An Inconvenient Gospel
Would God view and immigrant as an illegal?
Imagine this. A young pastor of a small sub-urban church is walking through the sanctuary one last time to turn off the lights after a Wednesday night bible study. As he flips the switch he is startled by rapid knocking on the front door. Walking over quickly he opens the large wooden doors of his small church only to find a family, barely clothed for such a cold night, shivering and out of breath. The oldest man, in broken English, keeps repeating the word help.
After getting them warmed up this pastor learns though their broken English that they are immigrants that are at risk of getting their family separated by deporting the parents and oldest son back to their homeland while the youngest two daughters need to stay in America. They ask if there is any way they could be hid somewhere in the church. What would you do?[1]
There must have been a thousand questions going through this young pastors mind as he went thought through the different options. He could say yes and provide refuge. However, he would be violating several laws. What would happen if he got arrested? What would he tell his family? How would his church respond? If he told his church, which he would have to do, how soon before someone told the authorities? Another option would be for the pastor to report them right now. But how would his church respond to that? How could he justify that in light of God’s word? This pastor is facing an enormous challenge and the option that many pastors have resorted to is no longer available.
Most pastors that live in communities with large percentages of illegal immigrations have, until this point, ignored the immigration crisis unfolding. A recent study conducted by LifeWay found that “most pastors say Christians should lend a hand to refugees and foreigners, and most believe caring for refugees is a privilege. But pastors also say their churches are twice as likely to fear refugees as they are to help them.”[2] Many of these pastors simply decide to look away. Instead of looking into the eyes of an immigrant or refugee that has left everything to come to our country only to hear that they are not welcome here, the pastors would rather follow convince.
If there are any two institutions that have a lot to say or simply have a loud opinion on what to do with the refugee and immigrant situation than it is the church and politics.
Why do politics have anything to say concerning an event in society? Politics are organized processes that make decisions regarding the distribution of goods, and nonmaterial goods. The way that this is done varies per country but what is the same is that power is used to control the distribution of those things. The right to this power must be earned, Weber writes that that “those in power must be recognized as having the right to command and must induce and obligation to be obeyed.”[3]
To have people recognize this power the government must use some form of legitimate physical force. This is both force towards the entities outside of its physical territories and force directed towards the people within its territory. The goal of this is to gain necessary recognition to be able to earn the right to power. In the case of refugee and immigration this comes in the form of not allowing refugees in America and deporting large number of illegal immigrants back to the country in which they are from.
God has a lot to say about refugees and immigrants and so should the church. Throughout history, God has used migration to accomplish his plan. Adam and Eve were forced out the Garden. Noah’s building the ark was to give refuge to others. Both Abraham and Jacob went to Egypt to avoid famine. Joseph was a foreigner in a strange country. The Israelites were nomads, building and moving their enormous refugee camp for forty years. Seventy years later, Esther and the rest of her fellow Jews were second generation forced immigrants in Babylon. In the New Testament Jesus’ earthly family fled to Egypt to avoid certain death. In fact, Jesus worked and lived as a foreigner in this world. He was an immigrant of a totally new dimension. Immigration is a huge motif in the story of redemption. It has been one of the greatest tools God has used to spread his kingdom. So, why are churches not talking about this?
Another thing to consider. The gospel gives us a lens through which we are to view immigration. It is a perspective that we are to have regardless of our political affiliation, ideology or the box checked in the voting booth. The Gospel is that God has loved us, even when we were sinking in our own sin, active rebels against him. But he brought is in, loved us, and changed our identity. We had nothing that we could claim and everything going against us. Yet, he changed our identity to be sons and daughters of him. Jesus’ gift of grace is what motivated God to love us, it created the opportunity for this change. Now when God sees us he does not see our sin, but Jesus’ blood.
When we are viewing the world around us through a gospel lens than we will not see the refugees as terrorists, the immigrants as illegal, or the foreigner as an inconvenience. We will see them the same way that God sees us; valued, loved and unique. The bible gives us some practical ways we are to put this mentality into practice in light of aliens, refugees and immigrants. In psalm 146 David writes that God watches the foreigner among us. Jeremiah, an unwanted immigrant himself, writes that God will only dwell among them if they do not oppress the foreigner who is living in their midst (Jeremiah 7:5–7). Lastly, Malachi writes that there will be judgment against those who thrust aside or ignore the alien living among us (Malachi 3:5).
As Christians we are often found engaging these issues by walking the line between Acts 5 and Romans 13. We are weighing ethical matter on the balance of God’s command to obey authority and his command to ultimately obey him. Throughout history Christians have had to answer the question if their ruler disobeyed God in a manner that caused us to ignore their authority and follow God instead. Christians have often gotten wrong. Some went along with culture to the point of no return. A place were the conscious in numb and the light of the gospel is no a light but a reflection of culture. Others have used the Bible as a way to ignore God’s given authority to people on this earth.
When we go back to our definition of politics we see that God designed governments as a channels for the distribution of material and nonmaterial goods. As we approach the issue of immigration we can’t forget they that are not just institutions, they are established by God for the purpose of exercising power. But yet there are times were we have to step out from under the authority of government to stay under the shadow of God’s direct command.
Going back to the Pastor of the small, sub-urban church. What is he going to do? I do not know. However, we must become aware that many pastors are in positions like him and many more will be added to that group. I will argue that regardless of what they choose, churches should decide which way their congregation will respond before a choice demanded in the form a refugee knocking on their door. David Platt accurately summarizes the attitude we should have towards migrants. He writes “We’re all migrants here, a collective, multicultural citizenry of an otherworldly kingdom. So we wait and work in our day in anticipation of that day when we will gather with a great multitude from every nation.”[4] That kind of mindset makes the gospel not an inconvenience but rather a cause that we as Christians, churches and pastors should rally around.
