The other day I was re-reading the stories of Jesus miraculously feeding the 5,000 in Mark 6 and then feeding 4,000 in Mark 8. Immediately after the second incident, as they travel by boat to their next destination, Jesus tries to make a point to the disciples and uses yeast as a metaphor. Missing […]Continue Reading →
Last week, Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole wrote a compelling, provocative article in The Atlantic critiquing what he calls the “white savior industrial complex.” Specifically mentioning the viral KONY 2012 video from Invisible Children, the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof and the popular TED talks (each of which, I should note, I’ve […]Continue Reading →
Last week, while teaching on immigration for a group of pastors in Jacksonville, Florida, my colleague at World Relief Jacksonville, Elaine, made an interesting observation. After hearing me talk through a few of the many references to immigrants and immigration in the Bible, Elaine reflected that, in sixty years of church, she could not […]Continue Reading →
I began devising responses to some of their information that would publicly cut them down, exposing what I viewed as their naiveté, gullibility, and hypocrisy. But then, as my mind went racing through the various economic studies and Scriptures I could cite to belittle their views, God convicted me of my own hypocrisy: doesn’t God love the Minutemen and similar groups? Aren’t they made in his image (Genesis 1:26-27), just like each undocumented immigrant? Didn’t Jesus die to save sinners—like them, like me (Romans 5:8)? Continue Reading →
A couple of weeks ago, I visited Birmingham, Alabama for the first time. I was there to speak at Samford University (a Baptist university), at the G92 South conference. This conference takes its name from the 92 references to the Hebrew word ger, or the immigrant, in the Old Testament. The goal […]Continue Reading →
If and only if we engage in this true fasting, not just depriving ourselves of food or adorning our foreheads with ashes, but “spending ourselves” on behalf of the poor, the immigrant, the fatherless, and the widow, then Scripture promises that, “You will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say: Here I am.”Continue Reading →
My friend Danny Carroll, who is a distinguished professor of Old Testament at Denver Seminary and the author of Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible, argues very effectively that any discussion on immigration for Christians should begin with Scripture and, specifically, should begin where Scripture begins. “In the […]Continue Reading →
Immigration can be an overwhelming topic. While political pundits on both sides of a policy debate tend to reduce the matter to a simple, black-and-white issue, the reality is that immigration is complex. There are economic, cultural and political ramifications to how we respond to the arrival of immigrants to our country. Christians also […]Continue Reading →
I spent most of last week in Jackson, Mississippi, on a retreat with some good friends from the Christian Community Development Association, hosted by the John M. Perkins Foundation. Dr. Perkins, who is now 81 years old, is one of my heroes. Born into a sharecropping family in Mississippi, Dr. Perkins grew […]Continue Reading →
I live in the suburbs. A lot of folks in the suburbs of Chicago—and probably in many other suburban areas around the United States—tend to think of immigration as an urban phenomenon. Churches often think of immigration as an “urban ministry” issue. In reality, though, immigrants are just about everywhere in the U.S., including, […]Continue Reading →
