Response to immigration ban

BY BRIAN K. BLOUNT

As followers of Jesus, we are beholden to raise our voices when we perceive brokenness that threatens and disrupts the well-being of God’s people. It is, therefore, impossible to remain silent in this time when our beloved country – a place of welcome for immigrants, strangers, and refugees – implements a policy that denies entry on the basis of faith, race, or ethnicity.

The executive order temporarily banning refugees and citizens from seven predominantly Muslim nations is a violation of Christian values.

In his ministry of gathering to himself those who found themselves thirsty, hungry, naked, estranged, and outcast, Jesus calls us into a new way of being (Matthew 25). The Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church declares that “Jesus proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.”

The Christian Scriptures convey a passionate and prophetic concern for those who find themselves wanderers and strangers in foreign places. In their response to God’s call upon their lives, key biblical figures crossed the territorial dividing lines that separated one country from another. Abraham’s travels established a pattern of journey for all his descendants. Ruth took a leap of faith as a refugee and was welcomed with open arms. Jesus of Nazareth’s ministry is so identified by travel that the Gospel of Luke records much of his ministry as a travel narrative.

The early Christians, following the pattern of the Apostle Paul, not only traveled extensively but depended on the hospitality of strangers in foreign lands. In many cases, hospitality made the difference between life and death for the earliest followers of Jesus. Certainly, this was the case with an infant child, born in Bethlehem into a misunderstood and maligned faith, on the run, a refugee in the care of his parents from his homeland, where the ruling power sought to kill him.

The concern before us is not one of partisan politics, but of emulating the life and ministry of the person whom we believe represents God’s will and God’s intent for human living. In Jesus, God risked everything to draw us into relationship with God and with one another. May the calling of that incarnation convict and inspire us as individuals and as a nation to welcome others as God – through Jesus – welcomes us.

Brian K. Blount is president and professor of New Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary