An old poll indicates evangelicals don’t care about refugees. How do they actually feel?

Overall, 51% of Americans agree that the U.S. has a responsibility toward refugees, but no group expressed as little support as evangelicals.

Karen Swallow Prior, a professor of English at the evangelical Liberty University, says evangelicals haven’t always felt this way.

“I was thinking how ironic it is because some of the most prominent evangelicals in the beginning of evangelicalism, in the late 18th and early 19th century in England, when the French Revolution was going on, were actually very supportive of harboring and protecting French émigrés who were escaping France,” she said over the phone.

Now, the issue has become polarized and politicized. Prior added, “It’s almost like a reversal, where evangelicals have to relearn our own history, and embrace it, and learn from our forebears.”

Prior is the co-editor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues, a book on how Christians should approach issues such as gender, race, and immigration. The book, which came out this week, contains a collection of essays by various evangelical leaders.

In “Why Christians should be pro-immigrant,” Y. Liz Dong and Ben Lowe write that “given how much Scripture says on the topic of immigration, it appears that much of American evangelicalism may not be very evangelical anymore.”

The authors cite a LifeWay Research poll that found only 12% of evangelicals said the Bible had most influenced their thinking on immigration. More often, the media, friends and family, and immigrants they’d interacted with had shaped their views.

But some religious groups, such as the Evangelical Immigration Table and World Relief, are working to help refugees. Dong herself works with World Relief, a nonprofit humanitarian organization, as an immigration advocate.

“God is building his kingdom through the diaspora of people (Acts 17:26),” she and Lowe write, “and we get to join him by welcoming the stranger in our midst.”

Joshua D. Chatraw, the other co-editor of Cultural Engagement, writes that when it comes to the subject of immigration, evangelicals should be careful not to cite the Bible just to back up their points. One pastor even cited Nehemiah building a wall around Jerusalem as a parallel to building a wall on America’s southern border.

While it’s easy to cherry-pick points to back up any position on immigration, and Prior notes that there is no one correct position or response, the Bible encourages Christians to help the vulnerable.

In John 21:17, the apostle writes that Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. “Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ He said, ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’”

If his followers meant what they said, though, they would have to prove it. Jesus responded, “Feed my sheep.”

The reasons for evangelicals’ reluctance to embrace refugees appear varied. Prior speculates that it comes in part from the group’s embrace of American individualism, which emphasizes the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality.

Perhaps some of those surveyed conflated refugees with immigrants, failing to understand that they’ve fled their countries because of war, violence, or persecution, a reason for which many religious people seek asylum. Or, the reason could be as Dong and Lowe speculate: Some evangelicals misunderstand the Bible.

Either way, many prominent evangelicals reject the idea that harboring refugees is not their responsibility.

Yet despite some voices, the statistics don’t look good. Prior said, “I think that the fact that such a vast minority of evangelicals are favorable towards refugees suggests that we’re skewed in the wrong direction.”