As Advent morphed into Christmas 2023, immigration, a poignant subplot of the Nativity stories, spilled literally and figuratively into the American public square.
Immigrants by the thousands jam multiple border crossings in record numbers, creating untold humanitarian and logistical dilemmas for towns and cities throughout the Southwest and beyond. Everyone knows something must be done, that new strategies must be implemented, but our national divisions seem so deep that consensus on effective responses seems improbable, if not impossible, especially in a presidential election year.
Bill Leonard
Predictably, political rhetoric abounds in accusations and counter accusations, denunciations and diatribes. Amid such cross-party verbal onslaughts, the words of one 2024 presidential candidate readily occupy center stage. “They’re coming in from Asia, from Africa, from South America,” he declares, “coming from all over the world. … They’re poisoning the blood of our country.”
In an October campaign rally, the selfsame candidate declared: “I will implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants,” adding, “If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, … if you don’t like our religion — which a lot of them don’t — if you sympathize with the jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country and you are not getting in. Right?”
“Strong ideological screening?” “OUR religion?” “Poisoning the blood of our country?” Asia, Africa, South America? Those phrases and the implications behind them sent me back to the Book of Acts and an amazing first-century sermon preached to the Athenians by the Apostle Paul.
He begins by likening the “Unknown God,” unnamed amid a pantheon of deities, to the God revealed in Jesus. Then comes Acts 17:26 with words strikingly applicable then and now. Translated variously, they remain powerful whatever their form:
(God) hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. (KJV)
Starting from scratch, (God) made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living. (The Message Bible)
From one person God created every human nation to live on the whole earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. (Common English Version)
fecitque ex uno omne genus hominum inhabitare super universam faciem terrae definiens statuta tempora et terminos habitationis eorum. (Latin Vulgate)
ἐποίησέν τε ἐξ ἑνὸς πᾶν ἔθνος ἀνθρώπων κατοικεῖν ἐπὶ παντὸς προσώπου ⸃ τῆς γῆς, ὁρίσας προστεταγμένους καιροὺς καὶ τὰς ὁροθεσίας τῆς κατοικίας αὐτῶν. (SBL Greek New Testament, for those who don’t trust biblical translations.)
By the way, I’m overwhelmed by the arresting earthiness of the Message Bible paraphrase that God “started from scratch” (whether by fiat or evolution?) in creating “the entire human race” and making “the earth hospitable.” In 2023, those words could not be more ironic as our generation of humans continues to make the earth in-hospitable as fast as we can. But that’s another story.
Right now, amid all this talk of “poisoning the blood” and protecting “our religion,” we might remember an earlier era in American history when politics and religion were intwined against immigrants. Only this time it was the Irish, falsely accused and readily condemned as poisoning American blood and culture. Their saga is detailed in an excellent History Channel essay titled “When America Despised the Irish: The 19th Century’s Refugee Crisis,” published in 2017, updated in 2023 and highlighted here:
- By 1845, the great Irish Potato Famine sent boatloads of immigrants — poor, starving, desperate — to America. Packed into cargo ships, estimates are that of some 85,000 Irish who sailed out in 1847, at least 25% died during the voyage.
- In Boston, where many disembarked, serious efforts were made to provide support and housing, while other factions warned immigrants were the dregs of Irish culture, worst of all, Catholics. Conspiracy theories multiplied, including the idea that immigrants were part of a papist plot to “replace” American Protestant democracy with Catholic/papal control. Newspaper ads for workers included the infamous warning, “No Irish need apply,” a favorite slogan of the anti-immigrant movement.
- Religio-political coalitions arose, including the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, 1849, a New York-based secret society enlisting natural born Protestant males under the motto, “Temperance, Liberty and Protestantism,” with a call to restore the primal religion of the Republic.
- Assorted nativist cabals soon united in forming the American Party, an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant response to fears of a Catholic takeover. Popularly branded as the “Know-Nothing” Party, its members pledged to testify that they “knew nothing” if asked to report on political activity.
- By 1856, the Know-Nothings gained significant power in Massachusetts, controlling state offices, including the legislature. Laws were passed abolishing Irish militias, confiscating their firearms and restricting naturalized citizens from voting until 21 years after citizenship was secured.
- On an election day in Louisville, Ky., in August 1855, Know-Nothing militias patroled voting sites and initiated attacks on a German and Irish Catholic region of the city. Riots resulted, houses were burned, Catholics fled, and many were killed on what became known as “Bloody Monday.”
That was then, this is now. As 2023 ends, it isn’t that American blood is being poisoned by immigrants. Rather, American blood is being spilt because of firearm-related violence proliferated by violent threats, violent rhetoric often circulated on social media, at political rallies and across college campuses. In fact, the “one blood of all nations” is being spilt throughout the earth.
The New York Times reports that in the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, West Bank, sits “a simple Nativity scene for Christmas 2023: Jesus enters the world amid a pile of Gazan rubble.” During Hanukkah this year, menorahs were lighted in towns where Jewish women, men, children, even infants, were massacred, the bloodstained walls, beds and floors still heartbreakingly evident.
Tragically, the language of violence in such settings seems intermingled with the language of religion. Whatever our religio-spiritual differences, the protection of “our religion” and “our country” must not come at the expense of the religions of others or those who claim no religion at all. Such protection should be secured, not only in the U.S., but also across the globe.
As the 2024 political campaign appears to become more “Christianized” at every turn, often with less-than-gospel implications, Paul’s sermon to the Greeks challenges the idea that one set of human beings can “poison our blood.” Why? Because God made “of one blood all nations.” Might we say it this way: Like it or not, a divinely implanted DNA flows in all our veins.
To hear Paul tell it, the issue is not that immigrants can poison our blood. We all do a pretty good/bad job of that ourselves as evidenced in the vastly un-original sins we’ve propagated ever since God first crafted our human family “from scratch.” Remember?
Bill Leonard is founding dean and the James and Marilyn Dunn professor of Baptist studies and church history emeritus at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the author or editor of 25 books. A native Texan, he lives in Winston-Salem with his wife, Candyce, and their daughter, Stephanie.
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