Tanya LWPT: In this episode of The Word Shared, a podcast from the Leaders of Worship and Preacher's Trust and Preach magazine, myself, Tanya Stead, the editor of Preach magazine, talks with Krish Kandaya, the author of a book, God is Stranger. This book is an updated issue that's just been released and I encourage everyone to go have a look. Hello and welcome to another interview from Preach magazine. Today we are joined by Krish Kandia. Kandia or Kandia? Thank you for joining us Krish and thank you for spending the time with us today to talk through your ⁓ edition of your book.
Krish Kandiah: Bye. and I have, but I'll answer to anything, Tonya. ⁓ it's lovely to be with you.
Tanya LWPT: at the new introduction, the new forward and what this means today as we look at migration, immigration, welcoming in the stranger. really encouraging that this book has come out now ⁓ with been happening. ⁓ But a short introduction, I'll just ⁓ share everyone ⁓ sort your background. So Chris, you're the founder and director of Sanctuary Foundation. ⁓ Now Foundation is a charity which supports refugees and asylum seekers to find welcome, work and worthwhile housing in the UK. ⁓ And is great to have you here today.
Krish Kandiah: Yeah, nice to be with you. And I'm a big fan of Preach magazine. I get to write for it regularly, and that means I get to read it regularly too. So congratulations on that.
Tanya LWPT: Yes, thank you. It's an honor to have your voice in the magazine. So hopefully everyone who recognized Christian understands his background today. ⁓ wanted to share one review that stood out and that was from Paula Gooda from St Paul's Cathedral. She says this about the book, ⁓ be this book could seriously affect your view of yourself, ⁓ of world and of God. I highly recommend it to you. ⁓
Krish Kandiah: I couldn't travel anywhere, cancel everything. Well, it could have been.
Tanya LWPT: And I think here from Preacher Magazine, we do too. It is based on solid scripture and it is such a great challenge. We reviewed it when it came out, the first edition. And it's a great honor to be asked review this one and have you on answering some of my questions about the book. So God is Stranger was released in 2017, about nine years ago now.
Krish Kandiah: Thank you. Yeah, yeah, go for ⁓ it.
Tanya LWPT: And now there's a new updated version. What are you excited about in this updated version?
Krish Kandiah: So this is probably one of my favourite books that my wife and I have written and it's the one that I think didn't necessarily get to the audience that needed to hear it. It's all about hospitality, that the title God is Stranger is because God turns up in so many occurrences in the Bible unannounced, in disguise. whether that's Abraham at the beginning of Genesis or whether it's Jesus on the Emmaus road, he keeps turning up. And it's like God is being a mystery shopper. There were these stories circulating when Richard Branson founded Virgin Atlantic that he used to turn up to his own airline, which he owned. but in disguise with glasses and a beard and he wanted to kind of test the customer service. What is it like to actually travel on the airline that I own? And it's like God's doing that with humanity. How will you treat those who are most vulnerable, those are most marginalized? What does hospitality look like? And the whole concept of hospitality has been thrown into disarray by a whole bunch of cultural changes, whether that was COVID, where we couldn't invite anyone to come and spend time in our houses, couldn't share food together. But the most urgent change that's happened, it's probably indicated by the front cover of this book, is how we as a nation are talking about immigration, asylum and refugees. And what's particularly challenging to me is that some people in the name of Jesus
Tanya LWPT: Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: are saying we should be more hostile towards immigrants, whether that's someone standing outside an asylum hotel wrapping themselves in a St George's cross and reciting the Lord's Prayer. that really cuts against what I understand to be in the scriptures. It's been an interesting week for how the scriptures are used in public life. we had ⁓ Pete Hesketh, is the Secretary of State for War for America, quoting the Bible, but he didn't realise he was quoting Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction, a kind of fabricated version of the Bible that Samuel L. Jackson's character recites before he murders someone.
Tanya LWPT: Mm.
Krish Kandiah: of the scriptures, scriptures in the university commons that Pete Eskiff quoted and then the other person was Russell Brand. takes a bible with him into court. He's accused of sexual assault, he's admitted to having sex with a minor, but he says it's consensual, and he takes a bible with him as moral support. And when Piers Morgan asked him which bit of the bible has given you most comfort, he's leafing through this book for like three minutes in silence because actually we're not sure that he actually knows this book. This book's become more like a talisman, more like a ⁓ comfort toy, and it's not the message
Tanya LWPT: Hmm. Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: of the book that's driving this, it's just the ideal or the visual of the book. And so I want to open the book and say what does the Bible actually have to say about these topics that are being supposedly connected to the Christian faith and Christian nationalism and so that's why we wanted this book out again.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. think one of our reviews that we did by Charmaine, you previewed it and she says, your book is theologically rich, but it is so accessible and so readable. And that's what we really appreciate is books that are grounded on scripture and the true word, but you've brought it out in such a thought provoking way. that's why we say it's challenging, but in such a good way.
Krish Kandiah: easy thing to finish. Thank you.
Tanya LWPT: It invites us to view God's character scripturally. ⁓ And saying that, is there any specific story or one of the chapters in the book that really resonates with you and stays with you at the back of your mind?
Krish Kandiah: ⁓ man that's hard because it's like choosing your favorite child you're not you're not allowed to have one no I don't have one I've got a lot of children and they're all favorites I guess the
Tanya LWPT: Okay.
