Advertisement
Advertisement

Bordering on faith: San Diego spiritual leaders wrestle with the morality of immigration

Clergy from different faiths and supporters march outside the Otay Mesa Detention Center, supporting immigrant families who had been separated at the border because of the government’s “zero tolerance” policy.
(David Maung/EFE)
Share

Defending President Trump’s immigration policy last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions called on a higher authority: the Bible.

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in June.

Yet when Bishop Robert McElroy blasted that same policy, he turned to the same Good Book.

Advertisement

“The Gospel of Matthew told us that the Holy Family fled from Herod to Egypt,” said McElroy, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. “If the Holy Family had come as refugees to our borders in the last few weeks, they would have seen the infant Jesus ripped from the arms of his mother and put in a cage.”

Looking for a consistent immigration message from clerics? You haven’t a prayer. While many rail against the administration’s policies from the pulpit and in the streets — rabbis and cantors have a prominent role in another protest planned for Monday in San Diego — others back tougher restrictions at the borders.

While clergy have almost unanimously condemned the recently-discontinued practice of separating immigrant children from their parents, they differ over who is to blame.

This moral crisis, argued Jamie Gates, an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, was created by the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” application of immigration statutes.

“There is a point at which the definition of the law becomes so narrow that it becomes inhumane,” said Gates, a sociology professor who directs the Center for Justice & Reconciliation at Point Loma Nazarene University. “And I think we are there.”

Actually, countered Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, this crisis was created by Trump’s predecessors.

“I blame the politicians for the last 20 or 30 years that have allowed this to escalate to the point where it is today,” Graham told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “We are a country of laws and laws need to be obeyed, no question about that. The situation we have today (is) because of our lawmakers in Washington over generations ignoring this.”

Sacred scripture, too, has been marshaled to support conflicting views. Even verses urging believers to welcome “foreigners” are interpreted in diametrically opposed ways.

“How do you translate ‘foreigner’?” asked Mark Strauss, a professor of the New Testament at Bethel Seminary San Diego, who is working on a fresh translation of the New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible.

“There’s a huge debate about that — but it’s certainly not someone who comes from your own background or society.”

Division among evangelicals

A February 2017 “open letter” to President Trump from the American Pastors Network praised the administration’s “wise and judicious legislation.”

Signed by one rabbi and dozens of evangelical Christians, including Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Pastor Jim Garlow of San Diego’s Skyline Church, the letter said the Bible advocates the “wise welcome” of strangers.

The Old Testament’s Ruth, for instance, “came lawfully as a blessing.”

“Likewise in Scripture,” the letter added, “we see the example of offering temporary welcome to well-meaning foreigners passing through.”

But the letter also cited warnings against sinister outsiders, such as Isaiah 1:7 — “your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you” — and Nehemiah, a prophet “who, with patience and determination, led his nation in rebuilding its walls, as well as its faith and culture.”

Last week, Garlow declined an interview request, while David Jeremiah, senior pastor at El Cajon’s Shadow Mountain Community Church, said he did not have time to discuss immigration. Other evangelical pastors did not return phone calls.

Bethel Seminary’s Strauss argued that many — if not most — leading evangelicals disagree with the American Pastors Network.

“Among the intellectual leadership in the evangelical movement, virtually no one I know supports Trump’s policy on immigration,” Strauss said. “We see enormous compassion for the immigrant, and are appalled at much of what President Trump does and says.”

For Strauss, a key verse is Deuteronomy 10:17-18: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.”

For Miles McPherson, pastor of Point Loma’s The Rock Church, the answer lies in the Matthew’s gospel.

“When Jesus was asked what was the important commandment,” McPherson wrote in an email, “He responded by saying, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37- 40).

“As we watch the plight of these children and families, my prayer is that we would never lose sight of this most important commandment,” McPherson wrote. “It must be our guiding light in how we respond to cultural issues happening in our world today.”

‘Sanctuary lite’

In the last two years, said the Rev. Bill Jenkins, Christ United Methodist in Normal Heights has offered temporary shelter to 6,000 asylum-seekers. It’s now at the center of a coalition of a dozen local churches offering to house and feed these refugees.

“We have Unitarian, Jewish Family Service, Catholic Charities, Disciples of Christ, two Lutheran churches,” Jenkins said. “Some are calling us ‘Sanctuary Lite.’”

Unlike many in the sanctuary movement, this coalition — the Safe Harbors Network — works directly with authorities.

