Posted on 04/28/2006 11:23:02 AM PDT by george wythe
Does a focus on family values demand a tight border to protect Americans from outsiders, or an open-door policy to ensure opportunity to the poor of other nations? It is more important to welcome the stranger or to respect the rule of law?
At a forum Thursday hosted by the conservative Christian group Family Research Council, conservative and liberal religious leaders lobbed Bible verses, unable to agree on what Jesus would do about the nation's nearly 12 million illegal immigrants.
Immigrant advocates warned that a crackdown would harm families and violate Scripture. And a lawmaker leading the charge for tougher enforcement decried the impulse to direct "compassion" at foreigners while ignoring the plight of low-income Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
The Leviticus verse is much more direct than the sheep pen verse. Leviticus doesn't qualify whether the alien is here legally or illegally.
It seems to require some pretty tortured theology to find Biblical vindication for a round-up.
"I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber![1] John 10:1
Proverbs 17:15 15 Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent— the LORD detests them both.
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THE BIBLE AND THE BORDER: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
--Robert Klein Engler
HE IS AN ILLINOIS MINUTEMAN!!
(CHICAGO--7 Nov. '05) Most social observers agree that the United States is a very religious country. By all measures of religiosity, the U. S. ranks high. At least 85 percent of the U. S. population claims they believe in God. Church attendance is high in the U. S. and so are donations to religious groups. With such a large number of citizens holding religious beliefs, it is little wonder that these beliefs are beginning to enter the debate over illegal immigration. To some observers it may seem that God and the border patrol are going to meet head-on.
If the U. S. is a very religious country, then it is also a predominantly Christian country. Some 80 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Yale professor S. P. Huntington argues that Anglo-Protestant Christian beliefs are at the core of traditional American values. Anglo-Protestant beliefs, however, have changed and developed through the centuries since the founding of the nation. From the doorway of a storefront church on the south side of Chicago to the stained-glass windows of New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral, the U. S. offers multiple expressions of the Christian faith.
Many Christians are now caught up in the debate about illegal immigration. Some do not know what to do to stop illegal immigration while at the same time living a faith that asks its believers to practice charity and forgiveness. Other Christians mistakenly believe that groups who are against illegal immigration, groups like the Minuteman Project, are immoral and dangerous. These Christians believe that illegal immigrants should be seen as people who need our assistance and compassion, not our judgment and condemnation.
Does the Bible and Christian theology have anything to add to the illegal immigration debate? Are Christians supposed to act one way or another on this social issue? I think Christianity does have some answers to the moral questions raised by illegal immigration. These answers are to be found both in Christian scripture and theology. In my view it is possible to be both a good Christian and have secure borders. It is also possible to demand illegal immigrants be deported and to practice Christian charity.
In chapter 13 of the apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans, the English translation reads, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed..." (Romans 13:1-2). Clearly, this is advice to Christians to follow the laws of their nation and to respect the laws of other nations.
When people come to the U. S. illegally, they are committing a crime. They are doing something that is against the governing authorities of the U. S. Illegal immigrants are not good Christians from Paul's perspective. Illegal immigrants may have reasons for breaking U. S. laws, but those reasons do not excuse their illegal actions. We should not let charity and compassion blind us from the criminal act illegal immigrants commit.
Those who work in a law-abiding way against illegal immigration and those who ask that the laws of the U. S. be enforced are being good Christians in doing so. Likewise, those who demand that illegal immigrants be detained and deported respect the governing authorities of their nation. In line with Paul's argument, they are doing what good Christians ought to do.
This is not to say that illegal immigrants should be treated badly. Christians practice charity and respect for the individual, but they do not condone law breaking. Law-abiding citizens of the U. S. have every right to make sure their borders are secure and that illegal immigrants are removed from their country as quickly and humanely as possible.
There are ideas implied in Paul's other writings that also shed light on the contemporary issue of illegal immigration. In his Letter to Philemon, Paul address the issue of what is to be done about a runaway slave. In short, Paul sends back the runaway slave, Onesimus, and encourages his master, Philemon, to accept and forgive him. This may seem an unusual act by Paul to those who know that under Roman law, the master had absolute authority over the life and person of the slave.
Although illegal immigrants are not slaves the way Onesimus was a slave in the apostle Paul's time, we can see illegal immigrants today as persons running away from their moral obligations to improve their own country and not run down ours. If that is the case, then it is certainly a moral and Christian thing to encourage illegal immigrants to return home and make life better in their own country.
