Myths of Christianity & Immigration, Part Two

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. In my last segment, I unpacked some of the history behind our current immigration laws, pointing how they were developed in service of white supremacy and that their current manifestation still is predicated upon a preference for one group of people over another. So, telling people to get in line and follow the law is not only rather ignorant of the reality of the law and the line (remember, the line is twenty years for Mexico and less than one for a country in Europe), but it misses the reality that these laws are antithetical to central tenets of the Christian faith, especially the importance of the sacred dignity of every human being. This week, as we continue to try to chip away at the myths of a Christian response to immigration, I’d like to offer an alternative perspective. First, while conservative Christians like quoting some parts of Leviticus they oddly enough miss others. For example, in chapter 19 the law clearly states: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” There’s a billboard on I-96, near where I live, that warns of the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. I would love to put up a billboard right after it, quoting where the Bible itself tells us what the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah actually was. (Hint, it had nothing to do with homosexuality). Rather, Ezekiel 16:49 says, “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” That was the problem in the story when the two angelic visitors came the house of Lot. The people of the city wanted to rape the foreign visitors instead of giving them the hospitality that is at the core of Ancient Near Eastern (and Biblical) ethics. So, yes, I do oddly enough agree with people who warn we are once more living in the days of Sodom. We are because the United States of America has pride, food and prosperous ease and yet when people in the world are fleeing poverty and violence, Christians are refusing to do anything to aid the poor and needy. A Christian understanding of immigration is one that seeks to respond to the real and cruel circumstances around the world, many of which our own country caused, that have provoked such continued unrest. A Christian understanding knows that we must help people now even while we work on those systemic issues. And a Christian understanding certainly doesn’t raid schools and churches because people broke an unjust law doing something that’s only been seen as a criminal act for less than one hundred years. We must demand better of our country. We must demand better of ourselves. Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.