Donald Trump's temporary ban on refugees and indefinite block on Syrians fleeing persecution and war coming to the US sent shockwaves around the world.

But what does the Bible actually say about refugees and welcoming the stranger? 

The reaction of Christian leaders to Donald Trump's executive order was largely, but not universally, condemning.

As we report today, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, is a rare voice in trying to defend the President.

Franklin Graham also broke the mould to defend the president. He said a refugee ban was "not a Bible issue".

He told Huffington Post: "It's not a biblical command for the country to let everyone in who wants to come, that's not a Bible issue."

This comes after Bill Johnson, senior pastor at Bethel Church in California and another Trump supporter, justified his stance by saying "responsibility to provide safety for its citizens comes first".

In a lengthy Facebook post the day after the vote, he wrote: "Open borders violates such a responsibility, creating an impossible task for our law enforcement officers who already live in the daily challenge of risking their lives to provide safety for all enter our borders, citizens or not." 

The first thing to say is at no point does the Bible offer an immigration policy. You cannot take one verse or passage and say it means the US should close or open its borders.

But what it does offer is an attitude we should take towards people who are desperate and strangers in a foreign land.

An approach of welcome, openness and hospitality starts with God's law handed down to the Israelites in the Jewish Torah.

God firmly lays down that the Jews, themselves aliens and immigrants in a foreign land of Egpyt and then Canaan, should be a people that are hospitable and welcoming to foreigners.

"You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt," says Exodus 23:9.

Leviticus is where God outlines his model for how God's people should live. Chapter 19: 33-34 says: "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."

Then again in chapter 25 verse 35: "If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you."

But it is not just in the Torah that God's people are told to be open to foreigners. This continues through the Old Testament.

Proverbs 5:10 offers a particularly stark challenge to Bill Johnson's view that the Bible teaches us to look after our own first. "Let strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich the house of another," it reads.

It doesn't stop there but continues into Jesus' arrival as the visible image of an invisible God.

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me," he teaches in Matthew 25:35.

The parable of the good Samaritan is another example where Jesus taught about attitudes to hated aliens. Some commentators have compared Jewish dislike of the Samaritans in 1st century Palestine with the West's view of ISIS now.

Paul in Romans follows up on Christ's example of showing love to foreigners. "Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God," he says in Romans 15:7.

All of this must be caveated with remembering this does not dictate what immigration policy should be. An attitude of welcome and openness does not necessarily mean an open borders policy, although it may do.

But it certainly does not fit with an attitude of hostility and suspicion to desperate people fleeing war.

Aside from the fact it contradicts everything God laid down in his law to the Israelites, you might be turning away angels, according Hebrews 13.