In Theory: Churches offer sanctuary ahead of inauguration

Four churches in the city of Brockton, Mass. have pledged to offer sanctuary to immigrants who could face deportation, the Associated Press reports.

They are joined by hundreds of other houses of worship who are offering sanctuary to immigrants who may face deportation if President-elect Donald Trump goes through with his campaign promise to remove immigrants who are living in the country illegally. Some churches have already followed through on their promises.

“‘If you need a safe place, once you enter the doors of this building, you are safe,’ said the Rev. Abraham Waya, pastor of Central United Methodist Church, who said his church can shelter as many as 100 people. ‘We will host you and take care of you for as long as it takes.’”

Q. What do you think of these churches offering sanctuary to immigrants? Is this a decision you support?

Jesus personally identifies with those who reside as aliens in a land, and he will commend his people who have showed compassion to them. At their reward he will explain: “For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in…” (Matthew 25:35). God’s law for the nation of Israel commanded justice and compassion for alien residents in their land: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21). There is a basic level of human compassion that we are obligated to show toward any human being, citizen or alien, who has need and is within our reach.

But God’s law didn’t stop there. It demanded that aliens should obey the law of the land as much as citizens were required to. “The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you.” (Exodus 12:49). Romans 13:1-2 instructs that: “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”

Immigrants should be held accountable to obey the laws of our land as much as we citizens are, and face the consequences of breaking them, as we must. This applies most pointedly, of course, to the case where many immigrants knowingly, and sometimes repeatedly, break the laws of our country in order to cross our border and live in our country. I would hope that congregations who shelter undocumented immigrants would also help them comply to the fullest extent with the laws of our land.

Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank

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I do not support church sanctuaries for illegal immigrants . I support respect for all people, and I second the scriptural mandate to the ancients which stated, “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners” (Exodus 23:9 NIV). My ancestors were such, but they came here legally; they took the measures to ensure a welcome reception and a documented existence. They didn’t insist on importing their cultures, nor did they wave their abandoned nations’ banners and demand that America conform and accommodate. No, they embraced the American identity, and did so not by cutting in line; they maintained the other Scriptural injunction to “be subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1).

Today we are overwhelmed by illegal immigrants who continually victimize law-abiding Americans directly through their misbehavior and/or by diminishing government assistance funds taxed from our American labor force. Bleeding hearts see only the undocumented work-beggars at the U-Haul or in front of the Home Depot, but they don’t realize that these illegal immigrants are paid substantially more than even our own minimum-wage workers, and all under the table. They are not oppressed, except by the politically correct bastion that responds with, “They do the jobs we don’t want.” That is hardly charitable, fostering a black-market subculture of foreigners who will do our dirty work. Yet many of the undesirable jobs are those that used to be entry-level American teenager jobs, or temporary work for American adults in transition, and neither had to steal identities and Social Security numbers to obtain them.

We all commiserate with neighbors of “unlawful presence” whom we’ve come to personally know, but if they turned out to be spies, terrorists or criminals, would we want so much to keep them here? And nobody wants to break up law-abiding families. Take your whole family back with you. It’s not on us, it’s on you who presume upon our milquetoast border resolve, who sneak here pregnant and deliver babies, or who smuggle in to avail yourselves of our fleeting resources. And of course, there is no such thing as law-abiding illegal immigrants. The terms are mutually exclusive.

I think this whole subject gets muddled when people start bringing racism into it, as if that were really the issue. People from all over the world cross the Mexican border because its easy, and its easiest for Mexicans because they live just on the other side. But our population is comprised of Americans hailing from every known racial and ethnic demographic. That is America, and that’s a blessing. What’s not a blessing is having every known ethnic and racial demographic moving in under the radar, uninvited, and setting up house in a house that is not theirs. Remember, foreigners have their countries, and they have histories there; they just don’t want to leave the posh deal America presents.

In all this, I think churches could find ways to be lawfully helpful to alien squatters who’ve gotten themselves into this predicament, but they should not “aid and abet” (unless the government is evil and intends genocide, which is not the case here).

Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga

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I think churches like those in Brockton are correctly applying the term “sanctuary” in two of its meanings, namely a building or place set aside for the worship of God or of one or more divinities, e.g., a Christian church, Jewish temple or a heathen site of worship, or specifically the most sacred place therein, and; refuge or immunity from punishment.

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles which comprises 140 churches has recently issued a resolution deeming sanctuary “holy resistance.” It is estimated that nationwide 450 churches or other religious organizations are offering sanctuary from deportation to immigrants, and since 2011 it has been the policy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to “generally avoid entering sensitive locations” — schools, churches and hospitals — and then only for terrorism or other “exigent circumstances.”

And speaking of exigent, President-elect Trump has recently walked back yet another of his campaign vows, to immediate kick out all the “dreamers,” immigrants without documents who were brought to the United States years or even decades ago as babies or young children. Now he states, “We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud.”

Of course one person’s happy and proud is another’s depressed and ashamed, and our loose cannon-elect seems capable of causing all of that and more. In response, activism is surging. A Philadelphia coalition of 17 churches and two synagogues had 65 members helping their sanctuary efforts, then 1,000 new volunteers stepped up after the November election.

Conservative churches not previously embracing the dictionary definition of “sanctuary” as a place of refuge in their congregations may want to reconsider now, in case they have future need of safe shelter from reenergized mobs of religious liberals bent on imposing their beliefs.

Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose