[In response to comments on Facebook]
—
I do think that the issue of immigration has to do with religion. I have a lot to say, and it has more to do with the religion and what it means to be in it, than about immigration per se – but it does seem to me that the more we dwell on what it means to be within this religion, the more we should have a changed attitude towards things like immigration.
That said, I do not generally advocate breaking laws. Yes, civil disobedience can be required of Christians; and yes, as Augustine and Martin Luther King Jr both said, “an unjust law is no law at all.” So there is complexity here – but as much as possible, Christians ought to live within the limits of the law.
What follows are some thoughts about how immigration has to do with religion; again, they are not always directly related to immigration, but the more we dwell on these, the more it should change how we relate to foreigners, nations, laws, and borders.
—
1. Ethnicity and Religion
If someone is an atheist they are free to pursue or not pursue whatever example they wish. If someone belongs to just about every other religion, then it is essentially an ethnic religion.
But Christianity, as one scholar I read recently said, is the first thoroughly non-ethnic religion, and it is a religion driven by imitation of individuals – namely Christ and Paul. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Shinto, and other major religions do not advocate the idea that God has come to earth and we are to imitate him – nor do they have examples like Paul of someone who is sheerly human willingly going through virtually all the same sufferings as Christ, or more.
Any yet it is this only non-ethnic religion (with a possible exception of Buddhism) that has spread to every inhabited continent in a deliberately missionary mode, and as a result there are currently there are more Christians in Africa, South America, China, and India than there are in the United States, where there are less and less believers every year. But why is Christianity unique in this way, spreading across the earth like this?
Both Christianity and Judaism have in them a desire and a command to “be a light to the nations,” and to spread the Name of God (his known character and reputation, his known habits of acting) across the world. One line repeated by several prophets, Isaiah and Habakkuk, is that “the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters fill the sea.”
Unlike the other, largely ethnic religions, Christianity and Judaism are essentially characterized as religions that are global, universal, transcending borders and laws (even as not supposed to unnecessarily offend against those borders and laws).
Christianity and Judaism are ultimately trans-national, trans-ethnic, and adherents of Christianity are even explicitly sent across borders to do God’s bidding – key examples being Moses and Paul, both of whom are called “Apostles” or “Sent Ones,” crossing borders to bring freedom to others – especially those in physical or spiritual captivity. This can quickly become complicated precisely because we absolutely must engage with the question: “how do I balance obeying the law as much as possible while also seeking to set captives free as much as possible?” It’s not that borders and laws do not matter, it is that they are not the only thing that matter, and some things matter more.
—
2. “strangers in a strange land”
Now I will speak less about comparison between languages and moreso with how Christianity (and Judaism) relate to the theme of immigrants in a deep way.
Starting with Abraham, God has told his servants to go and be a stranger in a strange land – and this has always been the way God works with his servants, those he sends out on the earth for his purposes. And so the Israelites when they left Egypt went from being “strangers in a strange land” in Egypt to being “strangers in a strange land” in Israel. God did this again when he banished Israel to Babylon. Jews have never really been able to feel at home on the earth. And yet again God continued this same theme over and over again with Christians.
When Christians are “born again” and enter the Kingdom of God, the family of God, the Bible is clear that they are essentially adopted into it – we do not, strictly speaking, belong in God’s family. But out of his grace he has adopted us – grace meaning “unmerited favor.”
According to Christianity all humans were made to live in paradise, but through the Fall we have broken away from what we were made to be in. In this sense, all humans are “strangers in a strange land” by living in a world of sin. We will never feel at home here (a deeply Jewish theme). And yet at the same time, because we are sinners, we do not quite fit naturally into the Kingdom of God, the family of God – so we are, in a sense, “strangers in a strange land” there, as well.
By the same token, Christ, wanting to bring us to him, became a “stranger in a strange land” by being a baby born in a manger. By doing this he was effectively immigrating from the Kingdom of Heaven into hell on earth – to bring heaven onto earth. Curiously, this is also how we see his Prophets and Apostles – they are commonly killed and severely mistreated, but they are God’s ambassadors and emissaries to the lost world, like a spiritual foreign nation. As I will show, this isn’t something only certain Christians are supposed to imitate – but all Christians are called to this.
—
3. The Imitation of Christ – and Paul
It is in this vein of thought that Christ spoke when he said, “foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to rest his head,” or “if anyone would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me.” Likewise, Paul, the closest, most detailed example of someone taking up their Cross in the imitation of Christ, wrote to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 4:8-16):
“Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.
“I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me.”
Anyone who is committed to following Christ and being a Christian should meditate often on this passage, and passages like Philemon 1, 2 Corinthians 11, or Hebrews 11:35-12:15 – but all throughout they should hear Paul’s words again and again, “I urge you to imitate me.” I would strongly encourage any Christian to do this, and to try to memorize as much as sticks out to them about these passages.
What does this have to do with immigration? Well, if you will dwell on these passages, then they will change you – and it will not necessarily call you to break any laws, but it will change the way you relate to the topic of immigration.
Perilous Resonance 