Tag: foreigners

Why I Write About Immigration Issues

The truth is complicated, but God’s heart is certain

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Mexican Border

I have friends who keep me honest, and I am grateful for that. They don’t always agree with me. In fact, they often disagree with me on various things, but they remain my friends, and I remain grateful for them.

Anyone who follows me on social media knows that I am virtually fixated on the issue of immigration right now. It may seem like a new thing—that all of a sudden I have become woke, liberal, or progressive. Some people who don’t know me well, I am sure, think that about me. The truth is more complicated than that.

I am a lifelong Republican and conservative by nature. I’m also a follower of Jesus, though, and I find that Jesus defies modern political categories and stereotypes. If Jesus looks to me like a Republican or Democrat, “my Jesus” probably is not the real Jesus, and my politics have likely influenced my view of Jesus.

Many people might look at my posts on immigration and feel like I have abandoned all sense of patriotism and national pride. They might think I have become a hater of the United States of America. Again, the truth is more complicated than that.

I grew up with a love for my country and a strong sense of patriotism and pride. I was educated, like most people my age, on the goodness of the United States of America, celebrating Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving this time of year with idyllic depictions of pioneers living in harmony with Native Americans as our forefathers lived out their manifest destiny in keeping with a divine mandate from our creator to form the greatest, freest country on earth.

I still believe we live in the greatest, freest country on earth, but the truth is messier and more complicated than I once believed. I am grateful for a strong sense of the goodness of the United States of America I learned as a child, and I appreciate the positives in that idealized memory of America. But it’s more complicated than that.

Humanity is nothing if not messy. We are fallen, sinful creatures. We know that, but our idyllic, comforting images die hard.

The pioneers displaced the Native Americans who were here long before us. They were pushed out of their ancestral lands. They were marched in a “trail of tears” to godforsaken territories where they have had to scrape out a meager subsistence ever since then in the literal dust of the barren, rocky places to which they were consigned.

Slavery is a pox on our idyllic history. That it was supported, promoted, and defended by Christians who sought comfort in the Bible while they exploited, oppressed, and dehumanized people for the color of their skin (and wealth they could generate) is a testament to the utter bankruptcy of human beings – even religious ones.

Let’s be honest about this, also: religious people who use their religion to justify their unjust ways are not doing anything different than non-religious people who are unjust. It’s just more insidious for the fact that they contort love of neighbor to love of self.

I have learned to be honest and not to look away from these contrary images of our history and our past. God calls for repentance, and repentance requires honesty. Repentance and heart change are the only proper response to the evil of idolatry and injustice.

Honesty does not mean I do not love my country, and it does not mean that I am not thankful for being born here. I still believe that the good we have brought into the world is not any less good. It’s just complicated, and I want us to live up to the ideals we ascribe to.

In case you could not tell, I am not an idealist, though I certainly do have idealistic tendencies. Not that I am any different than anyone else. We are complicated and complex creatures; human beings. Despite the polarized simplicity of social media that pigeon holes us into two-dimensional, stereotypical ideologues, people and societies are complex.

On the issue of immigration, my “awakening” happened more than a decade ago – in 2014. During the Obama administration, as I watched the Syrian refugee crisis unfold in the news, I realized that didn’t have a robust biblical view on the subject of immigration. I have written about this often, so please bear with me if you have read what I have written before.

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What Was the Sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?

A clue is that people cried out in distress

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It is probably not exactly what you think

I have wanted to dig into the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for a while now, ever since someone suggested to me that the story isn’t what I think it is. Everyone knows the reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, right? God smote those villages with fire and brimstone because of homosexuality.

That’s what I was taught. At least, that is what I always believed, but I have learned there may be more to the story. The truth is right where we should expect to find it: in the Bible. If you are intrigued as I was, then read on.

First, let’s review the story in Genesis 13. Abram and Lot flourished, and their clans and flocks grew in size in the land God promised Abram. There was tension among their entourages, though, so they decided to separate and spread out. (Gen. 13:5-9)

“Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.” (Gen. 13:10) Lot, therefore, chose move to Sodom and Gomorrah in the plain of Jordon, while Abram remained in Canaan.