Krish Kandiah: two chapters if I might be naughty, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament. So each chapter of the book looks at a different biblical passage or biblical story and explores it. I guess the one that's really been shaping my thought recently is the chapter on Ruth. Ruth is, I mean, it's just this powerful story about a refugee family. And you'll know the story well how Naomi and her husband Elimelech have to leave Bethlehem in order to escape a famine. So they become refugees by going to Moab. And Moab is like the kind of worst enemy you could imagine of Israel, have a history of kind of bad relationships and hatred. But they go there. And the whole thing is interesting because there's a famine in Bethlehem.
Tanya LWPT: Mm.
Krish Kandiah: That's a problem. It's a problem because Bethlehem means house of bread. And if there's a famine in the house of bread, there's a major famine. But also because you and I, as New Testament readers of the Book of Ruth, we hear Bethlehem and we know that we're in a King David story and we know that we're in a Jesus story. That's like a trigger. It's like telling you we're going to Gotham City, that you know you're in a Batman story, right? So we're in a Jesus David story and we've got refugees.
Tanya LWPT: Okay.
Krish Kandiah: And then, you know the story well, but when Ruth loses her husband and her two sons, the two sons have married local women, Moabite women, women who are enemies of the Israeli state. One of her daughter-in-laws, Ruth, is so committed to her that even when she, Naomi, needs to go home to Bethlehem, Ruth goes with her. so now, Ruth was a resident and Naomi was the refugee. Now it swaps. Naomi is the resident and Ruth is the refugee.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: and what happens in the way that she's shown hospitality. it's not a of sickly sweet sentimental hospitality. It's one that allows Ruth the dignity of working, of being in proximity to other local people, not receiving just kind of handouts and charity, but still generosity and kindness. And what you see there is so powerful, because in a post-famine context of Bethlehem, you see someone living the kingdom of God out. And this is in the time of judges and the time of judges, everyone's doing whatever they want, right? There's no kind of moral standard. And there's so many parallels with our moment. This story of Ruth, I think, offers us a way out of some of the culture war issues that we're seeing at the moment. So that will be the first one. And the second one, more briefly, is the most challenging parable Jesus ever told, which is the parable of the sheep and the goats. And the parable of the sheep and the goats,
Tanya LWPT: Mm-hmm.
Krish Kandiah: Almost everyone hates it. Everyone is frustrated by it. So my friends from a conservative background, they're frustrated with it because it talks so much about justice and not enough about evangelism and preaching and church. He's talking about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and welcoming the stranger. But my progressive friends, they find it really frustrating because he talks so clearly about heaven and hell. And so we try to edit it out. We go, okay, we'll have the social justice bit, but we won't talk about heaven and hell. Or we'll have the heaven and hell bit, but we won't talk about social justice. But what God has joined together, let no one separate. And what we see in this parable is that our worship to God ultimately isn't just what you do on a Sunday, how much money you give, what you do with 10 % of your time reading the Bible in your quiet time. If that... what we see in this parable ⁓ is that our worship to God ultimately isn't just what you do on a Sunday, how much money give, ⁓ what you do with 10 % of your time reading the Bible in your time. If that... doesn't get worked out in actual practical loving service to the vulnerable, has some very tough words for us doesn't get worked out in actual practical loving service to the vulnerable, Jesus has some very tough words for us and it's possible that you might think you're in the kingdom but not be in the kingdom at all. And I think that really speaks not just to this political moment when people are saying, I'm a Christian, but I think we should reject strangers or blame strangers or scapegoat strangers. It's also true for those of us who love the ritual of church, but not the practice of discipleship. So it challenges everybody. And I found, you know, writing this book and rewriting it for this current edition, incredibly challenging. I'm not coming at a wagging finger telling you this scripture is speaking to me and I'm telling you about the things I'm wrestling with just as much as you might be.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah, I think that's true and I think that's a challenge for anybody listening or watching this interview is to really go back and look at that look at that parable and see how you try and read it from a different perspective and see what you get out of it. Yeah, thanks for that Chris. I think one of the things so in my mind I was thinking you know what really what really prompted you
Krish Kandiah: Hmm.
Tanya LWPT: What led you to re-releasing in a sense? What has stood out to you with what's happening at the moment that's really led to this new edition?
Krish Kandiah: you Well, a few things. I'll give you one incident. I regularly go on GB News. I'm called to be the kind of counter voice to a lot of the political positioning that that news outlet has. And I'm often not very popular on there because a lot of the narrative... at GB News is that immigration is out of control, that these asylum seekers are destroying our country, that people from Muslim backgrounds are sexually assaulting our women and children, and we should fear them and we should eject them. And it's not a coincidence that many of the GB News presenters are actually either reform or conservative parliamentarians or candidates. So it's quite a hostile environment. And I went on to have a conversation with Matt Goodwin. He stood for election in Gorton, in the Manchester area. And he said, Krish. I'm really worried about the future of our nation. It's being destroyed by all these immigrants. Our Judeo-Christian heritage is being undermined, particularly by people from the Middle East. And I'm like, You know, Matt, I don't know if you're aware of this, but the Judeo-Christian heritage that you're talking about actually originated in the Middle East. Judaism, that would be Israel. Jesus was Jewish. ⁓ Most of the disciples were Jewish or modern-day Palestinians. The gospel started there. So how can it be that people from there are the biggest threat? What are you talking about? And then he said, ⁓ Chris, let me tell you, the Bible...
Tanya LWPT: you Mm-hmm.
Krish Kandiah: isn't as universal as you think. Now I'm there as a... commentator on immigration. He doesn't know I've got a PhD in theology. So he's quoting the Bible at me and he's saying well, know, the Bible's clear, you should love God. You should love your family. You should love your cousin. You should love your country. And I'm going, Matt, I think there are bits that you've missed out. There are other people that Christians are called to love. We're called to love our neighbor. And the clearest example of loving your neighbor is the enemy, the Samaritan, the hated person.
