Immigration

US immigration has been a particularly contentious political issue. Major talking points have centered around the type of immigrants crossing our borders. Inhumane efforts have been implemented to block water crossings. Political rhetoric claiming that illegal immigrants are criminals reaches a fever pitch any time election season rolls around. However, the crime committed by undocumented immigrants is significantly lower than natural-born citizens. Yet, even within the church, we can find ourselves in a Jonah mindset, rather than a Matthew 25:35 mindset. We begin to judge whether people inherently deserve anything. We are blinded by our privilege to the plight of those who desire to experience the American dream we were born into. Likewise, we forget our own brokenness without Jesus and sit in self-righteousness rather than gracious hospitality. We find ourselves uncomfortable with the idea that those people are in our spaces. Jonah was irritated that those Ninevites were spared by his God. What might God do if we stopped trying to confine his gospel, his church, to those who are already on the membership rolls? What might the American church look like, if, instead of trying to exclude from our borders those that we deem don’t belong, we allow God to open the doors to all? As it relates to immigration, “We’re called to love our neighbors regardless of their country of origin or religious tradition, but as we do so, we’re likely to find that many of them are deeply committed followers of Jesus. Although it is difficult to quantitatively measure personal religious commitments, the significant majority of immigrants in the United States (whether present lawfully or not) self-identify as Christians. Many of them are evangelicals. In fact, roughly 1 in 10 evangelicals in the U.S. is an immigrant, and that share has been rising. In 2007, 12 percent of American evangelicals were either immigrants or their children; by 2014, that share was 16 percent” (“A Biblical View of Immigrants: Part 1,” ERLC [blog], May 17, 2019, https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/a-biblical-view-of-immigrants-part-1/). The satirical message of Jonah pokes fun at how open non-Hebrew people were to God’s purposes, while Jonah—a prophet—was closed off to them. How might we be blinded, as Jonah was, to God’s desire for all people, rather than only those we feel comfortable around?