A BIBLICAL VIEW ON IMMIGRATION

A BIBLICAL VIEW ON IMMIGRATION
By Josimar Salum

The America’s “ethnic churches” are facing dilemmas about the law and the role of the church in the lives of undocumented people. There are legal and social concerns demanding answers for problems that impact thousands of communities all across America.

In America there are millions of undocumented people that are in desperate need to be reached with the Gospel of the Kingdom.

The Church of Christ in America has thousands and thousands of undocumented people participating in its life, leadership and ministry.

U.S. officials recognize that there are 12 million of “illegal” people living in America soil that may be benefited with the President Bush Guest Worker’s Program.

However these numbers are far from the real number which nobody has true knowledge, some saying that the numbers can reach the total of at least 30 million undocumented people living today in the United States.

These are the questions we ask today in the light of this reality:

· How the ministers deal with the legal issues facing the immigration community?

· How the church can help integrate the immigrants into the American society?

· Why people leave their countries to come to America?

· Does God bless illegal immigrants and churches filled with them?

· What is the main role of the church (if any) in dealing with the immigration community?

· Why is the Anglo speaking church indifferent with the issue of Immigration?

· Does the Bible speak about Immigration?


DEBATING THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN THE IMMIGRATION COMMUNITY

In May of 2005 the BMNET – Brazilian Ministers Network and World Vision promoted a Congress in which a debate over this issue was part of the program.

The speakers were Paul Freston, Ricardo Gondim, Ronaldo Martins, Cairo Marques and Josimar Salum.

We summoned the churches of the “Evangelical Diaspora” to develop a Theology of the Undocumented” - a Theology of the Immigrant that answers the following questions among many others:

ü Can a Christian live and work illegally in another country?

ü Can a Christian pay bribes to authorities to cross the borders of the United States?

ü Can the Church develop its work of evangelization in another country ignoring the problems of its members who break immigration laws and live in secrecy?

ü Does a Christian have an ethical and moral justification to break the Immigration laws of a country giving as excuse his survival necessity?

ü Is Ethical standard relative when the survival is in game?

ü Is it right the simple desire of expansion of the Gospel to justify “illegal” immigration?

ü Is it right to move a ministry to another country that can offer better alternatives for the ministerial prosperity like the corporations commonly do to get more profitability?

Ricardo Gondim affirmed four things as a result of the Congress discussion that is relevant for our debate today. To that I am adding some comments:

1 – The Evangelical Ethics is convenient and varies according to the culture.

It prioritizes some “sins” that had been culturally taught as more serious – to drink alcoholic beverage, the adultery, the homosexualism, etc.

When collated with the necessity to coexist other circumstances – to pay a bribe to a Mexican officer to cross the border, to lie to the Immigration officer or Consul, to drive without a Driver’s License, to work with a fake Social Security number - they start to see these things “small sins” and have more “condescension”.

Perhaps the Church needs exactly this “condescension” to be more humane. The Church in centuries co-existed with the Theology of “Moral Perfection”, and always had much guilt as believers could not admit their sins, errors and imperfections. The Victorian and Puritan Ethics always generated a lot of hypocrisy, hurting many people.

The Pastors of the Ethnic Churches have to show this kind of condescension if they don’t want to be left alone in their buildings.

The believers of the Diaspora Church can teach the rest of the Church that the complexity of these issues can lead us all to be more merciful and less legalistic and see that life is more complex than we think.


2 – The evangelical perception is triumphantly exaggerated.

The Brazilian Evangelicals per example believe that they were called to change the world indeed.

In Brazil many of their institutional projects are megalomaniac and sometimes inconsequent as the Evangelicalism became a movement of the multitudes drawn by a triumphalism message without the Cross.

But far away above the Ecuador line pastors are confronted with another reality as they don’t experience the same success in reaching other cultures even their own people who here are vested with other cultural characteristics. Church growth is not as fast as in their home countries.

Experiencing these difficulties along with the immigration, ethical and moral issues can help making us more humble.

3 – The leaders of the Diaspora Church do need to rethink their Evangelical Theology deepening it into a more Biblical academic perspective.

The ultimate goal of the today’s church emphasizes more on results especially on numbers than the Character of its constituents.

Their message and their preaching became more appellative to the emotions and the well being of the listeners than to the conversion and sanctification of their lives.

A Christian church can not impact a society with words of non-sense, but only with the transformed lives of the people through experiencing the transformational power of the Gospel.


4. The Evangelical Missiology is not transparent.

Few have the courage to admit that there are financial interests behind this new wave of missionary work outreach to the nations of the First World.

There are cases that the move of the ministry to US and Europe is based on financial reasons and not on a calling of God. And a denial of this is condemnable because it may lead to opportunism and greed.

What is the main reason to plant a church to reach immigrants in a country? How this church can contribute to the country where it is inserted? How this church can impact the society and bless the community around it?

There is no problem at all in leaving your country to get a better life overseas. There is nothing wrong in being an immigrant.

Ultimately it is not immoral to seek for a better life for your family.

