Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of blogs this week commemorating the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Immigration Reform and Control Act. Twenty-five years ago today, on November 6, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform & Control Act, a carefully-negotiated bipartisan bill which has become known as […]Continue Reading →
My challenge to local churches, as often as I can convince them to listen to me, is to see immigration to the United States not—as many in the larger society do—as a threat, but rather as a missional opportunity. God, in his sovereignty, has brought people from every nation to our communities (Acts 17:26), […]Continue Reading →
I don’t own a TV and haven’t for years. Some of my low-income immigrant neighbors—children in particular—are scandalized to discover that my wife and I don’t own a television set, and they’ve offered them to us as charitable gifts so many times that I’ve lost count. Last Tuesday evening, though, I really wanted to […]Continue Reading →
The annual Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) conference is something like Christmas for me. I look forward to it all year. It is simultaneously energizing and exhausting, and I wish it lasted longer. The CCDA describes itself thus: “As a network of Christians committed to seeing people and communities wholistically restored. […]Continue Reading →
Since the death of Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs last Wednesday, people around the world have been reflecting on his legacy. Twitter and Facebook have been abuzz with paeans to iPods, iPhones, and iPads—and to the man without whom they would likely not exist. Radio and television reports have highlighted the influence that […]Continue Reading →
All Christians agree that we are called to care for those who are poor and vulnerable: the Scriptures are replete with statements both of God’s love for the poor and of his explicit command that his people love, protect, and seek justice for those who are impoverished or oppressed. Christians do not uniformly agree, […]Continue Reading →
Like most evangelicals, I believe very strongly in the authority of the Bible as the inspired Word of God. The Scriptures, though, were not written in English and it’s entirely possible to misunderstand the transforming truth of Scripture if it’s not translated clearly, or accurately, into language we understand. For example, most (if not […]Continue Reading →
As I speak in local churches on the topic of immigration, challenging Christians to think about how our faith should inform the ways that they respond to the arrival of immigrants to our country, I never begin by talking about politics. Contrary to what some of my non-Christian friends presume based on media reports, […]Continue Reading →
In the Old Testament, King David—the greatest of the kings of Israel and the only whom God called “a man after my own heart”—made an uncharacteristically bad decision that led him to commit adultery and then, in the wake of Bathsheba’s pregnancy, murder (2 Samuel 11). Despite such blatant offenses, though, David […]Continue Reading →
Today is Labor Day, which for the vast majority of Americans means little more than a three-day weekend and the end of summer. It seemed to me an appropriate occasion, though, to write about immigration. You see, most of immigration is explained by labor. While there are individuals who migrate because they are […]Continue Reading →
