Refuge Reimagined

The global crisis of forced displacement is growing every year. At the same time, Western Christians' sympathy toward refugees is increasingly overshadowed by concerns about personal and national security, economics, and culture. We urgently need a perspective that understands both Scripture and current political realities and that can be applied at the levels of the church, the nation, and the globe.
In Refuge Reimagined, Mark R. Glanville and Luke Glanville offer a new approach to compassion for displaced people: a biblical ethic of kinship. God's people, they argue, are consistently called to extend kinship—a mutual responsibility and solidarity—to those who are marginalized and without a home. Drawing on their respective expertise in Old Testament studies and international relations, the two brothers engage a range of disciplines to demonstrate how this ethic is consistently conveyed throughout the Bible and can be practically embodied today.
Glanville and Glanville apply the kinship ethic to issues such as the current mission of the church, national identity and sovereignty, and possibilities for a cooperative global response to the refugee crisis. Challenging the fear-based ethic that often motivates Christian approaches, they envision a more generous, creative, and hopeful way forward. Refuge Reimagined will equip students, activists, and anyone interested in refugee issues to understand the biblical model for communities and how it can transform our world.

Dr. Mark Glanville works as the Director of the Centre for Missional Leadership at St. Andrews Hall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is an Old Testament scholar, and has written five books, including Improvising Church: Scripture as the Source of Harmony, Rhythm, and Soul, and Preaching in a New Key: Crafting Expository Sermons in Post-Christian Communities. Mark's vocational goal is to research, teach, write, speak, and play music to nourish Christian leaders to creatively reimagine what the church can be and do in post-Christian societies, with the Bible in our hands. Mark is also a professional jazz pianist, active on the Vancouver jazz scene. Mark's podcast is Blue Note Theology, which he hosts from the grand piano. His personal website is https://www.markglanville.org.

Luke Glanville (PhD, University of Queensland) is associate professor in the department of international relations at Australian National University. He is the author of Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: A New History.