Imagine this scenario: A little boy, I’ll call him Ali, born in Raqqa, once told an aid worker he had learnt to count by tallying airstrikes. His father had pledged allegiance to so-called Islamic State. His mother queued for bread beneath black flags. He had never seen a playground.
When the caliphate collapsed, he ended up in a Kurdish camp. He was stateless, feverish, and frightened of drones. An Australian passport lay somewhere in a filing cabinet scores of 1000s of km away, a rumour of mercy.
This bit you don’t have to imagine: Australian gornments vts have not always covered themselves in glory. We have left citizens stranded, cancelled citizenships in ways courts later questioned, and relied on fragile local authorities to warehouse complex moral problems beyond our sight.
Against that backdrop, some leaders have spoken with bracing bluntness. This week our PM said he “… has contempt” for these Australian families who joined ISIS. Then back peddling, when challenged, and saying he didn’t have contempt for the children –they should not be punished for their parents’ crimes.
The context of this modified-midway comment was political and pastoral: acknowledging public revulsion at atrocities, yet distinguishing culpable adults from innocent minors. Contempt named moral outrage at evil, not a programme for cruelty towards children.
Pauline Hansen ’s “There are no good Muslims” this week, was gobsmacking, mind blowing, inexplicable. Presumably she was arguing about ideological reform within Islam. She later semi “apologised” for phrasing what many heard as tarring ordinary Muslims with collective blame.
Her apology ALMOST conceded that sweeping language obscured necessary distinctions between violent extremism and peaceful Muslim neighbours. Context matters, and so do categories. The Bible is allergic to false witness and careless generalisation.
And with regard to Albanese, is it ever biblical to harbour contempt? God counsels “Love your enemies” and “Bless those who curse you” (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:28). It warns that “whoever despises neighbour sins” (Prov 14:21), and that “contempt corrodes judgement” Psalm 123).
Yet the Bible also burns with moral revulsion at wickedness. “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good” (Romans 12:9). The prophets thunder against injustice. Jesus calls hypocrisy “whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:27).
The distinction is delicate but decisive. He instructs us to hate evil, not to dehumanise evildoers. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Golgotha speaks against smugness, and sustains moral seriousness.
So any Christian ethic must be cruciform and resurrection-shaped. Jesus’ death exposes our complicity; his resurrection vindicates justice; his ascension declares that judgement belongs finally to him, not to talkback radio or Twitter (Acts 2:36).
Within that frame, a Christian “retrieval ethic” asks what to do when every option is bad. What is the least bad option of all the bad options? In a fallen world, we seek the path that maximises good and limits harm, without baptising evil as good.
The options are grim. Repatriate adults and children, risking security costs and public anger. Leave them in camps, risking radicalisation, lawlessness, and the slow brutalisation of children. Strip citizenship, testing legal and moral limits.
A retrieval ethic refuses the fantasy of clean hands. Augustine insisted that earthly politics is marked by tragic necessity; yet charity must govern even coercion. Aquinas taught that justice is ordered to the common good, not vengeance.
The early church faced analogous tensions. In the second century, Tertullian rejected violence, yet pleaded for fair treatment of Christians under suspicion. Augustine of Hippo later framed just war to restrain cruelty.
The Reformers were no naïfs about sin. The German Abbot spoke of two kingdoms, warning rulers to wield the sword soberly. The Swissman urged magistrates to protect the innocent and punish wrongdoing proportionately.
Modern ethicists echo this tragic realism. Oliver O’Donovan roots political authority in the risen Christ’s rule. Miroslav Volf argues that exclusion and embrace must be held together without collapsing into sentimentality or spite.
What then is least bad? Many Christian thinkers argue for repatriating children swiftly, with trauma-informed care, education, and patient discipleship where appropriate. “Let the little children come to me” (Mk 10:14) is not a border policy, but it is a moral compass.
For adults, a retrieval ethic leans towards repatriation with prosecution where evidence warrants, deradicalisation programmes, and stringent monitoring. Rom 13 affirms the state’s authority to punish wrongdoing; Micah 6:8 insists that justice walk with mercy.
Leaving adults in camps may feel safer, yet it outsources judgement to unstable actors and risks indefinite detention without due process. God is wary of partiality and secret injustice (James 2:1; Proverbsia 17:15).
Stripping citizenship may signal resolve, but it can create statelessness and evade responsibility. The prophets proscribe rulers who “turn aside the needy from justice” (Isaiah 10:2). Law must not become a tool of symbolic cleansing.
Christians can think soberly, refusing naïveté about ideology or violence. I can feel grief for victims of terror, and grief also for children born into nightmares not of their choosing. I can pray for repentance, protection, wisdom, and restraint.
I can speak carefully, avoiding collective slander. “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6). I can support policies that combine security vigilance with rehabilitative hope, remembering that resurrection is God’s signature surprise.
And I can remember that my own citizenship is heavenly (Philippians 3:20). The ascended Jesus rules history. No camp, no courtroom, no cabinet room is beyond his claim. His judgement is real; his mercy is realer still.
And here is the twist. Little Ali from Raqqa learns English in suburban Australia. He plays football. He sits in a classroom beside your child. One day he asks what Easter means.
I clear my throat and explain that God the Son died for enemies, rose to forgive the guilty, and reigns to judge the world. He listens. And smiles. Then he asks, very quietly, “Does that include my dad?”
Image: Refugee children in Idlib camp in Syria (a sister camp to where the Australians are now held). Image Source Ahmed akacha / Pexels