This week, Médecins Sans Frontiers, or Doctors Without Borders, was ordered to remove their mental health team from Nauru, where about 800 refugees, including 90 or so children, are being kept in offshore detention, at the behest of the Australian Government.

There have been repeated, independent reports of the appalling conditions that these, already traumatised, human beings have been living in. There have been repeated, independent reports, of the mental illness now being experienced by not only the adults, but the children in detention.

Médecins Sans Frontiers has called for the urgent resettlement of refugees on Nauru.

By all accounts, Mr Morrison, you attend Horizon Church. I checked the statement of faith. It says ‘We believe that the Bible is God’s Word. It is accurate, authoritative and applicable to our every day lives.’ 

I also attended church this morning, where we read our Bibles, and contemplated the struggles of the Christian Life.

Several passages came immediately to mind when I read about Nauru.

Deuteronomy 10 v 18-19: ¹⁸ He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. ¹⁹ And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.

James 1 v 17:  ²⁷ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

And the whole passage in Matthew 25, reading from verse 31 –  about the Sheep and the Goats.

My whole point is, that as a Christian, I don’t understand why you sit and watch, and continue a policy that harms children. In fact, it astounds me. There is no doubt that children are being harmed. We are called to protect the helpless and vulnerable, and to take them in. Why do you defend a policy that does the complete opposite?

How do you not feel shame when you hear about suicidal children? How is it that you don’t act to save them?

Can you tell I’m emotionally invested? I am. Can you tell that I don’t understand your position? Particularly when the Bible states strongly the opposite stance?

One last comment from the book of Micah, Chapter 6, verse 8 and then I’m done. I’d like you, Mr Morrison, to read your Bible, pray, and ask God what he thinks about children in detention.

⁸ He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly^[a] with your God.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-11/msf-calls-for-immediate-evacuation-of-nauru-refugees/10364860

https://www.asrc.org.au/2018/09/24/fighting-from-the-inside/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-03/australia-has-lost-control-of-off-shore-processing/10334898