A billboard designed by St. Louis Catholic Sisters makes the message clear
The Obama Administration, in a major policy shift, has announced that the U. S. Government will no longer deport undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children. There are some stipulations, but the overall effect of the new law is that an expected 800,000 lives which otherwise were at risk of being uprooted are now secure.
The President spoke directly to the problem:
“These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they’re friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper. They were brought to this country by their parents, sometimes even as infants, and often have no idea that they’re undocumented until they apply for a job or a driver’s license or a college scholarship.
Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine you’ve done everything right your entire life, studied hard, worked hard, maybe even graduated at the top of your class, only to suddenly face the threat of deportation to a country that you know nothing about, with a language that you may not even speak.”
The decision drew both praise and criticism, much of it from expected quarters, some criticism coming in the form of an overt interruption of the President’s speech (twice). But from a Christian point of view, there is little doubt that this decision is rooted in biblical values.
I Was a Stranger, and You Welcomed Me
Scripture is blunt in both Old and New Testament about treatment of “strangers.” A continual theme in the Pentateuch and after concerns God’s judgement upon Israel for mistreating the stranger / sojourner / alien.
A few verses may suffice:
33 “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” [Leviticus 19 ESV]
And later on, amidst a list of sins listed in Malachi 3:
5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”
And as far as Jesus’ words on the topic, one stark example should suffice:
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Hopefully both lawmakers and those who attempt to influence such lawmakers will keep in mind that dire warning.
The Old Testament verses you cite are about “sojourners”—temporary residents, people who were “just passing through,” as it were. The current dilemma in U.S. immigration policy is about people who come here to stay, and do so in violation of our laws—when legal means that countless others use are perfectly available, no less.
If masses of ancient peoples had surreptitiously crossed Israel’s borders in order to take up residence in the land God had promised to Israel, it would have been tantamount to an invasion, and would have been met by the appropriate defensive action. So your verses about “sojourners” are irrelevant. Fairly assuming that the “stranger” in your unreferenced citation from Matthew 25 is the equivalent of the sojourner, your quotation from the words of Christ are also on an unrelated topic.
This is but another political smoke-and-mirror job, and using Scripture to support it is not helpful, especially when it doesn’t. It has one and only one goal: to get Obama re-elected. It has nothing to do with helping anyone, as Thomas Sowell explains:
“President Obama’s latest political ploy — granting new ‘rights’ out of thin air, by Executive Order, to illegal immigrants who claim that they were brought into the country when they were children — is all too typical of his short-run approach to the country’s long-run problems. …
“To come forward today and claim the protection of the Obama Executive Order is to declare publicly and officially that your parents entered the country illegally. How that may be viewed by some later administration is anybody’s guess. …
“Why hire someone, and invest time and money in training them, if you may be forced to fire them before a year has passed?
“Kicking the can down the road is one of the favorite exercises in Washington. But neither in the economy nor in their personal lives can people make plans and commitments on the basis of government policies that suddenly appear and suddenly disappear.
“Like so many other Obama ploys, his immigration ploy is not meant to help the country, but to help Obama. This is all about getting the Hispanic vote this November.
“The principle involved — keeping children from being hurt by actions over which they had no control — is one already advanced by Senator Marco Rubio, who may well end up as Governor Romney’s vice-presidential running mate. The Obama Executive Order, which suddenly popped up like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat, steals some of Senator Rubio’s thunder, so it is clever politics. …”
The Immigration Ploy, by Thomas Sowell. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/06/19/the_immigration_ploy_114524.html
Ron, thanks for checking in on Wilson Station! Great to see you over here and not on facebook.
I have no interest in what Mr. Sowell says about politics, as his diminutive comments aimed at attacking the President’s motives are not rooted in Christian values and are in themselves blatantly motivated by political considerations. Nor do I care to judge the President’s motives. Everything a President does is “politically motivated” in one sense or another. What I am reacting to as a Christian is the result, which I believe biblically speaking is a wholly good one.
And since we’re talking Bible, I don’t know how to say what must be said except to say it. So here goes. Your suggestion that the Old Testament verses are merely about people who are “passing through” is a novel — and unsupported exegetically — idea. The Hebraic noun “sojourner” (alien, stranger, foreigner, immigrant, stranger, resident alien) is found approximately 92 times in the Old Testament, nearly 70 of them occurring in the Pentateuch and a hefty 22 times in the book of Deuteronomy. and studying the word in its context offers undeniable proof that the sojourner was often seen as a permanent resident in Israel, not just “passing through.” Further, Israel is commanded to treat that sojourner with the full rights of citizenship and expressly told not to oppress or mistreat the sojourner.
