"They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Donald Trump, 6/16/2015
"I have ordered the Department of
Homeland Security to create an office to
serve American Victims. The office is
called VOICE - Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. We are providing a voice to those who have
been ignored by our media and silenced by special interests." Donald Trump, 2/27/2017
"Our progress in degeneracy appears to
me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we
began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are
created equal, except negroes." When
the "Know-Nothings get control it will read "all men are created
equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer
emigrating to some country, where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to
Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base
alloy of hypocrisy. Abraham Lincoln, 8/24/1855.
Abraham Lincoln could not have known about
the "progress in degeneracy" of our day. And though the particular groups he was speaking
of may have changed somewhat (though not completely), the
"degeneracy" is still progressing.
We have elected as our president a man who freely preaches racism and
xenophobia in a manner no president has in my lifetime and who has attempted to
block the entry of immigrants in various ways.
And when in his speech to congress Donald
Trump advocated an office to particularly discriminate against immigrants as a
criminal group, his groupies, of course were elated. But sadly the media - whom he had already
labeled as "fake news" and "the enemy of the American
people" - simply spoke of his speech as "more presidential." No one seemed to give a ____ about his making
xenophobia a national priority and creating an office to promote it!
Why aren't we angry? Why aren't American Christians speaking
out? Why aren't our political leaders
of both parties speaking out? I am a
child of immigrants; most Americans (all the white ones) are, unless
they are immigrants themselves. Why
don't these pronouncements bother us?
My mother came to this country as a child
with her parents and older siblings, from Austria. Her parents - my grandparents - got here just
before the First World War. In a few
years America would be at war with their native land. Were they refugees, fleeing war? I don't know, but I suspect so.
My father's family came to America from
England in the 1600's. I suspect they
were Puritans, as they settled in Massachusetts and almost all had biblical
names. (There were also names like,
Thankful, Mercy and Deliverance.) As
Puritans they would have been fleeing their homeland for religious
reasons. And, of course, they would have
landed on our shores without official clearance from the residents who had
preceded them thousands of years earlier.
So what right have I as a child of immigrants
to cheer the closing of our borders and the stigmatizing of immigrants?
As a follower of Jesus, how should I look at
this question? I believe that a look at
the biblical story shows a long history of immigrants and refugees
We could go back to the first book of the
Bible, the Book of Genesis. There we
find the story of Abraham, called by God to leave his home in Ur and go to the
land of Canaan. And when there he fled
to Egypt because of famine. The rest of
the Book is filled with tales of flight by Abraham and his son Isaac, then
Jacob, then Joseph - the whole family of Israel. And then there is the story of Ruth, a
refugee from her homeland to Israel. And
on and on. The Old Testament is one
continuous narrative of flight and migration.
And then we read in the Gospel of Matthew of
Jesus, the Son of God, who himself became a refugee from the murderous campaign
of Herod the Great.
" ... an angel of the Lord appeared to
Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to
Egypt and stay there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the
child to destroy him.' So Joseph got up
and took the child and his mother by night and took off for Egypt, and he
stayed there until Herod's death."
Matthew 2:13-15
But it's not only the stories about
immigrants in the Bible that we need to look at - it's the commands. Over and over in the Old Testament we find
commands aimed at the Israelites regarding the "stranger" or alien
(some translations use the word "immigrant.") A few:
"You shall not wrong a stranger or
oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Exodus 22:20; 23:9
"When a stranger resides with you in
your land, you shall not wrong him. The
stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you
shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:33, 34
Over and over the prophets rant against
Israel's oppression of "the stranger" along with her other sins that
brought judgment on the nation.
And when Jesus foretells His return as the
Son of Man to judge the nations, it is not their sexual misbehavior or their
violence which make up the criteria for judgment, but their treatment or
mistreatment of certain groups: the
hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the
prisoner. Matthew 25:31-46
Add to all this, the fact that we who follow
Jesus Christ are addressed as "aliens and strangers" (1 Peter 1:1; 2:11). While we may or may not be citizens of this
land," our citizenship is in Heaven, from where we are eagerly expecting a
Savior - the Lord Jesus Christ!" (Philippians 3:20) How can we not identify with those others who
are also "aliens and strangers?"
So we who are both Americans and followers of
Jesus, should be appalled at the "progress in degeneracy" our nation
is following. Things will probably get
worse before they get better. We need to
speak out and do our part to welcome "the stranger" even though we
may be going against official policy.
"We must obey God rather than
man." Acts 5:29
