As the race to the bottom of the asylum seeker policy ocean by the two major parties shows no signs of stopping, I thought it timely to put this information up. Not that it hasn’t been seen before by alot of people, but the more it gets put out there the better.
A Christian leader in Australia recently tried to say that Jesus and his parents were not asylum seekers. He said the following (a direct quote):
“I had one critic write in recently saying Jesus and his family were asylum seekers. Sorry, but they were of course nothing of the sort, and it is quite silly to suggest they were.”
Now let me read to you the words of Matthew 2:13-15 which talks about this:
“When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.”
Now if that is not seeking asylum from persecution then I don’t know what is.
If you’re not sure about this issue and want to know more, my friend Eden Parris has sent this asylum seeker myth buster sheet from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. As the fake Greens ad on Gruen Nation this week said – “if you think boat people should be treated as people…”, then get stuck into your local MP and let them know that this is an issue they simply must do better on.
Very well put Nils. I hadn’t thought of it that way.