Tanya LWPT: Mm. Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: hated people group showing love to a Jewish person. And so those people that are saying that we're a Christian nation and the boundary of our empathy is the nation state haven't actually read the Bible very clearly. Because the best example is someone who is a Samaritan. If he was following your ethic, he should have just loved his family. And he said, look, that Jewish person by the side of the road, that's someone else's problem. I don't have any commitment, any issue or any obligation to him. I can just walk on by. But. actually those that walked on by are the example of not showing love. So it really struck me that in the name of Jesus, people are trying to commandeer the Christian faith to oppose immigration in general, asylum seekers, and particularly to spread fear about Islam. And it really struck me how prevalent some of that thinking is, not just outside the church, but inside the church too. And so I wanted to find a way to say, look, let's come back to the book that we all hold dear and see what it actually has to say. Not in a wagging your finger telling you off way, but look, we all want to sit under the authority of scripture. That's what it means to be a Christian.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah. Thank Yes, that is so true and that actually was one of the questions I was going to ask you about ⁓ this thinking of ⁓ those coming into the UK are going to dilute our Western Judeo-Christian heritage. I think that's just something. We shouldn't be scared of talking about this because if we're scared of talking about this then who's going to correct the people who are thinking wrong? ⁓
Krish Kandiah: Yeah, that's right. was having a conversation with someone yesterday about this and they're from a traditional conservative Christian background. hold scripture very highly and I said to them, okay, let's take a passage that we're familiar with, the Great Commission. I had to memorise it ⁓ as a teenager, as my youth group said, you know, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Jesus is talking to his disciples, he's just been crucified and then resurrected from the dead and now he's talking to his disciples and they're scared, some of them are still doubting, but there he is, the resurrected Jesus. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore stay. Stay in the holy nation of Israel and protect it from invaders Don't let anyone come in and dilute the Judeo-Christian heritage that is here in Israel. That's your job. Keep it pure I don't know about you, but that's not the version of the Great Commission That's actually in the Bible all that I remember No, it was all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me therefore go
Tanya LWPT: personal.
Krish Kandiah: Okay, where are you going? Well in twos you're gonna go out and you're gonna be the only Christians in whole continents, but don't be afraid I'm sending you out as sheep amongst wolves. You'll have no political power, right? You won't have strength in numbers. You won't have an army You'll just have the gospel my commission and the Holy Spirit and he'll be with you even to the ends of the earth, right? You're gonna go because your confidence is not in the strength of horses who your political might
Tanya LWPT: Mm-hmm.
Krish Kandiah: The confidence is in who God is, His Word, and the model of His Son. And that's what you're to go and do. And so even the people that are most passionate about the Gospel being true are sometimes, the ones that want to be most protective of our country. And I'm saying we shouldn't fear it. Those early disciples didn't fear it. They didn't fear being a minority. We are in no way a minority here. Even if we were, we shouldn't fear it.
Tanya LWPT: Mm. Yes. Yeah, that's so true. Thanks, Krish. I think you mentioned proximity earlier on in the conversation, but also in the introduction to this new ⁓ issue, you mentioned proximity. But can you expand how you want us to understand ⁓ the intention of that, talking about proximity to the migrants?
Krish Kandiah: Hmm Well, it's interesting that Jesus said the poor you'll always have among you That's interesting isn't it's not like you can have a quick visit to the poor and then come back again Jesus expected our lives to be interwoven with the poor and you see that in the story of Ruth It could have been a lot easier For Boaz to say that I'm a farmer. Right? That's what I do for a job. I'm a professional farmer We're going to harvest all the grain, 100 % of it. We've just had a famine. We need to be really careful with it, right? Look after it, steward it well. And we'll take a small proportion of it and we'll go and send it to poor people. And then they'll get fed. But the whole concept of gleaning... was that you don't sweat the asset, you don't get every last possible output from your resources, you leave some behind. Even after a famine, you leave some behind and you don't deliver it to the poor, you invite the poor to come among you because then that's going lead to a relationship. You're going to be close and when you're close you're going to be finding out about each other. Boaz didn't know Ruth. until she came gleaning in his field. But when she came gleaning in his field, she had proximity. And then he started to ask some questions. What's her story? she accompanied her mother-in-law, left her family to be loyal to her mother-in-law. He recognized in Ruth incredible character. He didn't just see her as everyone else did, as a Moabites, as a foreigner. He saw her as a woman of courage and character, and he recognized that in her. And he begins to call her his daughter. He's including her in his family. That only happened because Boaz obeyed the gleaning laws which forced there to be proximity. that make sense? And I've seen that happen in so many ways whether that's as a foster parent. When we became a foster parent, we became foster parents, my wife and I, 19 years ago. We thought we understood how poverty worked, how addiction worked, but having children from pretty difficult backgrounds come and live with us.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: 24 hours day, 7 days a week, we've begun to understand it at a whole other level. Their pain, their challenge, their trauma, their ongoing challenges to access ⁓ education or healthcare or mental health support or their learning difficulties not being supported at school. We know about it, not theoretically, but practically, because they're in our lives. They've flesh and blood to us, family to us. And so their challenges become ours. It's the same with asylum seekers and refugees that have come
Tanya LWPT: Mm. Mm.