“Ninety-nine percent of these people are documented,” Jenkins said. “Sessions has tried to make it appear that asylum-seekers are illegal and that’s just not true. They present themselves at the border, are given documentation and then await their court date.”

If Safe Harbor is “Sanctuary Lite,” the First Unitarian Universalist Church is ready to be a full-fledged sanctuary. The Hillcrest church prepared living quarters for immigrants, when and if needed.

“We haven’t been called upon to take anyone in from the community,” said Angela Fujii, the church’s social justice ministry team coordinator.

While waiting for sanctuary-seekers, the church is actively protesting the Trump administration’s actions — and words.

“We have to challenge the rhetoric that comes out, because it is the demonization of human beings,” said the Rev. Beth Johnson of Palomar Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Vista. “Our immigrant siblings and refugee siblings need to be treated with respect.”

Misusing Scripture

Pastors, said Bishop Terrell Fletcher, must love and serve everyone in their flock, regardless of where individuals stand on hot-button issues.

“We practice loving one another, even when we differ with one another,” said Fletcher, whose congregation at City of Hope International Church in Lincoln Park includes immigrants and Border Patrol agents. “As a pastor, I try to stand on the side of righteousness rather than on the side of the right or the left.

“We want to stay on the scriptural side of it, rather the political side of it.”

Yet he marched in the June 23 demonstration outside an Otay Mesa detention center. The marchers’ chants were met with cheers and encouraging words from detainees — “Humanity was at its best at that moment,” he said — but he also noticed the guards’ professional, even compassionate, efforts.

“You saw the humanity of the law enforcement people,” he said. “They were really invested that the peace was kept and that our voices be heard.”

As an African-American minister, though, Fletcher bristled when Sessions used Romans 13 to justify the administration’s actions.

“That stung me deeply,” Fletcher said. “It’s very important we remember the history of our nation and the way the Scriptures were used to reinforce slavery, and how the slaves heard that being used to keep them in line.”

This emotionally-charged issue is inflamed by appeals to racism and fear, said Johnson, the Unitarian minister. “People are not streaming over the border and committing crimes. Does crime happen? Of course it does. But when we look at the facts on the ground, immigration has been down.”

Striking a balance

Mijente, a civil rights group that describes itself as “pro-Latinx,” is organizing a rally for 9 a.m. Monday in Chicano Park. Among those heeding this call: 20 rabbis and cantors from Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and other cities.

While protesting immigration policies that primarily affect Latin Americans, many of them Catholic, these Jews are inspired by their own heritage.

“We understand from our own experience that when borders are closed and people can’t flee, we saw in the 1930s how terrible that can be,” said Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, deputy director of New York-based T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.

“And if you look at the Jewish bible, there is a very strong sense of protecting the immigrant. The Torah tells us to love the widow, the orphan and the stranger.”

While this group urges the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and decriminalization of immigrants, some other Jewish leaders have a more nuanced view.

“We are a nation of immigrants and the Jewish people has benefited immensely from that — and we have paid the price at times of not being able to enter easily into other countries,” said Rabbi Baruch Ezagai of Chabad of La Jolla. “We also understand it is a balance between immigration and the laws of the land.

“One must as a Jew respect the laws of the land that you find yourself in.”

McElroy, the Catholic bishop, agreed — to a point.

“The country has the right and the responsibility to have its borders,” he said. “At the same time, it has the responsibility to accommodate immigrants and especially refugees coming from oppression.”

The bishop believes a just immigration policy, acceptable to most Republicans and Democrats, is possible. While he opposes a border wall, he’d accept one in exchange for DACA recipients — people brought to this country illegally as children — receiving legal residential status.

He’d also back an employee verification system; a pathway to citizenship for undocumented residents; and increased border security.

“We must be generous and humane in making that balance as a society,” he said, “particularly as we are a country that has a history of offering refuge for people fleeing oppression.”

Americans have a shared history and, to a large degree, shared values. During a 2008 immigration protest at Border Field State Park, a Border Patrol agent saw that some demonstrators were Church of the Nazarene members — just as he is.

The agent later called one of those protesters, Jamie Gates. He suggested they get together for coffee and conversation.

Gates and Rodney Scott, now chief patrol agent for the San Diego sector, still meet and still talk.

“Rodney and I are both Nazarenes, members of the same church, but we didn’t agree,” Gates said. “We have succeeded in maintaining a friendship, allowing our faith to be our first foot forward.

“We are both following Jesus, both trying to work this out.”

Gates believes this thorny issue can be worked out. He takes it on faith.

Advertisement