Although the land was like a well watered garden, “the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.” (Gen. 13:13) Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised when that sin catches up to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Before we move on, though, we should acknowledge that Sodom and Gomorrah was a lush, fertile place. It was inhabited with “wicked” people, yet Lot moved there anyway because it was a desirable place to live. Perhaps, the allure of the things of this world and the temptation to associate with people who have accumulated wealth, position, and influence was great, in spite of any misgivings Lot may have had.

This may provide some explanation for why Lot’s wife looked back in defiance of the angel’s warning. She may have regretted leaving.

She may have wanted to return to the abundance and comfort that drew them there, and that desire to hold on to abundance and comfort may have been her undoing.

We should also understand the backstory in Genesis 18 before we get to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the next chapter. Before some angles visited Sodom, they visited Abram. Abram saw the three “angels of the Lord” from his tent. He went out to meet them, bowed in respect, and insisted they come to his tent to be refreshed. Abram and Sarai spared no expense to show them hospitality, and the angels returned the favor by affirming God’s promise to the elderly couple: promising that Sarai would bear a child within a year. (Gen. 18:1-15)

Before the angels left, the angels told Abram the reason they came: to investigate Sodom and Gomorrah because “the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah [was] so great and their sin so grievous.” (Gen. 18:20) This “outcry” that reached the LORD is the first clue to what was going on there. (Gen. 18:21)

The Hebrew word that is translated “outcry” in this verse is za’aq. It mean a shriek, cry for help, cry of distress, lamentation. Thus, something was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah that was causing people to cry out in distress.

The word, outcry, in Genesis 18 should bring Exodus 2:23 to mind where God heard the Israelites cry out. In both cases, in Egypt and in Sodom & Gomorrah, God responds to an outcry of the people living there.

They same word, za’aq, is used in both passages. God responded to the Hebrews cry for deliverance by sending Moses, and God miraculously rescued them from the land of Egypt. In Genesis 18, God similarly responded to a cry for deliverance by sending His angels.

The parallel nature of these stories is important to recognize. The people cried out in distress, and God responded. Parallel stories and themes run throughout the Bible, and we should pay attention to the when they appear, because they usually mean something.

We know why the people cried out in Egypt – because Pharaoh enslaved and mistreated them. The Bible is relatively silent, however, on the circumstances in Sodom and Gomorrah.

If we pay close attention, though, we can find some clues!

In Genesis 19. Lot repeats the pattern of Abram’s hospitality: Lot saw two angels at the city gate, and he went out to meet them, like Abram did. Lot greeted them with respect the same way Abram did, and Lot insisted they come to his home where he prepared a feast for them, just as Abram did. (Gen. 19:1-3) These stories appear one after the other in the biblical narrative, and the parallel symmetry signals that we should pay attention.

Abram and Sarai, by the way, are known for generous hospitality. The generous hospitality of Abram is legendary in Jewish and even Muslim lore. Generous hospitality was a key distinctive of God’s man of faith.

Lot, who was Abram’s kin, demonstrated the same kind of generous hospitality, but the story takes a bad turn. Everything seems great until the men of Sodom surround Lot’s house and demand that Lot bring the angels out to them, “So that we can have sex with them.” (Gen. 19-4-5) When Lot refused, they turned on Lot, This is what they said:

“This fellow [Lot] came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.”

genesis 19:9

Most of us, I think, assume the sin of Sodom was primarily sexual in nature. The story certainly seems to suggest that if we miss the clues to what was really going on. The symmetry of the parallel stories leading up to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah suggest that something else is going on. The people crying out in distress, like the Jews in Egypt is another clue, and what the townspeople say to Lot is still another clue.

The clues are in the context and more specifically in the contrast between the way Abram and Lot treated the foreigners/angels and the way the townspeople in Sodom & Gomorrah treat them. Abram and Lot go out of their way to greet the angels, bow to them in respect, make them feel welcome, and show them generous hospitality. The men of Sodom react the opposite way: they respond with hostility. They are angry that the foreigner in their midst (Lot) invited foreign guests into his home, and they they came to punish and humiliate those guests by violating them sexually.

I never noticed these clues in the text before. They cast a different light on the story. It seems that the story is less about men wanting to have sex with the foreigners than it is about brutish inhospitality.

This was a lynch mob. They came to run the foreign guests out of town and to demonstrate their extreme displeasure with Lot for inviting them in to his home. The men wanted to humiliate, violate, and punish Lot’s foreign guests in the worst possible way, and they wanted Lot to understand why: because Lot was a foreigner, and these men were foreigners, who were not welcome in their town.