Krish Kandiah: to live in our house or other people's houses, we suddenly don't see them as a project or an issue. They're people made in the image of God. And as we get to know them, we're drawn into their world. They bring so much to us and we can bring so much to them. That's how proximity works. And it's why I think hospitality is our way out of the polarization that we're in at the moment. A lot of people are shouting about each other rather than talking to each other. It's why when I go on GB News, I try to get there
Tanya LWPT: Thanks
Krish Kandiah: early. I try to meet the presenters. I've been to an engagement party, one of the presenters, because I want to have a genuine relationship with someone that I might disagree with politically. But if we can begin to see the humanity in one another, there's a way forward that we might be able to build a common life together. We need to live together as neighbours in this country. That's best done out of relationship. Well, that's best done from a relationship. Let me say it that way.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and that's so true. Thank you for explaining that and expanding on that. think so often we see sending out instead of welcoming in. We're doing our part, we're doing our part, you know. We're donating. That'll be good enough. But I think, yeah, it's just an encouragement. How can you actually get involved? How can you actually meet people where they are and have a conversation, ⁓ understand where they're coming from?
Krish Kandiah: Nice.
Tanya LWPT: I have one last question. World Refugee Days on the 20th of June. What does mean for you and what do hope it means for Christian leaders?
Krish Kandiah: Sure. Yes. ⁓ Well, at one level, remember there was a campaign, know, Christ isn't just for Christmas. And you go, OK, maybe we shouldn't celebrate Christmas because if you put too much attention on one day, you'll neglect Jesus the rest of the year. ⁓ But actually, most of us think actually it's important to celebrate so that we don't forget and we kind of keep it central. So these special days, it's a United Nations day from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. I just want to say let's pause whatever else is going on. Let's focus on what it's like to be one of the 120 million people that are displaced. Most of that 120 million people are internally displaced. That's like people from Kiev in Ukraine moving away from the front line. But. Many of them have had to cross a border to seek safety and that's someone who's become a refugee. And so what we at the Sanctuary Foundation do, we'll create resources that churches and civil society groups can use, but we also run a national art and poetry competition and we'll have the big prize giving at the British Library for this poetry. And we ask children to imagine what it's like to be one of the world's displaced children. Over 40 million displaced children around the world. And we judge it blind with a team of judges from places like the National Gallery, the British Library, UNHCR, Church of England Schools Network. We judge it blind and so far every year most of the winners have been children who are displaced. So they're Ukrainian children, they're Afghan children, Eritrean children, all sorts of children that have moved to the UK. And we listen. We listen to how they see the world and it's incredibly moving. get actors like Juliet Stevenson, Jonathan Price. think this year Minnie Driver says she'll be reading one of the poems out for us. And just listening to their voices, amplifying their voice. I got to share it on Radio 2 last year, one of the winning poems. And it just hopefully builds some empathy.
Tanya LWPT: again.
Krish Kandiah: that we can begin to recognise the dignity in each other. this year actually is the 75th anniversary of the Refugee Convention. And it's in peril. There are people wanting to get rid of it. make Britain come out of its ⁓ remit. And actually, it's such an important document. think we as Christians, particularly, who believe in the intrinsic dignity of all people, who recognize that God has a special concern for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Stranger could be translated refugee ⁓ in the Bible. We particularly ought to be attentive to this so that we can honor God in the way that he would have us do.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good. I think that's food for thought. think if anyone's listening or watching today, it would be really good. know, go and check out Sanctuary Foundation's website. Have a look at what they're doing. See how you can get involved. See how you can get conversations flowing in the communities that you're serving. And at the moment, I think it would be very important to bring some empathy and some understanding. And if you have those in your congregation that are going through this,
Krish Kandiah: Please. So it on.
Tanya LWPT: spend some time just one-on-one getting to know them ⁓ and what they're going through. think it's so very important. So thank you, Chris. Thank you so much for giving up some of your time for this conversation. ⁓ It'll be out on YouTube as an interview so people can watch, but also go on our new podcast series. So thank you so much. Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: Six pieces. That's right. labor intensive. Sounds good. I would say, can I just say one last thing Tanya, and it's always a pleasure to speak to you and thank you for Preach magazine. Some people might be listening going, wait, wait, it's out of reach for me. I'm not going to become a foster parent or an adoptive parent. I can't welcome any refugees or I don't know any refugees. I think hospitality can start really small and it can start with your family. Is there anyone within your family that is somehow on the margins, outside, ⁓ lonely? What does a call look like to just check in on them and see how they're doing? It could start with your physical neighbours, who lives in the flat above you, who's your next door neighbour? How well do you know them? Is it possible just to go and visit and share tea with them or invite them to your house? As we become proximate with other people, as we break down the kind of spatial geographical differences between us, we begin to understand where someone else is coming from and pretty soon your life is changed. Paula Gooder, whose comment you read out, is right. don't think it's my writing that's going to change your life. I think it's this openness to hospitality. And a really dangerous prayer that you could pray is, Lord, who is it that you need me to be closer to? Who is it you need me to share some food with, whether that's taking food to work or providing hospitality in your home. Who is it? And as you go...
Tanya LWPT: Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: something amazing happens because in the book of Hebrews it says do not forget to show hospitality to strangers because some have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. What we do for the least of these we do for God and you will find lots of challenges but an incredible change in your relationship with God because this is how we show our love to him. So don't be put off, don't think you've got to become some kind of political activist. It can be very, very practical service to those need.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah, I think that's very important. And I'll put in my encouragement, if anyone's noticed my accent. I am an immigrant. And when we first got here, we walked into a church, ⁓ were strangers. ⁓ those that initially showed us the most hospitality are the ones we are still closest to now years later.
