Welcoming the Stranger -- Christians and Immigration Reform

Congress is working on immigration reform. There's a bipartisan bill that has the support of the President and one GOP candidate for President. It's not a perfect bill -- it's focused on enforcement and doesn't deal as well as many of us would like with the status of extended families. But its an attempt to deal justly with the approximately 12 million people who came to this country seeking a better life and yet are here illegally. Sending them home is likely impossible. Many of them are children who have only known life here in America. Many are productive, even tax paying members of the community. America is a nation of immigrants and must not forget that truth.

The question is, how should Christians respond to this issue. And truth be told it's an issue that divides Christians as much as any other issue. The question is why? Is it ultimately self interest that drives our views or is it Scripture.

Once again, as I did earlier as I thought about torture, I turn to a Baptist ethicist, David Gushee, who has written an excellent online opinion piece entitled "Christian Principles for Immigration Reform." He believes that this issue -- immigration reform -- is "one of the most important moral and policy issues facing Christians and the nation today." And, I would agree!

In dealing with this issue Gushee suggests five primary Christian principles that relate to this issue:

Love, Justice, hospitality, family, and humility.

In the course of his relatively brief article he shows how each of these principles/moral virtues relate to the issue.

The tension between Christian principles and national self-interest is such that even the most generous-minded bills being considered in Washington are more security-oriented and enforcement-oriented than will come naturally to a biblically suffused perspective.

The question comes down to this. Am I a Christian first or an American first? It should be an easy question to answer. I would answer I'm a Christian first and that my loyalties lie with all of God's children before even my own nation. But of course there are consequences and implications to such beliefs! But the fact is, throughout Scripture there is the call to welcome the stranger and treat justly the alien. That must guide us, don't you think?

Read the article here and then come back and offer your thoughts.