A Beginning Northaven Conversation About Immigration
A change to learn about the recent
luncheon, and join the conversation here
On Sunday, March
9th
the Church in Society Commission of Northaven sponsored a forum on immigration.
Participants shared with each other their concerns and hopes about many aspects
of the complex issues of unauthorized immigration and immigration reform. Being
Northaven, opinions varied and were, yes, even contradictory! We have attempted
to capture the range of salient views in the summary presented below.
The Biblical Context for our Conversation
Our faith tradition, rooted in Scripture, teaches us to welcome our brothers and sisters with mercy and justice. From the Hebrew Bible: “The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33-34). Isaiah insists that the fast (worship) Yahweh chooses is “to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house . . . then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily . . . then you shall be called the restorer of streets to dwell in.” (Is. 58).
Perhaps the most convincing and memorable New Testament mandate is from Matthew 25, the so-called Parable of the Last Judgment. We are familiar with the words, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (vs. 35) and "I was a stranger and you did not welcome me" (vs. 44). Here Jesus himself is the stranger. The Greek word used here for stranger is xenos from which comes our term xenophobia. Xenos ordinarily means stranger or foreign. Love of xenos, the other, is a special form of love of neighbor. The clear intent and impact is that in loving the stranger, the xenos, we love Jesus himself. According to some scholars words of xen-stem in New Testament Greek can mean not only foreign or stranger but also “guest.”
Biblical faith clearly beckons us to respond to our immigrant neighbors from
moral grounding rather than a legalistic one.
Our Concerns
We are concerned that current policies and practices regarding unauthorized immigration result in a myriad of problems for the strangers in our midst. We grieve for our brothers and sisters who die needlessly as they attempt to cross the border illegally. We understand overpopulation and weak economies to be causes of immigration. And we lament the separation and dissolution of families when members decide to make the journey north.
We deplore the low wages and slave labor working conditions of undocumented workers and are concerned that so-called free trade treaties such as NAFTA promote the free flow of capital across national borders, but not the free flow of labor. We are concerned that this politic of poverty forces low skilled immigrant workers to compete with U. S. native born poor, especially in the African American and Latino communities, for ever-lower paying jobs.
We are concerned that the current national rhetoric promotes bias and prejudice toward the “other,” which often results in unauthorized immigrants living in fear and remaining “in the shadows” of U. S. society. We are concerned that our economics of greed cause our fear of the other so that we seek to deny them access to medical care and education and incarcerate children awaiting deportation
We are afraid that our borders are not secure, yet we are concerned about the impact of the construction of a wall on the U. S. citizens who live along the border. We struggle with the fear of how large numbers of immigrants might impact our own environment.
Our Hopes
We hope that we can find ways to urge our political representatives to make the road to citizenship and naturalization economically feasible and produce real solutions to our immigration problems with humane, comprehensive immigration reform.
We value education as a hopeful road to clarity of understanding the possible solutions. We value accurate information, particularly demographic statistics, in order to understand the historical and present reality of immigration to the U. S.
We hope to engage in education that changes negative attitudes toward unauthorized immigrants and that encourages everyone in the U. S. to value diversity and develop the ability to speak more than one language. We hope for public health initiatives that address illegal drug consumption in the U. S., a major factor in border violence. We believe we can learn from the strong family values of Latino immigrants.
We hope to provide educational opportunities so that immigrants learn to speak English, with special attention to unauthorized immigrant women, who often remain in the shadows.
We hope our nation will maintain open borders, yet strive to slow the movement of immigrants into the U. S. To that end, we hope the U. S. government and businesses will work with Latin American governments to strengthen the economies on both sides of the border.
We hope that the church will respond to immigration issues. To that end we hope that Northaven will consider joining the New Sanctuary Movement whose goals include: to protect immigrant workers and families from unjust deportation; to change the public debate; to awaken the moral imagination of the country; and to make visible immigrant workers and families as children of God.
Our Actions
The strangers among us, our neighbors, are offering us a multitude of opportunities to act on our faith as individuals, as a congregation, and through our elected representatives. How will we respond? We invite you to join in the conversation on the Northaven Blog.