Krish Kandiah: Mmm. That's great. Wonderful. Welcome. Excellent. Lovely to speak to you. Talk again soon.
Tanya LWPT: Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Krish.
Krish Kandiah: Bye. and I have, but I'll answer to anything, Tonya. ⁓ it's lovely to be with you.
Tanya LWPT: at the new introduction, the new forward and what this means today as we look at migration, immigration, welcoming in the stranger. really encouraging that this book has come out now ⁓ with been happening. ⁓ But a short introduction, I'll just ⁓ share everyone ⁓ sort your background. So Chris, you're the founder and director of Sanctuary Foundation. ⁓ Now Foundation is a charity which supports refugees and asylum seekers to find welcome, work and worthwhile housing in the UK. ⁓ And is great to have you here today.
Krish Kandiah: Yeah, nice to be with you. And I'm a big fan of Preach magazine. I get to write for it regularly, and that means I get to read it regularly too. So congratulations on that.
Tanya LWPT: Yes, thank you. It's an honor to have your voice in the magazine. So hopefully everyone who recognized Christian understands his background today. ⁓ wanted to share one review that stood out and that was from Paula Gooda from St Paul's Cathedral. She says this about the book, ⁓ be this book could seriously affect your view of yourself, ⁓ of world and of God. I highly recommend it to you. ⁓
Krish Kandiah: I couldn't travel anywhere, cancel everything. Well, it could have been.
Tanya LWPT: And I think here from Preacher Magazine, we do too. It is based on solid scripture and it is such a great challenge. We reviewed it when it came out, the first edition. And it's a great honor to be asked review this one and have you on answering some of my questions about the book. So God is Stranger was released in 2017, about nine years ago now.
Krish Kandiah: Thank you. Yeah, yeah, go for ⁓ it.
Tanya LWPT: And now there's a new updated version. What are you excited about in this updated version?
Krish Kandiah: So this is probably one of my favourite books that my wife and I have written and it's the one that I think didn't necessarily get to the audience that needed to hear it. It's all about hospitality, that the title God is Stranger is because God turns up in so many occurrences in the Bible unannounced, in disguise. whether that's Abraham at the beginning of Genesis or whether it's Jesus on the Emmaus road, he keeps turning up. And it's like God is being a mystery shopper. There were these stories circulating when Richard Branson founded Virgin Atlantic that he used to turn up to his own airline, which he owned. but in disguise with glasses and a beard and he wanted to kind of test the customer service. What is it like to actually travel on the airline that I own? And it's like God's doing that with humanity. How will you treat those who are most vulnerable, those are most marginalized? What does hospitality look like? And the whole concept of hospitality has been thrown into disarray by a whole bunch of cultural changes, whether that was COVID, where we couldn't invite anyone to come and spend time in our houses, couldn't share food together. But the most urgent change that's happened, it's probably indicated by the front cover of this book, is how we as a nation are talking about immigration, asylum and refugees. And what's particularly challenging to me is that some people in the name of Jesus
Tanya LWPT: Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: are saying we should be more hostile towards immigrants, whether that's someone standing outside an asylum hotel wrapping themselves in a St George's cross and reciting the Lord's Prayer. that really cuts against what I understand to be in the scriptures. It's been an interesting week for how the scriptures are used in public life. we had ⁓ Pete Hesketh, is the Secretary of State for War for America, quoting the Bible, but he didn't realise he was quoting Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction, a kind of fabricated version of the Bible that Samuel L. Jackson's character recites before he murders someone.
Tanya LWPT: Mm.
Krish Kandiah: of the scriptures, scriptures in the university commons that Pete Eskiff quoted and then the other person was Russell Brand. takes a bible with him into court. He's accused of sexual assault, he's admitted to having sex with a minor, but he says it's consensual, and he takes a bible with him as moral support. And when Piers Morgan asked him which bit of the bible has given you most comfort, he's leafing through this book for like three minutes in silence because actually we're not sure that he actually knows this book. This book's become more like a talisman, more like a ⁓ comfort toy, and it's not the message
Tanya LWPT: Hmm. Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: of the book that's driving this, it's just the ideal or the visual of the book. And so I want to open the book and say what does the Bible actually have to say about these topics that are being supposedly connected to the Christian faith and Christian nationalism and so that's why we wanted this book out again.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. think one of our reviews that we did by Charmaine, you previewed it and she says, your book is theologically rich, but it is so accessible and so readable. And that's what we really appreciate is books that are grounded on scripture and the true word, but you've brought it out in such a thought provoking way. that's why we say it's challenging, but in such a good way.
Krish Kandiah: easy thing to finish. Thank you.
Tanya LWPT: It invites us to view God's character scripturally. ⁓ And saying that, is there any specific story or one of the chapters in the book that really resonates with you and stays with you at the back of your mind?
Krish Kandiah: ⁓ man that's hard because it's like choosing your favorite child you're not you're not allowed to have one no I don't have one I've got a lot of children and they're all favorites I guess the
Tanya LWPT: Okay.
Krish Kandiah: two chapters if I might be naughty, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament. So each chapter of the book looks at a different biblical passage or biblical story and explores it. I guess the one that's really been shaping my thought recently is the chapter on Ruth. Ruth is, I mean, it's just this powerful story about a refugee family. And you'll know the story well how Naomi and her husband Elimelech have to leave Bethlehem in order to escape a famine. So they become refugees by going to Moab. And Moab is like the kind of worst enemy you could imagine of Israel, have a history of kind of bad relationships and hatred. But they go there. And the whole thing is interesting because there's a famine in Bethlehem.
