The Christian Case Against Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

How this article came about…

Last month I spoke at a 9.12 Project meeting here in Sioux Falls and decided to bail on the usual stump talking points and just talk straight with the people about one issue - a Christian view of the problem of illegal immigration. Later I was told people loved it and want me back to do the same with other issues. This is one of the things I regretted about pulling out of the US House race, I had a thirty-eight week plan to hit one issue a week and lead the conversation rather than run a campaign of reactionary press releases with sound bites aimed at the opposing candidate's latest screw up. Immigration was one of the thirty-eight topics I had planned to address and that is what I will do here and in a follow up post or two.

First, a few random but related thoughts on the matter…

Those of us who've driven through Mexico will tell you stories like how we got stopped at twenty checkpoints in a thousand miles. While those who look "local" are waved through, the rest of us are told to exit the vehicle and, nervous and with papers in hand, we are questioned while our stuff is inspected. That's only the tip of the iceberg with regard to how Mexico treats it's aliens making it outrageous that Mexican President Felipe Calderón could stand on the White House lawn and decry the Arizona immigration law.  Arizona is merely doing Obama's job for him.

One of the reasons I strongly advocate for the FairTax is that, as a consumption tax, everyone who buys anything in America pays it– including 12+ million illegals. It's fair, those who spend more pay more in tax, those who spend less pay less taxes. It is not an unChristian point of view to make illegals render unto Caesar. As is, those who do obey the law are made to pay for the social support systems (schools, roads, police, medical care, etc) of those who don't obey the law.

Is there a "Christian" response to this political hot potato?

Conveniently disregarding any previous concern she's had for the so-called separation of church and state, Nancy Pelosi has asked priests and pastors to play a major role in opening the doors to illegals and start talking about the issue of immigration with their congregations. She's erroneously assuming the Bible is okay with amnesty for illegals. If you read on you'll see the opposite it true.

A couple months ago I spoke on this topic for fifty minutes– you can hear that message here. I encourage you to listen to it as I talk about how God is using globalization to bring the world toward the coming day when every tongue, every tribe, every people will bow their knee before the King of Kings (Is. 45:23, Rom. 14:11).  I talk about how God is an adopter, how Jesus was the Logos (the Word) and how it is God-like to take steps to communicate with those he's trying to reach (i.e. learn their language).  I talk about how "sanctuary cities" today borrow a Biblical concept but misapply it completely.  I talk about Muslim demographics, Europe's pension time bomb, and the 14th Amendment as it relates to birth tourism in the US and more. I steer people away from fear and admonish Patriots to not even give a courtesy chuckle to a racial slur uttered in their earshot. I express my concerns that our enemies are using our open doors to overtake us. In that case I'm not talking about hispanics who are coming over our border, I'm talking about those from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan, and even Iran WALKING ACROSS OUR SOUTHERN BORDER.

You can see there is more to say than I'm going to post here. What follows is the part where I get to the core of the confusion about what the Christian view is on this matter. I know that many people in our state care what the Bible says about this and other issues and therefore I submit this to aid those who are wrestling with a "Christian" response to this political hot potato.

Adam and Eve were immigrants!

Immigration is not a new or recent issue. Immigration and the migrations of people have been going on since God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and they ventured off to settle and start over east of Eden. When Cain murdered Abel, he feared someone would kill him and so he immigrated to the land of Nod (Heb. wandering).  All of early Genesis is about migrations and relocations of families, clans, and tribes to foreign lands.

God called Abraham to - go to the land I will show you (Gen. 12:1). All of Biblical and human history is a story of migrations.  And most of the time it is in the context of a crisis - a famine, a war, oppression, a promise of a better future.  These are some of the push/pull factors that cause people to move around.  And so, with regard to immigration, at least Scripturally speaking, it's every bit as much of an opportunity as it is a crisis as God uses migrations as he Providentially moves people around.  America is a spectacular example of God's heart to include and engraft people into his family - as in Ellis Island…"give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!..."

