Can Christians Agree to Disagree about Immigration?
Spoiler: No
I’ve spent too much time on Facebook and Twitter since Donald Trump swept through the “blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin on Tuesday night. Perhaps you have too. I’ve been having what I suspect are unproductive conversations about immigration with Trump-supporting extended family and friends. At bottom, the divide between us isn’t about whether Trump’s immigration policy would tank the economy (spoiler: it would). Neither were we having it out over the persistent lies that immigrants can receive SNAP, “welfare,” and most other benefits (FYI, they can’t). That tiresome argument wasn’t the cause of the dispute.
I poked the bear because some friends and family were publicly celebrating the potential deportation of millions of people and the separation of hundreds of thousands of families. After such posts, I couldn’t stomach their praying hands emojis and amens. And they couldn’t stomach my posts because I continue to claim that their stances on immigration are straightforwardly incompatible with their Christian commitments.
Like most social media pee pee contests among Christians, this one may not have done much good. So, at least for now, I’m going to cut the “Surely they can’t deny this!” posts and “Ah! Now they’re cornered, and they know it!” replies. Instead, I’m going to write up something more longform that explains why I think anti-immigrant stances among Christians so obviously clash with the gospel. And I’ll try to do it without getting in attack-dog mode.
Here's the thesis: The argument about whether Christians can oppose immigration isn’t one we can agree to disagree about. It undercuts the message of the gospel in a fundamental way.
Churches can’t afford to be satisfied with a “big tent” or “people will think what they want” approach to immigration. To put it in traditional theological language, it’s not adiaphora (an indifferent matter). Right now, it’s become a status confessionis, a situation in which the gospel itself is at stake.
Why? Because at root an anti-immigrant stance says that God isn’t the God of everyone, or at least not in the same way. He's our God first. They only come in somewhere down the line. Ours is a trickle-down relationship with God model.
I’ve come to think this because anti-immigrant Christians are more than willing to deport massive numbers of other confessing Christians—even if doing so puts them in mortal danger. That tells me that these evangelicals and conservative Catholics think themselves more important before God than their brothers and sisters from Venezuela, El Salvador, and Cameroon. How could their stance be interpreted any differently?
That leads us to the question of why they think themselves more worthy, which immediately takes us into dark territory. Some progressives would say it’s just racism. But let’s take the explanation evangelicals and conservative Catholics most often give themselves: the immigrants in question aren’t Americans. American citizenship, if you have it, means that you deserve to be here, whereas non-American Christians don’t deserve such security or well-being. Or at least you’re unwilling to provide it for them because it might cost you something.
Whatever the motive, it’s clear that anti-immigrant Christians believe themselves to be more important in the sight of God than those brothers and sisters who show up on our southern border. And they believe this because of their citizenship in the United States of America.
The implication of this belief is that we’re not justified by faith. If you believe that you’re more worthy of the mercy, care, and interest of Christ and his church than the Christians living here without papers, you believe that your way of life is justified by something other than faith.
The apostle Paul himself wrote his angriest, most vitriolic letter against just such reasoning. That letter is Galatians, which was written to a church under the sway of people often called “Judaizers.” These men believed that you had to become a Jew to be a Christian. In other words, Gentile Christians had to become like the Jewish Christians. They had to follow the food laws, take on the Jews’ national heritage, and generally live out a belief in Jewish exceptionalism and Israel first.
They had good reasons for pushing these teachings. Israel’s law was given by God. Israel was specially chosen by God as his people. Israel was called to be separate from the nations so that they could be holy. And Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, their long-awaited king.
But Paul had less than zero patience with these arguments. Why? Because Jews were justified by faith just like Gentiles (see Acts 15:11). National origin had exactly no impact on whether someone could be included in the church. Only faith, which is trust in God lived out in obedience, mattered.
Given that America isn’t the “chosen” people to whom were given the covenants, promises, prophets, and so forth, it sure seems like Paul would be even more angry about churches today making this error. It sure seems like he would tell most of American evangelicalism that they were denying justification by faith.
How might an informed evangelical respond to all this? Maybe like this: “Ok, I get what you’re saying. But you’re missing something. Jesus’s kingdom isn’t of this world, which means the gospel isn’t about our politics.”Just how this response goes with thanking God for Trump’s victory is beyond me, but it does get at an important strain in evangelical theology: that Jesus’s kingdom is something that happens internally within each person and not out in the world. Politics and Jesus don’t mix.
The problem, of course, is that Jesus wouldn’t have been crucified for a movement that had no effect on the world. And rather than have each individual be guided alone by the Spirit, he brought his disciples into a group, a new kind of community: that is, the church.
What “my kingdom is not of this world” means on the ground is that the church’s way of living isn’t going to make sense to others—and that includes this church’s politics. If the church is living out its calling, it’s going to have a different politics that doesn’t jive with American national assumptions about what’s good. Both Democrats and Republicans should be baffled by us.
The primary big-picture political issue we should baffle them with in the coming months and perhaps years is immigration. Here our allegiance to Christ has come into direct conflict with the laws of America. This was already happening under Joe Biden, and it will almost certainly get worse under Trump. We must act politically as if our immigrant brothers and sisters are equal to us before God, and no American law or cultural mood changes our duty before Christ one iota.
Let’s sum up then. The anti-immigrant stance among evangelicals and conservative Catholics implies that not all Christians are equal before God. And if you believe that, you’re denying justification by faith. Put straightforwardly, nationalism denies justification by faith, and nationalist immigration policies make this especially obvious.
By contrast, if you want to live out the gospel, your politics (that is, your way of living in the world among other people) is going to look weird. That’s because you have a different allegiance. Your first allegiance isn’t to the United States of America or any other nation. It’s to Christ. And you live out those weird politics within his body politic, a body that includes every tribe, tongue, and nation: the church.
What should churches do concretely in the coming months? First, nonprofit immigration attorneys need your funds. They won’t be able to help everyone, but the more funds they have, the more people they can help. Steven Miller and the Trump Administration’s plan is to change immigration laws so quickly that immigration attorneys won’t be able to keep up; this will allow them to deport people who would otherwise have had legal standing to stay. In Texas, giving to American Gateways and Raices and other such organizations will help them prepare for the onslaught that’s coming.
Second, if you’re an employer, the pressure may well come down on you first through a system called E-Verify. Do what you can to keep the undocumented on your payroll as long as possible.
Third, if you know undocumented people who are put out of work, help them. This is what Christians are supposed to do! Don’t just say, “Be warm and well fed” (James 2) and do nothing of substance. It’s your duty to your Sovereign and theirs.
Lastly, if you’re able to follow the laws of the land and obey Christ, do so (Romans 13). We’re commanded to honor the king, even if he’s an embarrassment or, worse, a dictator (1 Peter 2). But if a conflict in allegiance between God and country brings you to the point where you have to break a law, do it with relish and accept the consequences.