Hospitality and Immigration Policy

Interesting that my last blog post somehow got onto the second page of hits if you search for "the hope that we confess" on Google...but that's not what I want to write about.

Having some out-of-town friends over at our apartment has gotten me thinking about the concept of hospitality again. I've blogged about it before, but as I continue thinking and reading about hospitality, I do think that hospitality may be one of the most basic pictures of the gospel message. Henri Nouwen defined hospitality as “creation of free space where a stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy." Isn't that effectively what God did for us through Christ?

If we accept true hospitality as an important way to communicate the gospel, I would argue that the American Christian community needs to rethink its view on how it ought to treat immigrants. The general arguments for harsh treatment of immigrants on a policy level and an individual level are that the rule of law is threatened by illegals and the costs of caring for non-US citizens will burden US citizens. I have reservations about Christians blindly accepting those rationales. Certainly there are costs, but as Christians, we cannot be motivated solely by costs. In fact, we are promised that following Christ will cost of everything.

I'm still developing my thoughts on the topic, but I'll just leave you with a passage by Francis Schaeffer on hospitality from "The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century." It'll make more sense if you know a little something about L'abri.

"Don't start with a big program. Don't suddenly think you can add to your church budget and begin. Start personally and start in your home. I dare you. I dare you in the name of Jesus Christ. Do what I am going to suggest. Begin by opening your home for community…

How many times in the past year have you risked having a drunk vomit on your carpeted floor? How in the world, then, can you talk about compassion and about community - about the church's job in the inner city?

L'Abri is costly. If you think what God has done here is easy, you don't understand. It's a costly business to have a sense of community. L'Abri cannot be explained merely by the clear doctrine that is preached; it cannot be explained by the fact that God has here been giving intellectual answers to intellectual questions. I think those two things are important, but L'Abri cannot be explained if you remove the third. And that is there has been some community here. And it has been costly.

In about the first three years of L'Abri all our wedding presents were wiped out. Our sheets were torn. Holes were burned in our rugs. Indeed once a whole curtain almost burned up from somebody smoking in our living room. Blacks came to our table. Orientals came to our table. Everybody came to our table. It couldn't happen any other way. Drugs came to our place. People vomited in our rooms, in the rooms of Chalet Les Melezes which was our home, and now in the rest of the chalets of L'Abri.

How many times has this happened to you? You see, you don't need a big program. You don't have to convince your session or board. All you have to do is open your home and begin. And there is no place in God's world where there are no people who will come and share a home as long as it is a real home."