“‘You Shall Love the Alien as Yourself’: Hope, Hospitality, and Love of the Stranger in the Teachings of Jesus”

For Christmas, I share a recent research article on immigration and Christian faith by Prof. David B. Gowler, in Religions (2019). Gowler is a professor in the Religion Department at Emory University.

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Introduction: With the Trump Administration Immigration Policy, “the Cruelty Is the Point”

“[T]his administration chooses to cage children and tear families apart. Compassionate treatment at the border is not the same as open borders.”—Stacey Abrams, Democratic Response to the State of the Union Address, 5 February 2019.

If majority-culture Christians do embrace the immigrant—whether documented or undocumented—this stance could mark them in a particular way as foreigners and strangers in that they would be going against the current of a good portion of public opinion. To take that stand on the basis of biblical convictions may lead to opposition from the broader majority culture. According to 1 Peter, to suffer for doing good is a privilege and part of the pilgrimage of faith. (Carroll 2013, pp. 118–19)

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The family escaped in the dead of night. Like countless other immigrants who were refugees, they lived in a country oppressed by a ruthless tyrant, and they feared for the safety of their young child. They fled under cover of darkness and traveled hundreds of miles to a distant land where they hoped they would be safe.

This family, the story goes, was fortunate. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus escaped the murderous rampage of Herod the Great and found refuge in Egypt, although, the Gospel of Matthew reports, “all the children in and around Bethlehem” were killed on Herod’s orders (Matt. 2:13–18). 

Matthew’s story of the flight into Egypt gives no details about how the family was received, where they stayed, or how they supported themselves. Apparently, they were able to live in peace as resident aliens until they could safely return—albeit to Nazareth, not Bethlehem.

Two thousand years later, refugees are still fleeing nations plagued by war, gangs, political oppression, or civil unrest, and they seek asylum in countries far from their homes but where, they hope, they will be safe and able to rebuild their lives. Most of them do not receive the same welcome or the same freedom to live their lives in peace. In the United States, for example, such refugees and asylum seekers have become the targets of an administration that demonizes these human beings to gain what it believes is a political advantage over its opponents.