Jeremiah 29:4 –7 declares: “This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."


THE FACTS AND THE REALITY OVER THE IMMIGRANTS

These are the facts, cruel reality for some people. However it is only the daily challenge for millions of families accustomed to live in secrecy, those who crossed the borders to live in the United States.

The majority of the immigrants who had entered and live in this country did not carry a work visa or legal documents to inhabit here. In all the history of immigration in America this proves to be accurate.

Since the Pilgrims and throughout the history millions of immigrants flooded ships and airplanes and ultimately the Mexican borders and moved to America with the solemn dream to live in the Land of the Freedom and the Home of the Brave. With papers or no papers they arrived here to stay and here they lived in the past and live in these days. Their children born in American soil are naturally born although their parents may not even get the chance to become citizens in their life time.

Those who walk through the borders prayed to find the “right coyotes”, paid them a high sum of money (most of the time borrowed from relatives, friends and in the worse scenario from strangers paying exorbitant finance charges) and asked God not to be caught by the Immigrant Officials.

Others go prayerfully to the American Consulates in their countries and apply for a Tourist Visa, writing in the forms the promise they will not work when they arrive in U.S. The Consul grants the Visa and they come. And after a few days, if not the next day, they find a job and they began their lives and prosper doing jobs most of the natural born Americans don’t want.

Many preachers who come to visit US and preach in the churches are not allowed to share the Gospel, because they were granted with B1-B2 Visas and not with R-1 Visa (Religious Visa).

Those who arrive with Tourist Visas and those who cross the borders without a Visa are not allowed by Law to work in US, but here as I previously said they find jobs, they attend schools, they even file taxes as the Government issues a Tax Identification Number for them.

As a matter of fact, anyone can apply to IRS to get an ITIN and with that number they can report the money they receive from their jobs or their businesses though they are not allowed to work.


WHAT THE BIBLE SPEAKS ABOUT IMMIGRATION?

I myself have read the Bible with the eyes of an immigrant looking for answers about my own dilemmas and the dilemmas of my people.

And I have found amazingly how the Word deals with the subject and tell the history of many immigrants who crosses borders to live in other countries.

The Bible has a lot to say about Immigration.

The Bible is par excellence a history book of immigrants. From Genesis to Revelation this subject predominates.

Since Abraham to John, exiled in the Patmos Island, the Bible tells the history of men and women who had left their native land to live in other people's lands.

1 - The Bible is the Revelation of the God of the Immigrants, the God who protects and defends the immigrants.

Psalm 146:9: The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

2 - God commanded Israel to treat the immigrants well and to love them, to feed them, therefore in the past they had also been immigrant.

Exodus 22:21: "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.

Leviticus 19:34: The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 10:19: And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

Deuteronomy 14:29: So that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Leviticus 23:22: 'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.'

3 - God commanded the same laws to be observed by the native-born and the aliens.

Leviticus 18:26: But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things,

Leviticus 19:34: The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born

Numbers 15:29: One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether he is a native-born Israelite or an alien.

Deuteronomy 24:14: “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates.

4 - God made provision to make the aliens live lawfully among His people.

Deuteronomy 29:10-12: All of you are standing today in the presence of the LORD your God—your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, together with your children and your wives, and the aliens living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water. You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the LORD your God, a covenant the LORD is making with you this day and sealing with an oath.

Deuteronomy 31:12: Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law.

5 - God demanded His people not to take advantage of anyone who are poor and needy, even if they were immigrants.

Deuteronomy 24:14: Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns.

6 - God ordered the Justice to serve all, including the immigrants.

Deuteronomy 24:17: Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge.

Deuteronomy 27:19: "Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow." Then all the people shall say, "Amen!"

7 - God established the right of the Israelites to live in their own land summoning them to treat appropriately the immigrants as a condition to preserve that right.

Jeremiah 7:5-7: If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.

8 - It is in the Bible that God reprehended severely the leaders of His people for their oppression to the aliens.

Ezekiel 22:6-7: 'See how each of the princes of Israel who are in you uses his power to shed blood. In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have oppressed the alien and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.

Ezekiel 22:29: The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the alien, denying them justice.

Zechariah 7:10: Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'

Malachi 3:5: "So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.

9 - We are after all aliens and immigrants in this Earth.

Leviticus 25:23: 'The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.

1 Peter 2:11: Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

10 - The Bible narrates the history of His pilgrim people in strange lands.

1 Chronicles 16:17-22: He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: "To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit." When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it, they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. He allowed no man to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings: "Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm."

11 - In the days of King Solomon 153.600 aliens were living in Israel and they were assigned to build the Temple.

2 Chronicles 2:17-18: Solomon took a census of all the aliens who were in Israel, after the census his father David had taken; and they were found to be 153,600. He assigned 70,000 of them to be carriers and 80,000 to be stonecutters in the hills, with 3,600 foremen over them to keep the people working.

12 - Solomon prayed to God mentioning that aliens were going to come to Israel attracted by His Great Name and asked Him to hear them as they would pray to Him.

I Kings 8:41-43: "As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name- for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.