Tanya LWPT: Mm.
Krish Kandiah: That's a problem. It's a problem because Bethlehem means house of bread. And if there's a famine in the house of bread, there's a major famine. But also because you and I, as New Testament readers of the Book of Ruth, we hear Bethlehem and we know that we're in a King David story and we know that we're in a Jesus story. That's like a trigger. It's like telling you we're going to Gotham City, that you know you're in a Batman story, right? So we're in a Jesus David story and we've got refugees.
Tanya LWPT: Okay.
Krish Kandiah: And then, you know the story well, but when Ruth loses her husband and her two sons, the two sons have married local women, Moabite women, women who are enemies of the Israeli state. One of her daughter-in-laws, Ruth, is so committed to her that even when she, Naomi, needs to go home to Bethlehem, Ruth goes with her. so now, Ruth was a resident and Naomi was the refugee. Now it swaps. Naomi is the resident and Ruth is the refugee.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: and what happens in the way that she's shown hospitality. it's not a of sickly sweet sentimental hospitality. It's one that allows Ruth the dignity of working, of being in proximity to other local people, not receiving just kind of handouts and charity, but still generosity and kindness. And what you see there is so powerful, because in a post-famine context of Bethlehem, you see someone living the kingdom of God out. And this is in the time of judges and the time of judges, everyone's doing whatever they want, right? There's no kind of moral standard. And there's so many parallels with our moment. This story of Ruth, I think, offers us a way out of some of the culture war issues that we're seeing at the moment. So that will be the first one. And the second one, more briefly, is the most challenging parable Jesus ever told, which is the parable of the sheep and the goats. And the parable of the sheep and the goats,
Tanya LWPT: Mm-hmm.
Krish Kandiah: Almost everyone hates it. Everyone is frustrated by it. So my friends from a conservative background, they're frustrated with it because it talks so much about justice and not enough about evangelism and preaching and church. He's talking about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and welcoming the stranger. But my progressive friends, they find it really frustrating because he talks so clearly about heaven and hell. And so we try to edit it out. We go, okay, we'll have the social justice bit, but we won't talk about heaven and hell. Or we'll have the heaven and hell bit, but we won't talk about social justice. But what God has joined together, let no one separate. And what we see in this parable is that our worship to God ultimately isn't just what you do on a Sunday, how much money you give, what you do with 10 % of your time reading the Bible in your quiet time. If that... what we see in this parable ⁓ is that our worship to God ultimately isn't just what you do on a Sunday, how much money give, ⁓ what you do with 10 % of your time reading the Bible in your time. If that... doesn't get worked out in actual practical loving service to the vulnerable, has some very tough words for us doesn't get worked out in actual practical loving service to the vulnerable, Jesus has some very tough words for us and it's possible that you might think you're in the kingdom but not be in the kingdom at all. And I think that really speaks not just to this political moment when people are saying, I'm a Christian, but I think we should reject strangers or blame strangers or scapegoat strangers. It's also true for those of us who love the ritual of church, but not the practice of discipleship. So it challenges everybody. And I found, you know, writing this book and rewriting it for this current edition, incredibly challenging. I'm not coming at a wagging finger telling you this scripture is speaking to me and I'm telling you about the things I'm wrestling with just as much as you might be.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah, I think that's true and I think that's a challenge for anybody listening or watching this interview is to really go back and look at that look at that parable and see how you try and read it from a different perspective and see what you get out of it. Yeah, thanks for that Chris. I think one of the things so in my mind I was thinking you know what really what really prompted you
Krish Kandiah: Hmm.
Tanya LWPT: What led you to re-releasing in a sense? What has stood out to you with what's happening at the moment that's really led to this new edition?
Krish Kandiah: you Well, a few things. I'll give you one incident. I regularly go on GB News. I'm called to be the kind of counter voice to a lot of the political positioning that that news outlet has. And I'm often not very popular on there because a lot of the narrative... at GB News is that immigration is out of control, that these asylum seekers are destroying our country, that people from Muslim backgrounds are sexually assaulting our women and children, and we should fear them and we should eject them. And it's not a coincidence that many of the GB News presenters are actually either reform or conservative parliamentarians or candidates. So it's quite a hostile environment. And I went on to have a conversation with Matt Goodwin. He stood for election in Gorton, in the Manchester area. And he said, Krish. I'm really worried about the future of our nation. It's being destroyed by all these immigrants. Our Judeo-Christian heritage is being undermined, particularly by people from the Middle East. And I'm like, You know, Matt, I don't know if you're aware of this, but the Judeo-Christian heritage that you're talking about actually originated in the Middle East. Judaism, that would be Israel. Jesus was Jewish. ⁓ Most of the disciples were Jewish or modern-day Palestinians. The gospel started there. So how can it be that people from there are the biggest threat? What are you talking about? And then he said, ⁓ Chris, let me tell you, the Bible...
Tanya LWPT: you Mm-hmm.
Krish Kandiah: isn't as universal as you think. Now I'm there as a... commentator on immigration. He doesn't know I've got a PhD in theology. So he's quoting the Bible at me and he's saying well, know, the Bible's clear, you should love God. You should love your family. You should love your cousin. You should love your country. And I'm going, Matt, I think there are bits that you've missed out. There are other people that Christians are called to love. We're called to love our neighbor. And the clearest example of loving your neighbor is the enemy, the Samaritan, the hated person.
