Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 63:4 (Dec 2020)
Article: The Role Of Government And The Immigration Issue: A Christian Ethics Perspective
Author: Dennis P. Hollinger

JETS 63:4 (December 2020) p. 759

The Role Of Government And The Immigration Issue: A Christian Ethics Perspective

Dennis P. Hollinger

Dennis Hollinger is President Emeritus and Senior Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and resides at 1245 Providence Road, Charlotte, NC 28207. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: Immigration is one of the most volatile and divisive social issues of our time. Despite the complexity surrounding immigration, and particularly the public policy dimensions, Scripture and theological reflection can speak into this issue by providing, not technical solutions, but frameworks for addressing it. In particular, this article argues for three purposes of government that should be held together in creative tension: order, freedom and justice. Any policy solutions for immigration should seek then to embody order, freedom, and justice, including three differing definitions of justice. This framework will not produce immediate or simplistic answers to the probing technical questions, but will provide wise ethical guidance that can speak into one of the polarizing issues we face today.

Key words: immigration, ethics, complexity, order, freedom, justice

With immigration, we face one of the most contentious and volatile issues of our time. While there is a worldwide crisis with over 70 million refugees or forcibly displaced persons around the world,1 Americans have tended to falsely think that they are the primary carriers of this “burden.” And though we are a nation of immigrants (except, of course, for Native Americans), we have frequently and especially recently been filled with fear and animosity towards “the other” in our midst. As immigration scholar Aristide Zolberg notes, we have been beset by glaring contradictions in our response, for, “Immigration and Naturalization policies are boldly inclusive, in that membership in the American collectivity was open to members of all European nations, regardless of faith or inheritance, but simultaneously brutally exclusive.”2 As just one example, in 1878 the United States Supreme Court ruled Chinese ineligible for naturalized citizenship, and four years later Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibiting Chinese immigration for ten years. It was then renewed and not repealed until 1942.3

The Christian church has unfortunately reflected the same contradictions in their response to immigrants and refugees. Christian political scientists Ruth Melkonian-Hoover and Lyman...