As side note, I would not likely have noticed all this but for the book I am reading by James K. Hoffmeier, The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible. He cites to the Sodom and Gomorrah story as an example of the way people in the Old Testament control their borders and their cities. (See also Judges 19-21 in which a similar scene plays out in Gibeah where the sons of Benjamin treat the Levites passing through in exactly the same way.)

This was the last straw for God. The angels returned the favor Lot showed them by protecting him and his family and by warning them to get out of town quick. As soon as Lot and his family were out of town, “the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah….” and reduced it to smoke and ash (Gen. 19:10-28)

Aside from some other details that do not seem directly relevant at the moment, that is the story of Sodom & Gomorrah. Most of the references to Sodom & Gomorrah in the rest of the Bible are used as warnings without much commentary, except for three passages. These passages tell the rest of the story.

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Ode to the Church and to God Who Watches Over the Foreigner

O Church, remember who you are,
Called to love, to heal, not to bar.

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Once, in Eden’s light, they walked,
In fear, mistrust, and pride they balked.
Their own way looked better than God’s,
So He cast them out to the odds.

Though God walled them out, yet He stayed near,
He watched them roam this earthly sphere.
He clothed their shame knowing His plan,
To redeem them from the dusty land.

When Abraham heard the voice divine:
“Go to a land that I’ll make thine.”
He wandered there, a stranger still,
Seeking the City of God’s will.

From Abraham’s loins a nation grew,
In Egypt enslaved, four centuries through.
Bound and broken, crushed and torn,
Yet God’s eye watched, where hope was worn.

And when they were freed by God’s hand,
The law that God, would make command:
“Be kind to the stranger, love them as you—
For once you were aliens too.”

The psalmist sang of a just cause
To guard the stranger one must because
God watches over the oppressed and poor,
His mercy flows to the foreigner.

The prophets warned with fire and might:
“Do not oppress, do not fight
The alien, the widow, the orphaned heart—
Deprive them not, lest from God you part.”

Then Jesus was born, in flesh, divine,
Refugee Son, in a troubled time.
To Egypt He fled, a stranger, a child,
God in the dust, both meek and mild.

He preached a kingdom for all men,
Every race and tongue and kin.
That he would save from cursed yeast,
According to how we treat the least.

And John envisioned a great throng,
From every tribe, with one great song.
Before the Lamb, all men unite,
Bathed in mercy, robed in white.

Yet now, the largest Church on earth,
Wielding wealth, claiming new birth,
Builds walls to keep strangers away,
Turning the poor from its doorway.

Refugees wander, oppressed and unseen,
Deprived of justice, crushed between
A gospel of love and hands that deny,
While heaven looks down, and angels cry.

O Church, remember who you are,
Called to love, to welcome, not bar.
For the walled-out Christ still calls to you,
“Whatever you’ve done, you’ve done to Me too.”

Come, O Church, to the narrow way,
Where love shines bright at break of day.
Lay down your walls, take up your cross,
And count the cost, not gain or loss.

Follow the One who bore your shame,
Who calls you now by His great name.
For hope is found in His pierced hands,
Where grace flows wide for all the lands.

The stranger waits, the orphan cries,
Will you reflect the Savior’s eyes?
Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God
Love deeply, with the gospel on your feet shod.

For Christ alone is our living hope,
A lifeline strong, a Savior’s rope.
Come back to Him, and walk His way,
Till all are gathered on that final day.

Knowing Our Ultimate Destination, How Should Children of God Live in a Modern World that Is Foreign to Us?

We are part of a great multitude from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages….

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Followers of Christ are going to end up as part of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb… and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God….’” (Rev.7:9) Knowing how our journey ends as children of God, how should we live in this world?

Jesus introduced the kingdom of God to the world and invited the world to “enter” it. Just as the first century Jews were only a portion of the world to whom Jesus extended that invitation, we in the West and in the United States of America are only a portion of the global world Jesus invites to enter God’s kingdom.

Jesus came, not to condemn, but to save the entire world full of people. We might as well get used to the diversity now.

I think it’s easy for us in the US to miss the fact that the global church today doesn’t look like us at all. The “average” Christian in the world today is a 22-year old brown female. Only 12% of the Christians in the world live in North America (including Canada). Only 37.5% of the Christians in the world live in the “west”.