Moving from scripture to the domain of Christian theology, we learn that moral actions have both an objective and subjective component. The theologian Thomas Aquinas held that both subjective intention and objective consequence are necessary in making a moral judgment. In one of Thomas's examples, while out hunting it is better to kill your father believing he is a stag, than to kill a stag believing it is your father.
From the point of view of the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas, we may judge illegal immigrants from Mexico from both a subjective and objective point of view. Objectively, illegal immigrants are breaking U. S. immigration laws, but do these criminals have a subjective intention that outweighs the objective criminal act? Is breaking U. S. immigration laws justified because it is the only way poor Mexicans can feed their families, or do illegal immigrants who come to the U. S. have another choice?
Coming to the U. S. illegally is not the only choice poor Mexicans can make to improve their lives. They could also choose to stay in Mexico and work to make Mexico a better country. In fact, as good Christians it is their moral obligation to do this. It is better to improve Mexico than to be a criminal in the U. S. Illegal immigration may be the easy way out, but it is not the moral way. Christians are supposed to do what is good, even if the good is difficult to do.
Although Christianity encourages acts of charity, we cannot be both charitable and law breakers. We cannot rob Peter to pay Paul. The Archbishop of Mexico City should be encouraged to prevent Mexicans from coming illegally to the U. S. He should encourage Mexicans to work for Christian social change in Mexico instead of criticizing U. S. immigration policies. Unless the Mexican state changes, many Mexican citizens will never be able to have a fulfilled life. Nor can they find fulfillment by breaking U. S. immigration laws. To push the poor from your door to your neighbor's door is not an example of Christian charity.
It remains to be seen what other religious questions will be raised about illegal immigration to the U. S. It seems clear for the moment that as the debate over illegal immigration grows, so, too will the theological and scriptural debate over this issue grow. It may very well be that just as liberal Christianity in the U. S. inspired the civil rights movement of the late 20th century, so, conservative Christianity will inspire the secure border movement of the early 21st century.
Robert Klein Engler lives in Chicago. He is an adjunct professor at Roosevelt University
Written by someone who was in prison for breaking the law of the land.
God's law is supreme. Caesar's law is secondary.
God's law is permanent. Caesar's law is changeable.
The panel was discussing God's law on this issue, and whether we need to change Caesar's law to accommodate the Christian perspective.
As the article points out, it's a vigorous debate among conservatives.
Last I checked, no one tossed me a free tomato.
Yea, especially when the neighbor STEALS social services from the taxpayers of the US.
Amen!!
I am more interested in what groups like A.N.S.W.E.R. think about this than I am our nation's churches. Should we allow marxist organizations to determine U.S. policy on these issues? Should we foster an immigration envirionment what will subject this nation to the type of blackmail we'll be seeing on Monday?
I call on our President to fulfill his oath of office and honor Article 4 Section 4 of the United States Constitution, specifically the part about protecting the states from invasion.
I don't think there was much of a concept of illegal vs. legal residents of a "state" either-- accept possibly for an invasion. There also wasn't a whole lot of handouts by the "state" that one group of people was paying for, but another group was receiving.
All things being equal, you treat people that weren't born here as you would those that were. All things are no longer equal.
There's nothing tortured about my theology.
Sounds like the Evangelical Churches are the ones with the problem. They should market themselves to all humans. And somehow I think most do not condone lawbreaking.
It's not all that tough is it. We have laws. We are either a nation of laws or we are not. I'd like to think we are. The appologists for the illegal aliens would rather we weren't.
John 10:1
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."
My fruit is picked by legal help and I will thank you to please stop your snide attacks on the law abiding farmers of the U. S. of A.
The nation's churches have enormous lobby power. They can sway Congress either way.
If you read the article, you will notice that Congressional immigration-reform leaders were part of the panel. Tancredo (House) and Brownback(Senate) are quoted in the article.
What snide attacks? I don't consider a person who grows food inherently evil because of the people he/she may employ in help growing that food.
Deporting all the illegals is not an option. But drying up the job market for illegals is. When no one will hire them out of fear of being busted by ICE, they'll retreat to their origins. (Too bad they didn't start busting employers of illegals twenty years ago...when the law went into effect.)
It's called tough love. I lvoe you, but I don't love the thing you did. It's against the rules. Now go to your room, er, country.
The "christians" need to start supporting these people and take that monkey off the back of the U.S. taxpayers. And I would like all the whining about poverty and the "uninsured" in America to stop also. The U.S. taxpayers have been fighting that fire for decades. The "christians" and their illegal aliens keep pooring gas on the thing. It's not the U.S. taxpayer's job to end third world poverty. The Mexican government needs to give it a shot.
You continually blanket a whole industry as an employer of illegals to try to back up your position.
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