Bible Calls For Immigration Justice
Biblical teaching in essence demands that the United States update its more than 40-year-old laws on immigration, said Jenny Yang, an immigration reform advocate and co-author of the book Welcoming the Stranger.
The Bible doesn’t speak specifically to the immigration impasse in Washington, DC., in which no one seems willing or bold enough to try to fix the archaic system, said Yang, who spoke on Tuesday at the January Series at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Yet, she told the audience in the Covenant Fine Arts Center, the Bible is very clear on the issue and lawmakers, especially Christian lawmakers, ought set aside their reservations and move forward in the next few months to overhaul the immigration system.
“Often when I talk to someone, the conversation becomes visceral when the topic is immigration policy,” she said.
“Why is it that some Christians don’t ground what they believe in Scripture?”
Both the Old Testament and the New Testament contain many passages related to God’s special care for immigrants.
Yang also spoke about biblical characters who were immigrants.
Take Abraham, for example, said Lang. Abraham needed to leave his home in order to be the father of Israel. Joseph, Abraham’s grandson, was sold into slavery in another land, from which he returned spiritually and materially prosperous.
Even Jesus was an immigrant, coming down from his heavenly home to save mankind. And, soon after he was born here, he had to flee with his parents from his home to Egypt to avoid Herod’s order to kill all first-born Jewish boys.
“God has a very particular concern for immigrants,” said Yang. “He wants us to treat immigrants as our own.”
Matthew 25:35, she said, could not be more clear on the issue. This is the passage in which Jesus says that by welcoming a stranger, we may be welcoming him.
“We need to think theologically about welcoming the immigrant and seeing the hand of God moving these people into our backyards,” said Yang.
Yang is director of advocacy and policy for the Refugee and Immigration Program at World Relief, a humanitarian organization in North Carolina.
In her position, she works with members of Congress, their staffers, and the administration to improve refugee and immigration policy.
Yang and her organization are advocating for a new law which has three main thrusts.
Her organization calls for the U.S. to continue to make it hard for immigrants to come into the country illegally, but easier to become a legal resident.
Yang says they would also like to see an an amnesty program instituted requiring illegal immigrants to register with the government, learn English and undergo a waiting period before they can apply for citizenship.
“We need to pray through the immigration issue, realizing that this is a political issue that Congress has not done anything about in a very, very long time,” she said.
Yang visited the Grand Rapids office of the Christian Reformed Church on Wednesday to help the Office of Social Justice and the Office of Race Relations launch a partnership with Yang and the I Was a Stranger challenge, through which people can learn more about the issue.
Information on immigration reform is also available at the Christian Reformed Church’s Church Between Borders website. This is an educational program following up on the mandate by the CRC’s synod to provide educational materials on immigration reform.
Above anything else, said Yang, she hopes more and more churches become involved in providing ministry to immigrants and in contacting their lawmakers to request action on immigration reform.
On this subject, Yang referred to a quote from Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, that helps to sum up the stance she hopes churches take.
“I read verse after verse about how God desired his followers to treat the foreigners in their midst,” says Hybels on the I Was a Stranger website.
“How had I not noticed all these passages before? The single thought that kept swirling in my mind was, ‘Immigrants matter to God.’”
