There are several basic problems with his pacifist response to the "Syrian refugee" crisis:
i) "Refugee" is often a euphemism. We need to distinguish genuine refugees from looters or terrorists.
ii) Charity depends on private property rights. If you refuse to protect property, then you have nothing to share with refugees. The thugs will hoard it all for themselves.
iii) Likewise, you can't very well give asylum to refugees if you refuse to protect people from rape, robbery, slavery, murder, &c.
iv) It's not just a question of terrorism, but sharia. Look at what is unfolding before our very eyes in Europe.
v) You don't value life if you refuse to protect innocent lives. Sprinkle pens this bleeding-heart piece about "refugees," but in pacifism, life is cheap. The lives of "refugees" are forfeit, because pacifism refuses to protect innocent lives.
vi) He quotes Mt 25 out of context. In context, the "stranger" refers to persecuted Christians.
vii) His appeal to OT charity blurs distinct categories:
viii) His appeal to OT law is highly selective. A pacifist appealing to OT law is quite ironic. OT law is hardly nonviolent. It contains laws of warfare, as well as not a few capital offenses. It includes a provision to kill a house burglar (Exod 22:2).
Sprinkle needs to explain what principle or criterion he uses to differentiate the culturebound provisions of the OT law code from the transcultural provisions.
ix) Apropos (viii), the Mosaic penal code is often incompatible with the varieties of sharia. In consistency, Sprinkle must say Muslims "refugees" can only be covered by Mosaic provisions regarding the treatment of "strangers" on condition that they renounce sharia and submit to the Mosaic penal code. If OT law mandates how they should be treated in one respect (charity), then it mandates how they should be treated in other respects (e.g. death penalty for rape).
No comments:
Post a Comment