Trying to Think Christianly about Immigration

On my way back from Christmas break, my family and I stopped at a hotel for the night in Tennesee. In the morning, I noticed that a middle aged Hispanic woman was servicing the breakfast items they had out.

Given the recent discussion of immigration, the thought crossed my mind--I wonder if she's legal. I figured she probably was, because I would be very nervous about such a public job if I wasn't.

But what if she was undocumented? It's possible. I pictured a life of increasing fear. Maybe she has children. What if she finds herself unable to get a driver's license? How would she get to work? What if she gets fired? How will she feed her family? What if she has been here for decades and doesn't have any home to go back to?

The American government has looked the other way on this issue for years and years. For some of us, we are only now thinking about these things. But it has been acceptable to look the other way on these things for decades. The government has known about fake Social Security cards and other mechanisms of underground immigration forever. They might seem like new news to us, but this is big time old news.

So you can understand if I feel that it's not a little hypocritical to get "righteously indignant" about this issue all of a sudden. It would be like the Wesleyan Church suddenly revoking the membership of Wesleyans who go to movies after decades of a rule on the books that almost no one paid any attention to. Shall we suddenly start imprisoning individuals who violate blue laws where they are still on the books? Shall we make homosexuals do prison time? It's still on the books in Texas.

Shall we throw Rosa Parks in prison for not getting out of her seat? It was against the law.

We as America have been complicit in creating this problem, and it is not a little hypocritical to pretend as if they are fully to blame when we have not acted like these were important rules.

And what of the individuals whose lives are suddenly ghetto-ized by new rules. Some have lived here for decades peacefully, working minimum wage jobs. Many have children in our public schools who were born here--they are US citizens. Many have no home back in Mexico to go back to--this is where they had moved to spend the rest of their lives.

If some politicians get their way, the unintended result will be a ghetto-izing of this group--real men, women, and children--not completely unlike what the Nazis did intentionally to the Jews. No jobs--how will they eat? (Answer: Christians will feed them in violation of the law because it is better to serve God than mortals) No cars--how will they be able to get outside their "fence"?

They have broken a law. Have any of us broken a law? Anyone ever received a speeding ticket? Did you know that walking on a train track is trespassing on Federal property? Let's look at the income tax filings of the most vociferous voices on this issue. I guarantee many of them regularly violate the law more most of these families looking for a better life.

And law in Mexico is not like we imagine law to be in the United States. We often ignore speed limits, but we do it at least half willing to pay the consequences. In Mexico, the law is sometimes a matter of bribery. It does not have the ideological status it has here. The effect is that the intentionality of entering does not have the significance for them that we are (currently) assigning to it.

But the title of this post is trying to think Christianly about this subject. Thus far I have only tried to highlight some blind spots and hypocrisy in the current debate. Let me now get out my Bible and go looking for some principals:

1. God is no respecter of persons.
Americans are not more valuable or important to God than Mexicans. God looks on the heart. In God's eyes, we are not worth a dime more than any one of them. Did you know that my church has Hispanic churches? Could anyone in any of them be undocumented? Let's turn them over the government. (Really, the Wesleyan Church has those kinds of churches--I thought you all were good white Christians?)

I have no doubt but that there is a healthy dose of prejudice in play here. We can blah, blah, blah and rationalize it. "I know they are just as valuable in God's eyes, but there are consequences for breaking the law." It's very hard for me to see this kind of comment as anything but a rationalization of prejudice. Multiplication of words does not the truth make.

So fine them and make them become legal--that's a consequence.

2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
How would you want to be treated if you lived below the poverty line but had it better here than in Mexico? Maybe you would like to become legal but the possibility of deportation keeps you from it. The bottom line is that most people do not put illegals in the same category as themselves at all. They think of them more along the lines of animals that need to be run off the property.

3. Christ died for the whole world.
People who think Christianly think redemptively--how can we minister God's grace to those whose lives are broken on every level. An obvious answer is to help them come in to the fold. It is not, let us send them as far away from the gospel as we can.

If I had any political power? I'd try to secure the borders and make a path to citizenship for those who truly want to be a part of the great American experiment. Teach them English, sure.

So, Schenck, you believe in "amnesty"--that dirty word. Funny how the politicians are so concerned not to get this label. Who cares? I'm not interested in what you call something; I'm interested in what Jesus would do.

And what Jesus did was bring "good news to the poor, sight to the blind, liberty to the captives." The elder brother might chastise his dad for reaching out to his brother, make him pay for the wrong things he did. Jesus cares more for 1 lost sheep than for 99 middle class white American Christians.