The messier the subject, the messier the solution… and Calais is messy. Thousands trying to stow away in freight lorries, to catch the Eurostar, scaling razor–wire fences or tearing them down, riot police, ghettoes, shanty towns, injuries, deaths… a little bit of Sudan or Syria deposited in North Europe. And we thought we were insulated by a continent.

But there is no insulation any more. What happens there, happens here. The bloody, intractable pain of the Middle East or North Africa washes up on the White Cliffs eventually.

If you appeal only to the heart – diagnosis: unmentionable atrocity; medicine: unqualified generosity – you will make the problem worse. More will come, more will suffer. It is unpalatable but only the naïve think otherwise.

If you appeal only to the head – can these people contribute to British society? No? Well, then cheerio chaps – you will do nothing to help them whilst watching another few flakes of your soul crumble into the channel.

If you appeal to neither heart nor head you end up looking like The Simpson’s Police Chief Wiggum as he stands on Springfield docks and says to his force, “All right, men, here’s the order of deportations. First we’ll be rounding up your tired, then your poor, then your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” Or, worse, Katie Hopkins. 

We should not hope for, still less expect straightforward answers, but one distinction may help.

It is curious that early Israel, a tiny, vulnerable nation sandwiched between aggressive superpowers, did not pull up the drawbridge. Rather, the Torah has a disproportionate concern for the alien within the nation, who was to be protected from abuse, oppression, economic exploitation, and unfair treatment in the courts, while enjoying equal rights before the law, harvest gleanings, fair employment practices, the triennial tithe, access to the cities of refuge, and latterly even the opportunity to own rural land.

These were not simply any foreigners, however, but ‘gerim‘, a word whose roots lie in ‘to stir up strife, create confusion’ and ‘to dread, be afraid’, people who are consistently mentioned alongside hired hands, the poor, widows, and orphans. In other words, these were those outside the natural structures of support and security, people whom we could categorise today as refugees or asylum seekers without stretching those terms too far.

There were other kinds of foreigners. ‘Nokrim‘ and ‘zarim‘ were ‘foreigners’ or ‘aliens’ usually living in their own country outside Israel with no link to the land, people or God of Israel, although they could also be present within Israel, for example as merchants or mercenaries. These could be viewed positively, but generally were understood as distinct and other, having little loyalty to the nation.

You cannot and should not read contemporary policy straight off the Old Testament, or indeed the New. No serious Christian political ethics does advocates such an approach –contrary to those interviewers and commentators who like to prod and poke Christian politicians with their half–baked, half–witted questions beginning “well, the Bible says this, so surely…”

But when faced with mess, it is worth striving for the kind of conceptual clarity that these categories gesture towards. Are we dealing with ‘gerim‘ in Calais, or ‘nokrim‘?

If the former, the heart should lead the head. Yes, the claims of ‘gerim‘ can be fiendishly difficult to verify and, yes, some (how many?) will be bogus. But the principle here is (reasonably) straightforward. We should offer asylum to people who really need it and we should be proud to do so.

If the latter, the head should lead the heart. Governments have a right, indeed duty to their citizens, to manage borders, administering a system that is fair to them just as it should be to those who wish to join them. Of course, this is a moral element in here too. The head needs its own heart. Every “points–based system” has an ethical content and those that are unduly economic in their focus, welcoming people on account of their high net worth, feel like waving in Dives while we leave Lazarus at the gate. Nevertheless, we can afford to be more hard–headed when it comes to dealing with ‘nokrim‘ rather than ‘gerim‘.

No one comes out of this smelling of incense. Not politicians, not the French gendarmes, not Christian bloggers writing at the comfort of their office desk, certainly not the children and fathers and cousins living in filth and fear and hope in Calais.

Nick Spencer is Reserach Director at Theos and the author of Asylum and Immigration: A Christian Perspective on a Polarised Debate