Citing that you might think I'm about to conclude that God could not possibly have an issue with illegal immigration. A book I'm recommending these days to help people speak intelligently on this issue from a Scriptural perspective is "The Immigration Crisis: Immigrant, Aliens and the Bible" by James K. Hoffmeier.  Hoffmeier is the Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern History and Archaeology professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where I got some of my theological training (though Hoffmeier was at Wheaton College the years I took classes at TEDS).  Today he's a leading Egyptologist and expert in the Semitic languages.  As a kid he fled Egypt during the 1967 War and he and his family lived in tents in a mountain camp in Cyrus for months.  He's married to a Chinese American. I share all this to say there is no one more qualified to talk about this issue from a Biblical perspective.

No justification in the Bible for amnesty for those breaking the law (a.k.a. illegals)

People today are using the Bible to both support and oppose giving amnesty to illegal immigrants in our country.  Hoffmeier clears up the confusion explaining how there are three Hebrew words that we translate "foreigner"- zar, nekhar and ger.  Zar and nekhar refer to visitors from foreign countries who are just passing through.  Ger refers to foreign residents who live in another land WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE HOST NATION making them legal aliens/or immigrants.  Joseph asked Pharaoh's permission for his family to live in Egypt during the famine (Gen. 45:16-18).

The Bible talks in 160 places about how the Ger is not to be oppressed but to receive equal justice and have full access to the social support system of ancient Israel. There is also provision for religious inclusion.  But the Ger were OBLIGATED TO LIVE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS of Israelite society.  According to Jewish law, the zar and nekhar do not have the benefits extended to the Ger, the legal alien.

Quit with the "Deport Jesus" rhetoric!

The mistake many well-meaning Christians make is to extend the Biblical laws for the Ger to illegal aliens in America even though they don't fit the legal and social definition.  It is true that God is an adopter, but he's also a respecter of law, borders and national soveriegnty. It's not hard to find passages where we are commanded to welcome the stranger, passages about God engrafting foreigners into the family of faith.  But what I'm hearing these days is a total distortion of all of this, as if laws don't matter.

President Obama's religious affairs advisor Shaun Casey said;

Jesus was an illegal alien… the disciples were displaced people.  That Jesus was an illegal ought to shape how we engage the current debate… in the current debate over immigration policy it distresses me to no end that so many of my fellow church goers ignore this fundamental tenet that should be central to our identity.

And you'll hear these folks go on to quote this verse to make their point that Jesus can identify with illegal's… "Foxes have holes in the ground, birds of the air have nets but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head."  And so the point there is we grant amnesty to twelve million illegal aliens so we aren't just like those who turned pregnant Mary and Joseph away from the inn.

How do you respond to that?  Here's how… point out it's all patently false.  Jesus broke no law, he wasn't an illegal, neither were his disciples. Jesus' parents didn't violate Egyptian law when they crossed the border and lived there legally for two years.  Both nations were regions within the Roman Empire and Joseph and Mary were legally there.

Treat illegals with respect and dignity, but subject them to law

When the Bible tells us to treat well and not turn away the foreigner (Lev. 19:33-34) - it's talking about Ger (legal immigrants).  With regard to illegal immigrants the only passages we have to go on are general passages about showing mercy and compassion to all people.  Those are not passages that can be stretched to mean people can live illegally wherever they want, not pay taxes, and yet receive all the benefits granted the Ger, the legal alien. Romans 13:1 says "everyone must submit himself to governing authorities."

Churches that engage in civil disobedience by providing sanctuary for illegals in their facilities, though appearing compassionate, have no Biblical justification. For those who are illegal, churches CAN help make sure their human rights are protected and that people are treated with dignity and respect - they can pay legal fees to make sure illegal immigrants are given a fair hearing. There are ways to assist the undocumented alien without breaking the law.  For those in the Sioux Falls area I encourage you to support a new ministry my friend Pastor Carl Bruxvoort recently started called New Roots which exists to support our community's growing international population and their families.

Hopefully I've said enough to provoke you to further study.  It's a very complex issue - one of the biggest tangled knots I've struggled with as a Christian trying to sort all this out is how current immigration policy splits up families - legal's and illegals. Also, the church must rise up and decry American Greed which manifests in paying illegals less so we can make more.