[I]s it not already and in itself alarming that Europe’s Christian culture is barely in a position to uphold Europe’s own Christian values?

With these words, Victor Orban justified his government’s resistance to welcoming those refugees presently streaming into Europe on the grounds that the influx of Muslim migrants is a threat to so-called “Christian values.” The Prime Minister of Hungary should spend perhaps two and a half minutes reading the gospels to see why this is so patently absurd: the greatest Christian value is charity—charity is indeed what we Christians believe our God to be—and the repudiation of charity is itself the greatest threat to Christianity, for it is the greatest turning-away from God imaginable.

Alright, blog post finished! *slaps hands together* I’ve made my case! It’s Thursday night, time to go out for some $2 well drinks!!! Oh wait… I’m no longer in college and nowhere near a bar that serves $2 well drinks on special on Thursday nights. **cries in a corner** Well, I guess I’ll elaborate on the whole refugees and Jesus thing:

Since (1) I now have lots of time and (2) no longer have a social life, let’s take things back to the very basics, to Genesis itself. What does the Christian tradition reveal about being human? And how does the answer to that question inform the appropriate Christian response to the issue of migrants?

Genesis 2 informs us that “When the Lord God made earth and heaven… the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Gen. 2:4-7). Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, offers a remarkably beautiful theological reflection on this depiction of man being formed from the ‘dust of the earth’ in his book In the Beginning…: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall. The insights are so wonderful that I will quote liberally: “the unity of the whole human race becomes immediately apparent: We are all from only one earth. There are not different kinds of ‘blood and soil,’ to use a Nazi slogan. There are not fundamentally different kinds of human beings, as the myths of numerous religions used to say and as some worldview of our own day also assert. There are not different categories or races in which human beings are valued differently. We are all one humanity, formed from God’s one earth. It is precisely this thought that is at the very heart of the creation account and of the whole Bible. In the face of all human division and human arrogance, whereby one person sets himself or herself over and against another, humanity is declared to be one creation from his one earth.”

Secondly, Genesis informs us that human beings are created in God’s “image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26). This is the Christian justification for the existence of objective, inalienable human rights—each human person, by virtue of his or her humanity alone, is entitled to certain things like life, freedom, and just treatment. The human person is a rights-bearer, an end in him- or herself precisely because to be human is to be in God’s image, and God’s image carries with it a dignity whose violation is contrary to the logic of existence itself.

We are all one humanity, formed from God’s one earth. It is precisely this thought that is at the very heart of the creation account and of the whole Bible

So how do we take these insights—that we human beings are, beyond all divisons and artificial distinctions, one creation from one earth; and that we are all endowed with rights such that we ought to be treated as ends in ourselves—and apply them to the current refugee crisis, which is witnessing a great mass of humanity flood into Europe, a phenomenon to which there is significant resistance is based on the desire to preserve European heritage and—egregiously—”Christian values”?

The ability to regulate national borders is a feature of the international system founded upon the principle of state sovereignty: the political and legal logic holds that states are sovereign over their own affairs and therefore theoretically empowered to restrict access to their territory as they please, although the cession of some sovereignty to the supranational European Union somewhat dilutes this principle in Europe. Still, however, this residual understanding of sovereignty is what permits Schengen states like Hungary to construct border fences and restrict free access to other Schengen states.

Christianity, and particularly Catholicism (which is, after all, means “universality”) has traditionally rejected this logic of state sovereignty with great fervour. Indeed, the Catholic Church was strongly opposed to the notion of state sovereignty ever since the concept became a political reality with the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the 17th-century Wars of Religion. The Church had self-interested reasons for opposing the concept, obviously—absolute sovereignty would allow rulers to be the masters of religious belief in their realms and thus Catholicism would lose its foothold in those locations ruled by Protestants—but the Church also stood against the notion of state sovereignty because it introduced an artificial division among peoples who were supposed to be “one creation from one earth.” State sovereignty implies that political entities and the inhabitants thereof do not have responsibilities to each other; each state was to be separate and fully autonomous, whereas under the feudal system Europe was organized according to a vast web of responsibilities and obligations that tied different polities and peoples to each other (incidentally this is why the Church is such a strong supporter of the European Union, which reintroduces that web of responsibilities across state borders).

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt” (Lev. 19:34).

The Christian political vision thus transcends the state. And as such, the Church considers that people living in different political entities still have obligations to each other by virtue of their common humanity, precisely because (1) it is the duty of everyone to respect the rights with which we are endowed as bearers of the image of God and (2) because we are all the same, because we are all one singular creation. Hungary and other countries may have the ability to build fences to exclude people who are seeking the restitution of their rights, but that ability derives from the Westphalian state system that the Church rejected in the 17th century and that it has never really fully accepted since. We have obligations beyond our national and cultural interests because our common humanity binds us together more strongly than culture or politics divide us, for in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free.

One might argue that a particular state is solely responsible for its citizens because it is the political entity to which they belong, but that is not a Catholic nor a biblical argument. The Christian message is that the function of political organization is not simply caring for one’s own—for indeed, “if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matt. 5:46)—but rather the advancement of the common good of all humanity: if the Church accepts the state as legitimate in our day, it is because it thinks that the existence of states now does something to advance the common good of all people. The Church has never retracted its condemnation of the view that a political entity should concern itself only with its own internal welfare: it must always consider the whole of humanity, the whole of this one creation from one earth. We must, in other words, be our brother’s keeper. It is our responsibility before God to welcome those seeking help. That is an authentic expression of “Christian values”; anything less is unacceptable.

I think Jesus’ own words are the most penetrating in this regard: “‘the King will answer them… ‘I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me'” (Matt. 25:40-46).

I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. If we fail now, what will our excuse be? “I’m sorry, I can’t give you food because I’m afraid that if I give food to you, others might start pestering me for more.” “It’s a shame that you’re thirsty, but I can’t give you anything to drink because it would marginally decrease the amount of water that I have for myself.” “My deepest regrets, but I don’t welcome strangers for fear that my cultural patrimony might be diluted.” No. The Christian message is exceptionally clear: we are one creation from one earth such that divisons between us, including national and cultural divisions, are artificial in the final evaluation; we all have rights; and those with plenty have a moral duty before God to give to those with little, precisely because Christ himself is in those who have little, in those who suffer, in those who are maligned and rejected.

Perhaps someone ought to tell Mr. Orban that “upholding Christian values” involves doing the exact opposite of what his government is doing in this situation of crisis. The only Christian value that exists in the final evaluation is love—love that recognizes no division between the peoples of this one creation and one earth—and if we fail to love then whatever “Christian values” we have are fictions.