Leviticus 19:34 explicitly indicates that the sojourner is to be treated as a member of the nation of Israel. The verse is not ambiguous but blunt. The overall weight of other Old Testament verses makes what Lev 19:34 says painfully explicit:
And there is an interesting corollary to verses equating the alien / sojourner / immigrant with the citizen. The main verses which draw distinctions between the alien and the citizen of Israel have to do with *protecting* the alien from oppressive and/or unequal treatment!
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets speak forcefully against Israel for oppression of the sojourner / alien. Malachi equates the shoving aside of aliens with the acts of occultists and the sexually immoral:
But back to Lev. 19:4 for a moment. You shall love the alien (sojourner, immigrant) as yourself. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. “Who is my neighbor?” a man asked Jesus once…. let’s read the whole story from Luke 10:
Jesus would not cast out the sojourner, the alien, from among us. His heart is clear. If we are to have his heart in us, his love in us, his deeds occurring through us by the Power of the Holy Spirit, it seems clear that the President’s decision is one to celebrate.
There is a deeper lesson in considering the concept of the sojourner and the alien. I don’t know whether or not I ought to take the conversation in a direction which is admittedly mystical to a degree. But it is a direction I have been forced to deeply ponder over these past few years, and moreso than ever now.
David wrote in Psalm 39 this agonized prayer:
Empathy with another comes very close to being Agape, the heart language of Jesus. Setting aside our conceptions (i.e, “law”) for the sake of Grace (Agape) is rooted in an empathy which goes as far as to place the other ahead of one’s self. Here is where Christianity is proven…. one way or the other.
Jon,
I’ve been checking Wilson Station from time to time, and since things seem to be getting busy over here I thought I’d chime in. I wish you well in your endeavors here.
But I must say, it strikes me as ironic that when the subject is the death penalty, you’re all about rejecting the Law (even though capital punishment predates the Mosaic Law in Scripture), but when the subject is immigration policy you’re all about combing through the Law for support.
I also don’t think we can call it a biblical to leave the President’s motives out of his policy change, especially when you’re also saying that his policy change “makes Jesus smile.” I don’t think Jesus smiles when people feign humanitarianism in a calculated move to achieve a purely political goal—especially when, as Thomas Sowell has pointed out, the supposedly humanitarian aims of the President’s decision could be accomplished in a more permanent form via legislation proposed by Republican Marco Rubio. If liberal Democrats really cared about the children of illegal immigrants, they wouldn’t care about the source of the solution, and they wouldn’t be so sanguine about the temporary nature of an Executive Order.
I further think it would be helpful if you were to be more discriminating when it comes to the difference between interpretations that are truly novel and those which are merely novel to you. With no actual evidence (no, counting the number of times the Hebrew word “ger” occurs is not evidence, you provided nothing from any of the contexts you claim support your conclusion, and “ger” is not even the only Hebrew word translated “sojourner” [which always refers to temporary residence] although it’s the only one used the number of times you indicate) you pronounced my conclusion “novel” and re-defined the word to mean “permanent resident”—a meaning not even attested in the list of glosses you supplied.
I refer you to an article from the United Methodist Reporter written by a minister who serves as the director of homeless services agency. It’s titled, “The ‘sojourner’ argument: Scripture misused to advocate immigration.” In it, Edwin Childress notes:
“It is in this context that ‘sojourner’ is used in the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible provides three instances giving specific definition to the word sojourner: a person living in mutually responsible association with a community or in a place not inherently his own; a person who occupies a position between the native-born and the foreigner; a traveler and settler for a shorter or longer period. …
“John B. Cobb Jr., for 32 years the Ingraham Professor of Theology at Claremont School of Theology, says: ‘The biblical term ‘sojourner’ implies someone who is residing in a land which is not his or hers by birth. Almost always it conveys a sense of temporary residence.’”
[http://www.umportal.org/article.asp?id=6941]
So while my statement may have been novel to you, there is nothing novel about it from a factual point of view. In fact, the very verse you cite (which you give as Leviticus 19:4, but is actually 19:34) itself refutes your contention that the word commonly translated “sojourner” means “permanent resident.”
