Hospitality, Christian love, culture and immigration

[arapahoepark]

Feel free to move this, I am not sure how many have access to rhe P&G forum...
Anyway...
In light of all that is going on, how should one think Biblically about immigration, particularly on a massive scale like we are seeing. At what point can one, individual, community or nation say that we cannot accommodate such an influx, dole out food, or money (we especially should not be doing this)?
Likewise with culture, is it wrong to say that there is far too much accomodation for other cultures and languages in this country where it feels like we slowly losing our own?
Is there some justification for a sort of inclusive but, assimilationist (not the PC buzzword sense) nativism?

 

[Pergamum]

Even in the OT, the stranger and foreigner had to adjust to the culture of the land and obey its laws.

It is always a curse in the OT when foreigners over-ran the land of Israel.

I think it is fine to shut one's borders.

 

[VilnaGaon]

Feel free to move this, I am not sure how many have access to rhe P&G forum...
Anyway...
In light of all that is going on, how should one think Biblically about immigration, particularly on a massive scale like we are seeing. At what point can one, individual, community or nation say that we cannot accommodate such an influx, dole out food, or money (we especially should not be doing this)?
Likewise with culture, is it wrong to say that there is far too much accomodation for other cultures and languages in this country where it feels like we slowly losing our own?
Is there some justification for a sort of inclusive but, assimilationist (not the PC buzzword sense) nativism?

Speaking as a Canadian, if not for immigration, Christianity would be close to extinction in Canada especially in the big cities.
In the Greater Toronto Area, most Church goers are non-White immigrants.

 

[arapahoepark]

Speaking as a Canadian, if not for immigration, Christianity would be close to extinction in Canada especially in the big cities.
In the Greater Toronto Area, most Church goers are non-White immigrants.

Don't you also have requirements and need to be sponsored? We don't really have that here....

 

[Romans830]

Feel free to move this, I am not sure how many have access to rhe P&G forum...
Anyway...
In light of all that is going on, how should one think Biblically about immigration, particularly on a massive scale like we are seeing. At what point can one, individual, community or nation say that we cannot accommodate such an influx, dole out food, or money (we especially should not be doing this)?
Likewise with culture, is it wrong to say that there is far too much accomodation for other cultures and languages in this country where it feels like we slowly losing our own?
Is there some justification for a sort of inclusive but, assimilationist (not the PC buzzword sense) nativism?

Not saying people should break laws, but the NT says Christians are strangers, exiles, pilgrims on this earth. A lot of those people are trying to escape horrific living situations and we ought to have compassion and mercy on them or at least feel sympathy and pray for them.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

In light of all that is going on, how should one think Biblically about immigration, particularly on a massive scale like we are seeing. At what point can one, individual, community or nation say that we cannot accommodate such an influx, dole out food, or money (we especially should not be doing this)?
Likewise with culture, is it wrong to say that there is far too much accomodation for other cultures and languages in this country where it feels like we slowly losing our own?

Let us try a thought experiment: If we accept the arguments of open borders advocates, then every single person who lives on the earth is entitled to move to Malta. All eight billion people have a right to move to Malta, and any attempts to limit even a single person from entering the island is racist. Such is the absurdity of open borders. Yes, there may be some immigration and some ethnic minorities living in a host country. But we have to be both realistic as to how many people we can accept and fair to the native population.

 

[Ben Zartman]

A nation may say at any time, due to security, economic, or supply issues, or any other reason, that it will not take any immigrants. These are things governments must wrestle with. Individuals have a duty to their neighbor, whomever that may be, to do them good. I disapprove of illegal immigration, but I have acquaintances--even people in our church--who are illegals. My duty to them is to love them, to serve them, to have compassion on them. If the government wants to seek them out and deport them, that's their right and prerogative--it does not lessen my duty toward them.
I would be wrong if I helped people break the law by abetting their border crossing. But once here, it is not my duty (I checked with ICE) to report them, ask their status, or deny them church membership--in fact, it's against the law for me (or my church) to discriminate against illegal immigrants based on their immigration status.
I find the illegal immigration thing really upsetting, not least because many who come have been misinformed in their native lands about how great it is here, and have paid thousands of $$$ to the "Coyotes" who guide them across the border, often at great peril to their lives. I know some who were sent as children (what kind of parents did they have? There should be criminal charges for parents like that), and suffered molestation and abuse from the coyotes; some nearly died of thirst and of cold.
Once here, many (especially the DACA kids), have a horror of going back to Guatemala or wherever--they're being told by people there that it's all a horrible, violent, smoking wasteland. But I've been there, and there are normal people living normal, productive lives, more obesity than starvation, plenty of everything needful, and work enough to survive on for the enterprising. If they're so stricken with poverty, how can they scrape together $6,000 a head for the coyotes? couldn't that money be used to invest in some enterprise?
Surely I don't have all the answers, but I suspect there is more discontent and "grass is greener" syndrome than people legitimately needing the asylum they try to claim.

