The Christian Response to Illegal Immigration & other things

While reading Isaiah 56 this morning, an old political philosophic thought ran though my head with new relevance. Isaiah 56 begins with the words: “Thus says the Lord: “keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed” (ESV). The passage continues to talk about God’s perspective on various populations in the land—one of them being the foreigners or aliens who had attached themselves to God’s people. To these aliens, He said to be faithful to Him and to honor His covenant and they too would be brought to His holy mountain—a place that He had also promised to His chosen people.

As I mulled over God’s perspective of these foreigners, a thought came to mind:

• The Christian response to the illegal alien is to demonstrate the love of Christ to them in order to bring them to Christ. As they come to Christ, part of the right living as a Christian will then be to deal with the difficult issue of their illegal status. Yet isn’t it better to act on God’s conviction in God’s timing than to act on a political agenda in our own timing?

This took me back to a lecture I used to give to my Civics classes on how to turn a republic around. The conclusion of that matter was that it was better and more effective to turn a republic back to a moral foundation and footing using evangelism rather than using the process of legislating morality.

The idea behind both of these positions is to change the heart of the people. If we were to point our neighbors and the aliens among us to Jesus Christ and make disciples of Jesus Christ of them (per the Great Commission), then it would improve the eternal direction of their life as well as change their perspective on what “quality of life” means. Both of these would be the result of their new personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This new relationship would cause them to be better family members, employees, employers, and American citizens. ultimately, this new relationship would influence them to vote along the lines of their new found morality in they’ve found in Jesus Christ and to elect fellow citizens to various offices with similar morality and priorities.

Caution! The end of illegal immigration and the change of political agenda should never be the motivation for evangelism!! However, it is the command of our King and the duty of each citizen of Heaven. An earthly byproduct of much lesser significance is that as their value system changes, so will their actions, habits and views. Any “Christian” who were to use evangelism simply as a tool to achieve a political or legal result is short sighted and stupid. The eternal destiny of each human being is of far more important that some political or legal agenda. The rules of the Kingdom of Heaven have a funny little habit of having byproducts that dramatically improve the earthly condition of society if followed by enough people. Another topic for another time would be the social & economic results of the rise of Christianity in the world and specifically in America—especially on the poor & abused, women, and minorities.

Back to the topic at hand. I began to think: maybe the #1 civic duty of a Christian American is to live righteously at home, in his neighborhood, and at work. This means to “to keep justice and do righteousness”—or to guard, protect and be circumspect regarding our judicial style, rights, and the decisions we make and to behave in the prosperity of rightness, rectitude, justice and virtue. Micah 6:8 says it similarly: “to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”

Wouldn’t it be something if the Christians in America would live out our faith in God rather than protect our interests in mammon and politics?

• …if we would respond to the socialist agenda in America by living out Social Justice as God desires.
• …if we would thwart communism by living in true community with our fellow believers and neighbors;
• …if the source of our inspiration would be centered around the person of Jesus Christ rather than the next or present greatest personality we can find to run for office;
• …if we would find our safety net in the “cleft of the Rock” and the “shadow of the Almighty” rather than in human government. And that we would bring people into this safety net with us so that they might find their security there!

If we would live in the prosperous fulfillment of our heavenly citizenship and answer the calling of our heavenly King; if we were to seek to advance the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth (like it is in heaven), rather than holding to a temporal view of wealth, prosperity, earthly citizenship, and political intrigue, then we would in exchange find that “as the things of earth grow strangely dim” we actually become better earthly citizens.