Leviticus 19:34 says that Israelites were expected to treat a sojourner (“ger”) fairly because they themselves had been sojourners (“gerim”) in Egypt. Does this mean that the sons of Jacob had ever been, or ever intended to be, *permanent* residents of Egypt? If we’ve bothered to read the closing chapters of Genesis and the opening chapters of Exodus the answer is, “Obviously not!” Quite the opposite, in fact. They were only there because of a famine (as was so often the case with sojourners; cf. Ruth 1), the goal always was to return to the land of promise, and only when a new Pharaoh took charge and enslaved them did their residence become “permanent.”
All the other OT verses you cite in support of your position are congruent with and assume the normal meaning of the word “sojourner”—i.e., a resident alien who was in a foreign land temporarily, most often to escape harsh economic conditions in his homeland, and who clearly intended to return home once conditions there improved. None of them assume that such a “sojourner” was part of a huge wave of foreigners who were flooding into the nation of Israel to eventually become a significant portion of the permanent population. That type of “sojourning” would have been treated for it actually was, an invasion which constituted a threat to the national identity and even existence of the people of Israel, and it would have been turned away, with military force if necessary. In other words: the invaders would have been cast out.
When people are given the choice between entering our country legally and entering it by scaling fences and evading and violating our laws, they do not fall into the biblical category of “sojourner.” The sojourner was a temporary minority who, like all minorities, needed the explicit protection of the law. They were not to be oppressed. They were not to be taken advantage of. However, if they arrived in huge numbers, so large as to even begin to constitute another tribe (by analogy, the current illegal immigrant population is approaching the population total for the state of Illinois), they most definitely would have been repelled and cast out.
The story of the Good Samaritan is about as completely irrelevant to this issue as you can get. It’s a story about a Samaritan businessman who, while doing business in Judea came across a Jewish mugging victim and helped him. The point Jesus was making had nothing to do with immigration policy. He was simply holding up the Samaritan as someone who understood the command to love one’s neighbor better than the Jewish lawyer.
But loving your neighbor never meant turning a blind eye to your neighbor’s law-breaking, and yet that’s the false equation that liberals now want us to make.
Ron, thanks for noting my typo re the wrong verse citation. I’ll fix that. Again leaping right in… and doing so on a particularly frantic Cornerstone Festival preparations day here at home (so piece-meal nature of what follows understood)…
My position on the death penalty is, I believe, completely consistent with my position on immigrants. In fact, both categories are rooted in the heart of the law — that is, love of God and love of neighbor. Your tossing it in here will only drag us into a whole new topic, which we can do if necessary but I’m gonna hold off unless that is really something you’re aching to have out.
This is my one rather harsh paragraph. I don’t know how to soft-pedal it:
After the death penalty comment, your argument takes a very unfortunate turn. You return to this bad habit of reading others’ minds, the President’s mind in this case. You impugn his motives, first doing so yourself and then doing it again by requoting Mr. Sowell. Since his argument is not biblical in any sense, and like yours assumes the ability to read minds (the President’s), I reject it and will not address it further. Frankly, impugning the President’s motives in this case is nasty, small, and I believe unchristian behavior. You would be correct in assuming it offends me. It goes beyond disagreement and into an ungodly judgement I think is condemned by Scripture.
Now, back to the discussion of “sojourner” and related terms in Scripture.
I’ll deal w/ “Ger” later. First, I have to note how sad it is to me to see that the very first hit google gives me for the term “biblical term sojourner” is an anti-immigration site containing the very article and individual you quote, Mr. John B. Cobb. Is that the first place you read it? The fact that the site, NumbersUSA, touts as “supporters” people who never did support that site indicates the overall quality of it as far as I’m concerned.
The United Methodist Reporter, where you linked to Mr. Cobb’s work from, represents a denomination which overwhelmingly *rejects* such a reading of Scripture as well as the philosophy behind it (the UM has repeatedly voted to, for instance, eliminate even the term “illegal alien” and substitute “undocumented alien” in its place). It turns out that Roy Beck, who heads the NumbersUSA site, is a United Methodist and and (unsurprisingly?) a former editor of the United Methodist Reporter — again, from where you got the article link.
Again, Cobb’s reading is NOT consonant with biblical scholarship overall. The term is not that narrow. It means temporary alien, yes…. but it also means permanent alien. JUST AS OUR OWN LAW DEFINES “RESIDENT ALIEN” IN AMERICA…. someone living here permanently or temporarily but without citizenship.