THE BIBLE: A BOOK OF IMMIGRANTS

The Bible tells the History of Joseph in Egypt and how he became the Governor of the land in order to preserve the life of his own family; the history of Ruth, the woman immigrant who chose to make Israel her land and its people her people and Daniel and his friends, exiled immigrants in Babylon, who prospered there as they served the Lord in despite of the unjust laws of the land.

Acts of Apostles is an epic book of immigration. It tells how the disciples were traveling around the known world and living in other countries reaching the nations with the message of the Kingdom.

In general the Bible is the history of heavenly Citizens strangers and aliens in this world.

Hebrews 11:13: All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.

The two direct orders of God to bless the people of the Earth are in its nature and mission emigrational:

1) TO ABRAHAM:

Genesis 12:1-4: The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him.

God said to him: “Leave your country and go to the land I will show you.” In other words: Immigrate!

And in the immigration journey he lived a live with the dilemmas that many live today – how to live lawfully in the land of his journeys.

To protect himself and his wife Abraham instructed her to tell the Egyptians she was his sister instead of his wife.

Genesis 12:1-20: Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you." When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman. And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels. But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai. So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have you done to me?" he said. "Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!" Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

How to tell the truth when there is life threatening danger? How to stand with the truth when the system does not give you a way out to accommodate your conscience to your moral patterns?

The same dilemma David lived where he fled to the stranger land of Gath.

I Samuel 21:10-15: That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, "Isn't this David, the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sing about in their dances: 'Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands'?" David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. Achish said to his servants, "Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?"

2) THE GREAT COMMISSION

Matthey 28:19-20: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Mark 16:15: He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.
Jesus commanded them to go to all the nations. In other words He said: Immigrate!

Yes, it is an immigration charge. The disciples were charged to the entire world and by doing that they were made immigrants by the Great Commission.

Acts 1:8: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

SIN AND ILLEGALITY

It is illegal to preach the Gospel in many countries, but I am not convinced it is a sin at all.
With this statement lies a broader question: What it is illegal and what it is a sin?

The immigration community lives with this dilemma every day, although they wait for a change in the Law of the land so they may get the right to become “legal”. Yes, simply by a Government decree they may be able to stay in the land they have chosen to build their lives, to grow their families and to worship their God.

Five years ago a friend of mine asked me if I was going to develop a entire Theology of the Immigrants out of the Bible after I began to share with him some of the thoughts of this essay.

I simply responded him with another question: Why not?

Do the Scriptures have something to say to the millions of immigrants of this world? Do they are justified by God when they lie to the officers of a country and break its laws to live in the land they entered legally or illegally? Is it just and right a country that denies the rights of the people of the world to become their own citizens?

Those questions are not easy to answer and it was not my intent to answer them all here, even a few, because of the complexity of these issues and the delicacy of the subject.

One thing I am sure is that the Word of the Lord talks about immigration as well talks about the Laws and the Authorities we are suppose to obey and respect.

With no demagogy or false moral I have written openly about the immigration issue into the immigration world of ethical conflicts that millions face every day in living without papers and documents in a stranger land.

They have chosen this kind of life and face the consequences. But it is not that simple for them to return to their home land even knowing they may ever be able to collect social security benefits without getting their legal status.

MY OWN HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE

The life of an immigrant is not easy. My great grandfather Mr. Mussa (Moses) was a Lebanese who fled to Brazil in the beginning of the last century with his brothers and sisters.

They fled to save their lives, from the Turkish who invaded the Lebanon and were killing thousands and thousands of them.

He went to Brazil and lived illegally there in the first years. My grandfather Jamil used to tells us histories of how they lived in poverty and how the family survived despite of hunger and misery. Great grandfather Mussa died very young.

My grandfather Jamil started his own grocery business as well his other three brothers and they were successful.

In 1997, I myself immigrated to America, as a missionary, with my wife and our child. Here by God’s grace we have succeeded and He willing in the next months we will become American Citizens. The privilege to live in this county is something we do not take for granted.

In the last years, actually every year, millions of citizens of almost every nation on the planet come to America seeking for a better life, fleeing famine and hunger, unemployment, wars, genocide, or simply come with the dream to live in a land of opportunities as any other place in the world.

This blessed America became what it is today because of God’s blessing through many generations of immigrants from the past and in the present.

They have partnered with the native-born - who are all Immigrants descendants, except the Indians. They built this great nation and every minute millions of them are still working to make this Nation even greater and blessed.

In the last years thousands and thousands of true Christians immigrated to America to seek a better life. They challenged some of the laws of the land, argued themselves with conscience conflicts, but stay, living here with their families, preaching the Gospel and embracing the Church life.

Meanwhile thousands and thousands of them applied to the Permanent Visas and after years became Citizens as the Law changed and granted them the right.

To me the following Words of the Holy Spirit give light and a direction to this entire issue:

Acts 17:26: From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.

And they all came, with Visas and without them to the American north lands:

Zechariah 6:8 Then he called to me, "Look, those going toward the north country have given my Spirit rest in the land of the north."