 

[Romans830]

A nation may say at any time, due to security, economic, or supply issues, or any other reason, that it will not take any immigrants. These are things governments must wrestle with. Individuals have a duty to their neighbor, whomever that may be, to do them good. I disapprove of illegal immigration, but I have acquaintances--even people in our church--who are illegals. My duty to them is to love them, to serve them, to have compassion on them. If the government wants to seek them out and deport them, that's their right and prerogative--it does not lessen my duty toward them.
I would be wrong if I helped people break the law by abetting their border crossing. But once here, it is not my duty (I checked with ICE) to report them, ask their status, or deny them church membership--in fact, it's against the law for me (or my church) to discriminate against illegal immigrants based on their immigration status.
I find the illegal immigration thing really upsetting, not least because many who come have been misinformed in their native lands about how great it is here, and have paid thousands of $$$ to the "Coyotes" who guide them across the border, often at great peril to their lives. I know some who were sent as children (what kind of parents did they have? There should be criminal charges for parents like that), and suffered molestation and abuse from the coyotes; some nearly died of thirst and of cold.
Once here, many (especially the DACA kids), have a horror of going back to Guatemala or wherever--they're being told by people there that it's all a horrible, violent, smoking wasteland. But I've been there, and there are normal people living normal, productive lives, more obesity than starvation, plenty of everything needful, and work enough to survive on for the enterprising. If they're so stricken with poverty, how can they scrape together $6,000 a head for the coyotes? couldn't that money be used to invest in some enterprise?
Surely I don't have all the answers, but I suspect there is more discontent and "grass is greener" syndrome than people legitimately needing the asylum they try to claim.

What does the Bible say about illegal immigration?​

What does the Bible say about illegal immigration? | GotQuestions.org

What does the Bible say about illegal immigration? How should Christians view illegal immigrants?

www.gotquestions.org

 

[ZackF]

A nation may say at any time, due to security, economic, or supply issues, or any other reason, that it will not take any immigrants. These are things governments must wrestle with. Individuals have a duty to their neighbor, whomever that may be, to do them good. I disapprove of illegal immigration, but I have acquaintances--even people in our church--who are illegals. My duty to them is to love them, to serve them, to have compassion on them. If the government wants to seek them out and deport them, that's their right and prerogative--it does not lessen my duty toward them.
I would be wrong if I helped people break the law by abetting their border crossing. But once here, it is not my duty (I checked with ICE) to report them, ask their status, or deny them church membership--in fact, it's against the law for me (or my church) to discriminate against illegal immigrants based on their immigration status.
I find the illegal immigration thing really upsetting, not least because many who come have been misinformed in their native lands about how great it is here, and have paid thousands of $$$ to the "Coyotes" who guide them across the border, often at great peril to their lives. I know some who were sent as children (what kind of parents did they have? There should be criminal charges for parents like that), and suffered molestation and abuse from the coyotes; some nearly died of thirst and of cold.
Once here, many (especially the DACA kids), have a horror of going back to Guatemala or wherever--they're being told by people there that it's all a horrible, violent, smoking wasteland. But I've been there, and there are normal people living normal, productive lives, more obesity than starvation, plenty of everything needful, and work enough to survive on for the enterprising. If they're so stricken with poverty, how can they scrape together $6,000 a head for the coyotes? couldn't that money be used to invest in some enterprise?
Surely I don't have all the answers, but I suspect there is more discontent and "grass is greener" syndrome than people legitimately needing the asylum they try to claim.

I imagine, or hope, that many of those who “contract” the services of a coyote don’t know that prostitution and drug muling are often packaged in the deal.

 

[Ben Zartman]

I imagine, or hope, that many of those who “contract” the services of a coyote don’t know that prostitution and drug muling are often packaged in the deal.

I'm certain they don't. There is an astonishing amount of propaganda, abetted lately by social media, that really preys on their credulity. Things like "At midnight the crossing will be open freely to the first X hundred migrants, no questions asked" was a recent one I've heard.