Tanya LWPT: Mm. Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: hated people group showing love to a Jewish person. And so those people that are saying that we're a Christian nation and the boundary of our empathy is the nation state haven't actually read the Bible very clearly. Because the best example is someone who is a Samaritan. If he was following your ethic, he should have just loved his family. And he said, look, that Jewish person by the side of the road, that's someone else's problem. I don't have any commitment, any issue or any obligation to him. I can just walk on by. But. actually those that walked on by are the example of not showing love. So it really struck me that in the name of Jesus, people are trying to commandeer the Christian faith to oppose immigration in general, asylum seekers, and particularly to spread fear about Islam. And it really struck me how prevalent some of that thinking is, not just outside the church, but inside the church too. And so I wanted to find a way to say, look, let's come back to the book that we all hold dear and see what it actually has to say. Not in a wagging your finger telling you off way, but look, we all want to sit under the authority of scripture. That's what it means to be a Christian.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah. Thank Yes, that is so true and that actually was one of the questions I was going to ask you about ⁓ this thinking of ⁓ those coming into the UK are going to dilute our Western Judeo-Christian heritage. I think that's just something. We shouldn't be scared of talking about this because if we're scared of talking about this then who's going to correct the people who are thinking wrong? ⁓
Krish Kandiah: Yeah, that's right. was having a conversation with someone yesterday about this and they're from a traditional conservative Christian background. hold scripture very highly and I said to them, okay, let's take a passage that we're familiar with, the Great Commission. I had to memorise it ⁓ as a teenager, as my youth group said, you know, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Jesus is talking to his disciples, he's just been crucified and then resurrected from the dead and now he's talking to his disciples and they're scared, some of them are still doubting, but there he is, the resurrected Jesus. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore stay. Stay in the holy nation of Israel and protect it from invaders Don't let anyone come in and dilute the Judeo-Christian heritage that is here in Israel. That's your job. Keep it pure I don't know about you, but that's not the version of the Great Commission That's actually in the Bible all that I remember No, it was all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me therefore go
Tanya LWPT: personal.
Krish Kandiah: Okay, where are you going? Well in twos you're gonna go out and you're gonna be the only Christians in whole continents, but don't be afraid I'm sending you out as sheep amongst wolves. You'll have no political power, right? You won't have strength in numbers. You won't have an army You'll just have the gospel my commission and the Holy Spirit and he'll be with you even to the ends of the earth, right? You're gonna go because your confidence is not in the strength of horses who your political might
Tanya LWPT: Mm-hmm.
Krish Kandiah: The confidence is in who God is, His Word, and the model of His Son. And that's what you're to go and do. And so even the people that are most passionate about the Gospel being true are sometimes, the ones that want to be most protective of our country. And I'm saying we shouldn't fear it. Those early disciples didn't fear it. They didn't fear being a minority. We are in no way a minority here. Even if we were, we shouldn't fear it.
Tanya LWPT: Mm. Yes. Yeah, that's so true. Thanks, Krish. I think you mentioned proximity earlier on in the conversation, but also in the introduction to this new ⁓ issue, you mentioned proximity. But can you expand how you want us to understand ⁓ the intention of that, talking about proximity to the migrants?
Krish Kandiah: Hmm Well, it's interesting that Jesus said the poor you'll always have among you That's interesting isn't it's not like you can have a quick visit to the poor and then come back again Jesus expected our lives to be interwoven with the poor and you see that in the story of Ruth It could have been a lot easier For Boaz to say that I'm a farmer. Right? That's what I do for a job. I'm a professional farmer We're going to harvest all the grain, 100 % of it. We've just had a famine. We need to be really careful with it, right? Look after it, steward it well. And we'll take a small proportion of it and we'll go and send it to poor people. And then they'll get fed. But the whole concept of gleaning... was that you don't sweat the asset, you don't get every last possible output from your resources, you leave some behind. Even after a famine, you leave some behind and you don't deliver it to the poor, you invite the poor to come among you because then that's going lead to a relationship. You're going to be close and when you're close you're going to be finding out about each other. Boaz didn't know Ruth. until she came gleaning in his field. But when she came gleaning in his field, she had proximity. And then he started to ask some questions. What's her story? she accompanied her mother-in-law, left her family to be loyal to her mother-in-law. He recognized in Ruth incredible character. He didn't just see her as everyone else did, as a Moabites, as a foreigner. He saw her as a woman of courage and character, and he recognized that in her. And he begins to call her his daughter. He's including her in his family. That only happened because Boaz obeyed the gleaning laws which forced there to be proximity. that make sense? And I've seen that happen in so many ways whether that's as a foster parent. When we became a foster parent, we became foster parents, my wife and I, 19 years ago. We thought we understood how poverty worked, how addiction worked, but having children from pretty difficult backgrounds come and live with us.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: 24 hours day, 7 days a week, we've begun to understand it at a whole other level. Their pain, their challenge, their trauma, their ongoing challenges to access ⁓ education or healthcare or mental health support or their learning difficulties not being supported at school. We know about it, not theoretically, but practically, because they're in our lives. They've flesh and blood to us, family to us. And so their challenges become ours. It's the same with asylum seekers and refugees that have come
Tanya LWPT: Mm. Mm.