That is why I objected to your definition. Again… you assert that merely because the interpretation you cast upon sojourner was new to me, that doesn’t make it new to everyone. Fair enough on the face of it. But is it new? That is, “novel” in the bad sense of that word? Remember this was your definition: “temporary residents, people who were just ‘passing through,’ as it were.”
What you do with that definition is narrow a broad term to mean one, and only one, thing. And that IS novel. I do not think you will find many Old Testament bible scholars willing to sign on to the idea that “sojourner” means ONLY temporary alien. You are, I suggest, reading into Scripture the narrow definitions suited to certain political viewpoints, as the Cobb article you quote does.
You in your second post compound that narrowing of definitions problem by coming dangerously close to doing the same thing to the English term “resident alien.” As you may or may not know, the term “resident alien” is actually used in English Bible translations, including the NRSV.
Not to be obnoxious about it, but if the term “resident alien” CAN mean permanent resident non-citizen, then all the below verses undermine your assertion about the term only meaning temporary residents / visitors.
So, accepting the idea that “resident alien” can mean anything from a short term visitor to a life-long resident who is not a citizen of the nation of Israel, we see that Scripture cannot be interpreted as you suggest. The term “resident alien” is a broad term, not a narrow one. A resident alien may live for a season in Israel or he/she may live for a lifetime in Israel, just as many Israelites did in Egypt and (presumably) in various other nations who occupied Israel for long periods of time.
Likewise, the term “resident alien” can and DOES mean in this nation that a person may dwell here for a time or for a lifetime. It is about her/his status under the law, whether of Israel or America, and not about being here “temporarily.”
You are compressing the term “resident alien” — and I suggest the term alien / sojourner, period — into meaning far less than it in actuality means.
GER…. I saved this for last because it is admittedly diving into Hebraic languages and therefore something I’m more prone to quote others on than pretend I’m a Hebrew expert. You brought up one of the Old Testament Hebraic terms for “sojourner,” GER, and said:
First, many of the Israelites (as I pointed out earlier) were born and died in Egypt. Thus, “resident alien” in their case *did* sometimes mean permanent residence. And lest one forget, Israelites lived in Egypt (and died there) BEFORE any of them were made slaves. Exodus Chapter 1 makes this specifically clear:
If the verses’ meaning is as plain as it appears, the “whole generation” who died did so in Egypt. Thus, they were resident aliens… permanent sojourners/aliens/immigrants.
Second, and this is more directly to the point, there is simply no reason whatever to interpret “sojourner” to mean “temporary” in the sense you mean. After all, we as Christians are told by the New Testament writers that *we* are sojourners.
Paul writes in Ephesians Chapter 2 to the non-Jewish Christian converts:
And the punchline:
And yet in great irony even as we become part of God’s Kingdom Family we become aliens (mortal lifetime “resident aliens”) in this world. On top of that, according to the writer of Hebrews, the Old Testament nation of Israel itself was a nation of aliens — permanent residents of a place that was not their true country:
We, too, are aliens. As citizens of another country, one which alone is the truly permanent place of residence for those who love God, it behooves us to remember strangers and aliens and even undocumented immigrants. Our first allegiance is not to any nation-state, but to God and his Son, who if we allow it will empower us through that Third Member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to love as God loves and think / act as Christ would have us think and act.
So much more to say… but life has intruded a million times in my attempting to write in coherence. So this unfinished mess is all yer gonna get. For now, anyway.
Jesus, when warning us about the last days, says, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will become cold.” Mt. 24:12 It’s sad to hear the reasoning of people who find excuses not to love others. Recently, a “Christian” politician from Alabama was asked about loving all people; he replied that the Bible tells him he only has to love his Christian brothers. I guess he wasn’t familiar with Mt. 5:43-48 or Lk. 6:32-36. The vast majority of people who are coming accross US borders illegally are doing so because they haven’t the economic means to come legally. They are not an “invading ” force; they merely look for a better life.
Our European ancestors arrived on these shores with weapons in hand to take the land. They disregarded the first people’s customs, mores,conventions, and laws: and now we demonize people, many of whom had ancestors on this continent long before ours were.
So, we want to be angry at people who are breaking our immigration laws in order to seek a better life. “for all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God” Rm. 3:23. “But God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Rm. 5:8 “Blessed are the merciful! For they shall obtain mercy.” Mt. 5:7. “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither wil your Father forgive your trespasses.” Mt. 6:14,15.