is a man dying on a cross for his enemies, that ought to drastically impact the way you see and live your life.

Jesus Christ wasn't concerned about safety for Himself or His Church.

He's a Husband desperate that His Bride would turn away from her idols and come running back to His forgiving arms.