Serving the High Plains

Objections to biblical immigration answered

In my last two columns, I highlighted the Bible’s view of immigrants. That is, they are to be welcomed and loved as brothers.

Foreigners in Israel were expected to follow God’s one law, but were not made full citizens until after a process of conversion. This all comports with the original American vision.

There is no Constitutional authority given to regulate immigration. In fact, the first restrictive immigration law was not put in place until 1925. Until then, “coming legally” to America meant simply arriving on the shore. (The one exception was a blatantly racist anti-Chinese rule.)

Now, I’ll address some push-back to the above view from Christians who want border control.

“But, didn’t God create nations and borders?” This comes from the “Tower of Babel” event in Genesis 11, wherein God scattered the people into groups speaking different languages.

Deuteronomy. 32:8 speaks of God allotting nations their boundaries. Of course, this is no direct argument for strict regulation of those boundaries, which is a thing that is never seen in the whole Bible.

Borders limit the jurisdiction of governments, not the movement of people. To illustrate, the border between here and Texas signals an end of one state’s authority and the beginning of the other; but, it is open and traffic flows freely. Texas is clearly Texas, and not New Mexico, even with open borders between us.

Another consideration here is that none of those original boundaries are still in place. God is free to create and destroy nations. No one ought to consider national boundaries as eternal, unchangeable, or holy. God created original boundaries and has spent the rest of human history changing them. How does this argue for border control?

“But, a nation without borders is not a nation!” Nobody’s talking about removing borders. Aside from that, Israel’s first few decades were spent wandering in the wilderness -without borders! Was it not a nation?

The New Testament also calls the church a “holy nation” though it has no borders. This objection is a non sequitor from the jump, as the kids say.

“But, didn’t many cities in Israel have walls around them, implying border control?” Some did and others didn’t. So even if walls equal border control, which they don’t, this is a weak argument.

City walls were for military defense, not to keep migrants out of the country. It is, though, a mark of the genius of modern border-control proponents that so many people have been talked into equating families fleeing oppression with military invasion. I’ll concede that one.

The only other supposedly biblical argument I’ve heard is that Romans 13:1-7 gives government a blank check to do what it pleases, and we should just shut up and go along. Ironically, this comes from folks who are still trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, and who spoke up loudly against the pandemic shutdown. That is, they really don’t believe that blank check exists unless it keeps the undesirables out of their neighborhoods.

If I’ve overlooked your silver bullet argument for shutting down the borders, let me know.

Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at:

[email protected]

 
 
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