Pastors of Protestant churches in the US say that while caring for refugees is a “privilege”, their church congregations are twice as likely to fear refugees as they are to help them, according to new data from LifeWay Research.
The Nashville-based organisation surveyed 1,000 Protestant senior pastors in January in an initiative sponsored by humanitarian agencies World Relief and World Vision. The poll found that more than eight in 10 of those surveyed agreed Christians should “care sacrificially for refugees and foreigners” but that 44 per cent believed there was a sense of fear in their church about refugees coming to the US.
It also showed that while 86 per cent of pastors agreed Christians should care for refugees, only 19 per cent said their churches were helping refugees overseas. Seventy-two per cent of pastors said they had not discussed or heard about ways to help refugees locally and 63 per cent said they had not discussed or heard about ways to help refugees overseas.
Only 19 per cent said their churches were helping refugees overseas and only eight per cent said they were doing so locally.
Churches are most likely to help refugees so by giving money to relief organisations or praying – both came in at 19 per cent – while only seven per cent of churches had volunteered to help refugees locally and only five per cent sponsored individual refugees.