It’s a human tendency to separate from and even to demonize things that are foreign to us. It’s also a human tendency to embrace things that are familiar to us, even to our detriment. Jesus calls us to separate from the world, which is familiar to us, and to embrace God’s kingdom, which is foreign to us in our “flesh” (as Paul calls it).

Jesus calls us to reject the sin that is familiar to us in exchange for His righteousness that is foreign to us. Righteousness is not of us or from us; righteousness is of God and from God.

Thus, Christians are uniquely called to be different from the rest of the world that embraces the familiar (both things of the world, generally, and specific aspects of this worldly specifically, such as gender, race, nationality, etc.). We are called to separate from this world that is familiar to us and to embrace a world that is foreign (the spiritual realm into which we must be born again).

This model of Christian living is demonstrated by Paul and the disciples in carrying out the Great Commission. Paul said that he became all things to all people that he might win some.

Paul quoted pagan poets and philosophers in his address on Mars Hill. (Acts 17) That means he read them and understood them. Thus, he was able to quote them appropriately and use those references that people knew to point them to God. This is because Paul embraced the fact that he was in the world, though he was not of the world.

This is what is means to carry out the Great Commission – to “go into all the world” making disciples. In the case of those disciples, God “encouraged” them with local persecution to scatter to Judea and and beyond. (We don’t always embrace what is foreign and unfamiliar to us willingly!)

We have the same command and challenge in our modern world. We don’t do these things easily or willingly. it takes us way beyond our comfort levels that are defined by what we know and what is familiar to us. When we take up our crosses and follow Jesus, he takes us into foreign territory!

One example of foreign territory is the modern worldview informed by Critical Theory. CRT informs the world on issues of racial injustice. As members of a kingdom comprised of every nation, tribe and tongue, we need to be able to speak into issues of racial injustice, and not just stand aloof.

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Have Christians Lost the Moral High Ground on Immigration?

The Israelites were scattered because they refused to do as God commanded: they oppressed the sojourners, among other things.

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Photo by Tim Butterfield

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger[1] and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”[2]

The parable of the sheep and goats and the explanation of it given by Jesus is relevant to the issue of immigration. This is not in the Old Testament, but the New Testament. This isn’t God talking to the nation of Israel (as if what God said to the nation of Israel has no bearing on us), but God talking to all of us through Jesus.

The bottom line is this: we will be judged by how we treat people.

A case can be made that God’s instructions to the Israelites on the treatment of strangers (aliens, foreigners, immigrants) doesn’t apply to us today,[3] like ceremonial and dietary laws don’t apply to us today as followers of Christ. At least, that is the position taken by James K. Hoffmeier in the article, The Use and Abuse of the Bible in the Immigration Debate, December 2011.[4]

Hoffmeier argues that conservative Christians should not take a position in favor of immigration. He says that only secularists and liberals hold that view, and they misquote the Bible to support that position.

Before digging into the issue, we should note that the discussion isn’t about whether immigration should be allowed, or not. We already allow immigration and always have. Few people are arguing that we should open the borders wide with no controls at all, and few people are arguing that we should shut the borders tight and not allow any immigration at all.

The issue is the extent of the immigration we should allow and the terms and conditions that we should attach to it.

The public debate, however, sounds as if people are lining up completely in favor of open borders or completely in favor of closing them off. That perception isn’t accurate, and assuming an all or nothing approach is counterproductive.

Another perception we need to contend with is the notion that only secularists and liberals are in favor of immigration. This notion is also false. Who is against immigration?! Who would refuse any immigration at all? Everyone but Native Americans are descendants of immigrants in this country.

But, what if those “secularists and liberals” are “right” in their policies that favor more compassionate immigration? Do we oppose things just because secularists or liberals ascribe to them?

These are questions I ask myself as I consider the issues. Are we just reacting? I believe we should be guided, not by our opposition to positions taken by unbelievers, but by our own reading of Scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

I am neither a secularist nor a liberal. I believe the Bible is the Word of God, and I believe that we are responsible to God whose Word is preserved in the Bible. My reading of the Bible leads me to take the position that we have a holy responsibility to welcome strangers (immigrants) into our land because that is the heart of God.

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