Guest Blog by Ian Danley (This is the first of a two-part blog; Part II is now online as well.) As we consider together the question of a biblical perspective towards immigration and immigration policy, I want to offer a few lenses that I think help Christians identify the issue in biblical terms. […]Continue Reading →
Guest Blog by Adam Gustine There are days when, if you were walking around my neighborhood and you didn’t know better, you couldn’t be sure that you were still in America. I live in the hub of three major ethnic communities in south Brooklyn. I’m a pastor at a church that is literally the […]Continue Reading →
Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and author of various books, is a leading evangelical thinker. Known for his sharp intellect, what has always impressed me about Keller is the humility apparent in his writing. He’s admired by evangelical leaders across the spectrum, from Billy Graham and […]Continue Reading →
In 1960, a few college students started a sit-in movement that swept the nation. In 2010, a few college students set out on a mission to get their rooms in the Inn. It wasn’t until 1964 that Civil Rights legislation finally made it through Congress and became the law of the land. But the change began in 1960. And it may be a few more years until just and fair immigration reform becomes the law of the land, but the change has already begun. The Movement has started.Continue Reading →
In the world of policy it is easy to forget that policy affects people.
It’s certainly not that I don’t interact with undocumented immigrants. I’m sure I brush their shoulders everyday on the train as they’re riding to work. I’m sure I consume food they cook, purchase products they make, and lived in homes they’ve built. My everyday existence is deeply connected to a group of people that is more of a number to me than a face.Continue Reading →
Tabitha defies a lot of the most common stereotypes about undocumented immigrants: she didn’t enter the country illegally, she’s not from Mexico, she speaks English fluently—and she’s certainly not a menace to be feared. To the contrary: she’s teaching the rest of us how to faithfully extend hospitality, even to strangers. She reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10: Jesus could have made the Samaritan the guy beat up on the side of the road to Jericho and the Israelite the noble neighbor who models love and compassion, but Jesus challenged his listeners’ assumptions. It was the Samaritan, a member of a despised group of outsiders, whom Jesus puts in the role of a neighbor. And he calls us to “go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).Continue Reading →
I know there are countless Eneldas, Rauls, Joses, and Rosas in my community and around this country. To many, they are simply illegal immigrants . . . and criminals. But I just can’t believe that that is how Jesus sees them, or how he wants me to see them. Every day when I look around my neighborhood, I am more convinced that our immigration policies are broken. Daily I must watch God’s children suffer the consequences for our lack of urgency in addressing this broken system, and I can’t help but think we are not loving our neighbors as Jesus would.Continue Reading →
We need to care about immigration because, as National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson has said, “they are us.”
According to research by Todd Johnson of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, immigrant churches are already growing faster than any other segment of American evangelicalism, a reality that most major evangelical denominations have observed as well. Continue Reading →
Like most Americans of my generation, I learned as a small child to be afraid of strangers. “Don’t talk to strangers” was and probably still is a good precaution, given our God-given obligation to protect children, but I wonder if we’ve taken it too far. A lot of us, as adults, carry with us […]Continue Reading →
In the past year, immigration has regularly been at the top of the headlines. Much of the news coverage has focused on various social problems that some folks associate with immigration, and particularly with illegal immigration: crime, unemployment, governmental fiscal crises, disease, etc. Beyond the negative headlines, though, many evangelical leaders have recognized that immigration […]Continue Reading →
