One of the most controversial political issues in American society in recent years has been the issue of immigration: what kind of immigration laws the United States should have and how we should deal with illegal immigrants. Many Christians have publically weighed in on this issue, offering a variety of perspectives and positions about what the Christian attitude towards immigration should be. If we want to address this issue faithfully, we should begin by looking at Scripture and seeing what it might have to say about how Christians should treat foreign immigrants.
The Treatment of Foreigners in Scripture
In the Old Testament, God’s Torah has quite a lot to say about how God’s people should treat foreigners who are dwelling in their midst. Numerous times, God commands His people Israel not to mistreat foreigners; in order to motivate them, He reminds them that they were mistreated as foreigners in Egypt and so know what this is like (Ex 22:21, 23:9; Lev 19:33-34; Deut 10:19, 24:14-18). Interestingly, even though the Israelites were mistreated in Egypt, God explicitly singles out Egyptians as people the Israelites must not despise, “because you resided as foreigners in their country” (Deut 23:7). If there is a dispute between an Israelite and a foreigner, He demands that they show no partiality or prejudice, but judge fairly (Deut 1:16). God even goes so far as to say, “The foreigner among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as you love yourself” (Lev 19:34).
A number of stipulations of the Torah group foreigners together with the poor, widows, and orphans as requiring special consideration and kindness, due to their socially and economically vulnerable status. God tells the Israelites not to reap to the edges of their fields, but to leave some for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner (Lev 19:9-10, 23:22; Deut 24:19-22). He also tells them to set aside a tithe of the produce of their land and to “give it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat in your town and be satisfied” (Deut 26:12). One of the covenantal curses of God’s covenant with Israel is, “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow” (Deut 27:19). Furthermore, God grounds His demand that His holy people treat foreigners well in His own Divine character: “The LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing” (Deut 10:17-18). All of this makes it quite clear that God is opposed to any prejudice against or mistreatment of foreigners living among His people.
A number of major theological shifts occur in the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament period. One of these shifts is that God’s covenant people are no longer defined as an ethnic and political nation bound to a particular geographic location in the land of Israel. Instead, God’s covenant people, the Church, are now a global, multiethnic, transnational community. The boundaries of God’s holy nation are no longer defined geographically; instead, they are defined by the sacraments and church discipline.
Applying the Old Testament’s teachings about the treatment of foreigners to the Church today, we should say that the Church must be welcoming of people of all ethnicities and nationalities within its midst. Prejudice against or mistreatment of others on the basis of ethnicity or nationality has no place within God’s holy people. Instead, the Church must show hospitality to all people, without partiality. And, since immigrants tend to be socially and economically vulnerable today, just as they were in ancient Israel, Christians should show a special concern for caring for people who are immigrants, both fellow Christians who are immigrants and immigrant neighbors who are outside the boundaries of the Church.
The Church and Immigration Today
There are two main approaches to understanding how Scripture’s teachings about treating foreigners well apply to American Christians today. The first approach is to say that these teachings only apply to the Church and to Christians in their personal lives. Thus, they do not apply to the political or national realm, where the governing authorities, who are established and validated by God (Rom 13:1-7), should create and strictly enforce immigration policies that will be in the best interest of their own nation. The second approach is to try to directly apply Scripture’s teachings about treating foreigners well to the laws of the United States today, advocating open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Proponents of the first approach might point to Paul’s statement in Acts that God “made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:26). God, some would argue, wants there to be clear boundaries between nations and for each nation to carry out its Divinely ordained task of ensuring economic and political security for its own inhabitants. Thus, Christians should not call into question strict immigration laws and strict enforcement of those laws; in fact, they should support them.
The problem with this interpretation is that practically none of the national boundaries that existed at the time of the apostle Paul are in existence today. From a historical perspective, political boundaries are frequently in flux; they are not sacrosanct. Paul’s point in his speech is not to provide Divine validation for whatever political borders happen to exist today. His point is to declare that the God who providentially rules over all the nations is now calling people of all nations to repent and to submit to the Authority of Jesus.