Krish Kandiah: to live in our house or other people's houses, we suddenly don't see them as a project or an issue. They're people made in the image of God. And as we get to know them, we're drawn into their world. They bring so much to us and we can bring so much to them. That's how proximity works. And it's why I think hospitality is our way out of the polarization that we're in at the moment. A lot of people are shouting about each other rather than talking to each other. It's why when I go on GB News, I try to get there
Tanya LWPT: Thanks
Krish Kandiah: early. I try to meet the presenters. I've been to an engagement party, one of the presenters, because I want to have a genuine relationship with someone that I might disagree with politically. But if we can begin to see the humanity in one another, there's a way forward that we might be able to build a common life together. We need to live together as neighbours in this country. That's best done out of relationship. Well, that's best done from a relationship. Let me say it that way.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and that's so true. Thank you for explaining that and expanding on that. think so often we see sending out instead of welcoming in. We're doing our part, we're doing our part, you know. We're donating. That'll be good enough. But I think, yeah, it's just an encouragement. How can you actually get involved? How can you actually meet people where they are and have a conversation, ⁓ understand where they're coming from?
Krish Kandiah: Nice.
Tanya LWPT: I have one last question. World Refugee Days on the 20th of June. What does mean for you and what do hope it means for Christian leaders?
Krish Kandiah: Sure. Yes. ⁓ Well, at one level, remember there was a campaign, know, Christ isn't just for Christmas. And you go, OK, maybe we shouldn't celebrate Christmas because if you put too much attention on one day, you'll neglect Jesus the rest of the year. ⁓ But actually, most of us think actually it's important to celebrate so that we don't forget and we kind of keep it central. So these special days, it's a United Nations day from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. I just want to say let's pause whatever else is going on. Let's focus on what it's like to be one of the 120 million people that are displaced. Most of that 120 million people are internally displaced. That's like people from Kiev in Ukraine moving away from the front line. But. Many of them have had to cross a border to seek safety and that's someone who's become a refugee. And so what we at the Sanctuary Foundation do, we'll create resources that churches and civil society groups can use, but we also run a national art and poetry competition and we'll have the big prize giving at the British Library for this poetry. And we ask children to imagine what it's like to be one of the world's displaced children. Over 40 million displaced children around the world. And we judge it blind with a team of judges from places like the National Gallery, the British Library, UNHCR, Church of England Schools Network. We judge it blind and so far every year most of the winners have been children who are displaced. So they're Ukrainian children, they're Afghan children, Eritrean children, all sorts of children that have moved to the UK. And we listen. We listen to how they see the world and it's incredibly moving. get actors like Juliet Stevenson, Jonathan Price. think this year Minnie Driver says she'll be reading one of the poems out for us. And just listening to their voices, amplifying their voice. I got to share it on Radio 2 last year, one of the winning poems. And it just hopefully builds some empathy.
Tanya LWPT: again.
Krish Kandiah: that we can begin to recognise the dignity in each other. this year actually is the 75th anniversary of the Refugee Convention. And it's in peril. There are people wanting to get rid of it. make Britain come out of its ⁓ remit. And actually, it's such an important document. think we as Christians, particularly, who believe in the intrinsic dignity of all people, who recognize that God has a special concern for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Stranger could be translated refugee ⁓ in the Bible. We particularly ought to be attentive to this so that we can honor God in the way that he would have us do.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good. I think that's food for thought. think if anyone's listening or watching today, it would be really good. know, go and check out Sanctuary Foundation's website. Have a look at what they're doing. See how you can get involved. See how you can get conversations flowing in the communities that you're serving. And at the moment, I think it would be very important to bring some empathy and some understanding. And if you have those in your congregation that are going through this,
Krish Kandiah: Please. So it on.
Tanya LWPT: spend some time just one-on-one getting to know them ⁓ and what they're going through. think it's so very important. So thank you, Chris. Thank you so much for giving up some of your time for this conversation. ⁓ It'll be out on YouTube as an interview so people can watch, but also go on our new podcast series. So thank you so much. Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: Six pieces. That's right. labor intensive. Sounds good. I would say, can I just say one last thing Tanya, and it's always a pleasure to speak to you and thank you for Preach magazine. Some people might be listening going, wait, wait, it's out of reach for me. I'm not going to become a foster parent or an adoptive parent. I can't welcome any refugees or I don't know any refugees. I think hospitality can start really small and it can start with your family. Is there anyone within your family that is somehow on the margins, outside, ⁓ lonely? What does a call look like to just check in on them and see how they're doing? It could start with your physical neighbours, who lives in the flat above you, who's your next door neighbour? How well do you know them? Is it possible just to go and visit and share tea with them or invite them to your house? As we become proximate with other people, as we break down the kind of spatial geographical differences between us, we begin to understand where someone else is coming from and pretty soon your life is changed. Paula Gooder, whose comment you read out, is right. don't think it's my writing that's going to change your life. I think it's this openness to hospitality. And a really dangerous prayer that you could pray is, Lord, who is it that you need me to be closer to? Who is it you need me to share some food with, whether that's taking food to work or providing hospitality in your home. Who is it? And as you go...
Tanya LWPT: Yeah.
Krish Kandiah: something amazing happens because in the book of Hebrews it says do not forget to show hospitality to strangers because some have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. What we do for the least of these we do for God and you will find lots of challenges but an incredible change in your relationship with God because this is how we show our love to him. So don't be put off, don't think you've got to become some kind of political activist. It can be very, very practical service to those need.
Tanya LWPT: Yeah, I think that's very important. And I'll put in my encouragement, if anyone's noticed my accent. I am an immigrant. And when we first got here, we walked into a church, ⁓ were strangers. ⁓ those that initially showed us the most hospitality are the ones we are still closest to now years later.
Krish Kandiah: Mmm. That's great. Wonderful. Welcome. Excellent. Lovely to speak to you. Talk again soon.
Tanya LWPT: Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Krish.
