I have become persuaded that immigration reform is one of the most important moral and policy issues facing Christians and the nation today. And there is landmark legislation on the table — the bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill, supported by the president — that in my view reflects the best approximation of Christian principles.
The first question a Christian must ask when thinking about immigration is whether the highest priority for us is American self-interest or biblical principles. As American Christians, are we more Christian or more American?
I think that we should be Christians first. We should seek God's will for his people (the church) as revealed in Scripture. Only then do we take the second step — considering our loyalty to the nation — to see how we might best apply biblical principles there.
Biblically, the five most relevant moral principles on this issue are love, justice, hospitality, family and humility.
Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves. He then makes clear that our “neighbors” include not just family, friends and folk like us but also strangers and enemies. Every person is my neighbor, whom I am called to love. The “undocumented worker” or “illegal alien” is my neighbor.
Jesus calls us to advance justice. In biblical teaching, justice tilts toward the vulnerable, the marginalized, and the oppressed because these are the ones who have no social power. The Bible even offers specific teachings in relation to that vulnerable stranger called the “resident alien,” such as this one from Jeremiah 22: “Do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed violence in this place.” The principle of justice is not merely retributive, focusing on the punishment of lawbreakers; it is restorative, looking for ways to repair and build community.
In the famous “sheep and goats” judgment parable of Matthew 25, the king says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Illegal immigrants are strangers. As Christians, we are called to demonstrate welcome, or hospitality, toward them. We do not want to court the judgment that comes to those to whom the king must say, “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.”
The principle of family — one might even say “family values” — means that we should not support any policy that breaks up families or endangers children. Sometimes immigration enforcement does precisely that. As Christians, we cannot rest comfortably with raids that leave children in schools and daycare while their parents are deported.
Humility might seem the least relevant principle to the immigration debate, but Christians should humbly recognize that, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Paul is speaking to Gentile Christians who, by God's unmerited grace, have been brought into the covenant relationship with God formerly reserved for the Jewish people alone. This should remind us that our true “citizenship” is in the church, and we are there as “resident aliens” hospitably welcomed by our gracious God. In this sense, we too are aliens, immigrants and strangers, and we should identify compassionately with this world's versions of the same.
Having identified these principles as Christians, we are prepared to turn to the national debate about immigration. There are 12 million illegal immigrants in America amid a bitter debate about what to do about them, as well as what to do to prevent more of them from arriving. Options range from draconian schemes of mass deportation to border-security-only approaches to more comprehensive grand plans.
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.
Of the options, it is clear to me that a comprehensive grand plan is the best option and that the bipartisan immigration bill supported by the president is the best way forward. That plan moves sequentially: it begins with enhanced border security, then provides a mechanism for undocumented workers to come out of the shadows and obtain probationary temporary worker status and a secure work document, greatly improves the system for employee verification of worker status and enforcement against those who hire illegal workers, and sets limits on the number of family members guest workers can bring with them.
This is hardly the kingdom of God in action. But it is far better than any alternative, and Christians should support it.
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— David Gushee is university fellow and Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. www.davidgushee.com.