The basic political message of the New Testament is that Jesus alone is Lord of all, and that He has dethroned all the kingdoms of this world by establishing God’s Kingdom. Though the governments of this world still have a part to play in God’s providential plans, they have essentially been deligitimized. Though Christians must show respect and submission to governments, they cannot regard nation-states or the divisions between them as having any ultimate significance. Thus, it is completely wrong to try to find support in Scripture for immigration policies that exclude foreigners out of selfishness and fear. God calls His covenant people to practice radical hospitality and to show love to all people, especially socially and economically vulnerable people like immigrants. Since Jesus alone is Lord of all, Christians cannot apply the demands of His Lordship selectively, affirming hospitality on the personal level while supporting selfishness on the political level.
Does this mean that we should follow the second approach and directly apply Scripture’s teachings about treating foreigners well to the laws of the United States today? It is important to note that nothing in the Scripture says what kind of border security the nation of Israel was supposed to have, how many foreigners it was supposed to allow into its borders, or how it should deal with illegal immigrants. In addition, the correct parallel is not between Old Testament Israel and the United States, but between Old Testament Israel and the Church. We cannot directly apply anything that Scripture says about God’s ethical demands on His covenant people to the laws of a nation-state today.
Thus, we should be careful about simplistically and directly applying the Torah’s teaching about treating foreigners well to the laws of the United States today. What we can say is that the Church should be a welcoming community that practices radical hospitality and shows special consideration and kindness to immigrants. If the Church can influence Americans to be a little more like this, this is a good thing. But if not, we should not at all be surprised.
God does have a plan to unite all people of every nation and tongue into one harmonious community, without division or hostility. However, His plan is not to do this within a secular nation-state but within the Church. Unless people are united in a common faith under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, true healing of the national divisions and hostilities of the world can never be realized. Until Jesus comes again to make all things new, nations and the borders between them are going to exist in some form, providing a degree of order in a violent, chaotic world.
In such a violent, chaotic world, it is unrealistic to expect nonChristians to just have open borders for their nations. In fact, the practice of hospitality assumes that there be boundaries around our space so that we can invite others into that space as guests, so having borders between societies is to some extent justified. Hospitality is about more than just allowing people to physically cross borders; it is about the host treating their guests well once they have invited them into their own space. So a demand that the United States have open borders does not mean very much ethically unless we are prepared to be inconvenienced by the arrival of immigrants and to treat them well in our own daily lives.
There can be value in Christians trying to influence Americans, who have more than enough wealth and comfort to share with many more people, to be more open to allowing more immigrants to cross their borders. But this by itself is not as important as influencing Americans to become more virtuous so that they will be willing to actually show hospitality to immigrants after they arrive. And the first step towards this is for the Church to visibly model such hospitality in its own communal life.
The Treatment of Illegal Immigrants
So, whatever immigration laws the United States has, what should be the Christian attitude towards illegal immigrants? It goes without saying that Christians must show love to all people, even if they have broken the laws of a nation-state, and this includes illegal immigrants. It certainly seems unjust to take people who have made a home here and integrated into communities here and forcibly send them back to other countries. Given this, some Churches have provided sanctuary for illegal immigrants, believing that showing love to them requires protecting them from suffering injustice at the hands of the state through deportation.
On the other hand, Christians are supposed to submit to the governing authorities, to live quietly, to mind their own affairs (I Thess 4:11), and never to actively seek persecution. So Christians should be very cautious about openly defying the laws of the nation they live under. If we are going to do so, we must be very sure that obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ requires us to do so.
If possible, Christians should always try to work in accordance with the law. However, submitting to the governing authorities does not necessarily mean that we are always obligated to report someone else who has broken the law to those authorities. And sometimes, proclaiming the Gospel and showing love to our neighbors requires that we ourselves break the law. Determining when we are required to do so calls for much wisdom and careful discernment.
We should not lump all undocumented immigrants together in one homogenous category of “illegal immigrants,” since the circumstances and situation of each individual are unique. How the Church should show love to these individuals should be determined on a case-by-case basis. In some cases, a church community may determine that God wants them to provide sanctuary to certain illegal immigrants who are in danger of being unjustly deported. In this case, the church community should do so, quite calmly and resolutely. Its goal should be not to cause a political or media ruckus, but, as always, simply to show love to its neighbors. The Church must carefully navigate showing respect for the laws and boundaries the governing authorities have established, while also carrying out its mission of caring for vulnerable, needy people such as immigrants.