Feel free to leave a comment below:
What are your concerns and hopes about immigration?
What ideas do you have for how we in the Northaven community might act on our faith and our biblical mandate to welcome the stranger?
The Biblical Context for our Conversation
Our faith tradition, rooted in Scripture, teaches us to welcome our brothers and sisters with mercy and justice. From the Hebrew Bible: “The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19:33-34). Isaiah insists that the fast (worship) Yahweh chooses is “to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house . . . then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily . . . then you shall be called the restorer of streets to dwell in.” (Is. 58).
Perhaps the most convincing and memorable New Testament mandate is from Matthew 25, the so-called Parable of the Last Judgment. We are familiar with the words, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (vs. 35) and "I was a stranger and you did not welcome me" (vs. 44). Here Jesus himself is the stranger. The Greek word used here for stranger is xenos from which comes our term xenophobia. Xenos ordinarily means stranger or foreign. Love of xenos, the other, is a special form of love of neighbor. The clear intent and impact is that in loving the stranger, the xenos, we love Jesus himself. According to some scholars words of xen-stem in New Testament Greek can mean not only foreign or stranger but also “guest.”
Biblical faith clearly beckons us to respond to our immigrant neighbors from
moral grounding rather than a legalistic one.
Our Concerns
We are concerned that current policies and practices regarding unauthorized immigration result in a myriad of problems for the strangers in our midst. We grieve for our brothers and sisters who die needlessly as they attempt to cross the border illegally. We understand overpopulation and weak economies to be causes of immigration. And we lament the separation and dissolution of families when members decide to make the journey north.
We deplore the low wages and slave labor working conditions of undocumented workers and are concerned that so-called free trade treaties such as NAFTA promote the free flow of capital across national borders, but not the free flow of labor. We are concerned that this politic of poverty forces low skilled immigrant workers to compete with U. S. native born poor, especially in the African American and Latino communities, for ever-lower paying jobs.
We are concerned that the current national rhetoric promotes bias and prejudice toward the “other,” which often results in unauthorized immigrants living in fear and remaining “in the shadows” of U. S. society. We are concerned that our economics of greed cause our fear of the other so that we seek to deny them access to medical care and education and incarcerate children awaiting deportation
We are afraid that our borders are not secure, yet we are concerned about the impact of the construction of a wall on the U. S. citizens who live along the border. We struggle with the fear of how large numbers of immigrants might impact our own environment.
Our Hopes
We hope that we can find ways to urge our political representatives to make the road to citizenship and naturalization economically feasible and produce real solutions to our immigration problems with humane, comprehensive immigration reform.
We value education as a hopeful road to clarity of understanding the possible solutions. We value accurate information, particularly demographic statistics, in order to understand the historical and present reality of immigration to the U. S.
We hope to engage in education that changes negative attitudes toward unauthorized immigrants and that encourages everyone in the U. S. to value diversity and develop the ability to speak more than one language. We hope for public health initiatives that address illegal drug consumption in the U. S., a major factor in border violence. We believe we can learn from the strong family values of Latino immigrants.
We hope to provide educational opportunities so that immigrants learn to speak English, with special attention to unauthorized immigrant women, who often remain in the shadows.
We hope our nation will maintain open borders, yet strive to slow the movement of immigrants into the U. S. To that end, we hope the U. S. government and businesses will work with Latin American governments to strengthen the economies on both sides of the border.
We hope that the church will respond to immigration issues. To that end we hope that Northaven will consider joining the New Sanctuary Movement whose goals include: to protect immigrant workers and families from unjust deportation; to change the public debate; to awaken the moral imagination of the country; and to make visible immigrant workers and families as children of God.
Our Actions
The strangers among us, our neighbors, are offering us a multitude of opportunities to act on our faith as individuals, as a congregation, and through our elected representatives. How will we respond? We invite you to join in the conversation on the Northaven Blog.
Feel free to leave a comment below:
What are your concerns and hopes about immigration?
What ideas do you have for how we in the Northaven community might act on our faith and our biblical mandate to welcome the stranger?
Posted: Monday - March 31, 2008 at 02:27 PM |
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Published On: May 05, 2008 04:54 PM
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