Mike Johnson’s biblical defense of US border policy ignores the Bible’s stance on power

(RNS) — In the heart of a most contemporary 3 a.m. doomscroll — toddle, we clergy are as inclined as anyone — I ran in the route of clips of Speaker of the Dwelling Mike Johnson, invoking the Original Testomony to shield U.S. border policy in opposition to Pope Leo XIV’s feedback about the factual obligations Christians undergo toward migrants.

Johnson’s argument became once a smartly-diagnosed one, citing Paul’s Letter to the Romans to indicate that Christians are called to publish to governing authorities, whose responsibility it is to retain recount through law. That Scripture, Johnson claimed, procedure migrants are to be welcomed, toddle, however only on the condition that they assimilate.

Unable to tumble abet asleep, I did what Anglican clergy fabricate when the evening runs out: I turned to Morning Prayer. As if by providence — and even irony — the Historical Testomony studying appointed for the Day to day Office that morning became once the Book of Genesis, chapter 23, in which Abraham negotiates for a burial position for his wife, Sarah, in a foreign land.

Discovering out it with Johnson’s enchantment to Romans new in my mind, the myth landed with advise force. Abraham, after all, is a refugee by any reasonable definition. He has left his fatherland in Ur of the Chaldeans in response to a divine name, journeying into territory that’s no longer his enjoy. When he approaches his new Hittite neighbors in Canaan to question a tomb, he identifies himself it appears to be like that evidently: “I’m a stranger and an alien residing among you.”

Abraham is welcomed, albeit cautiously, and authorised to aquire land in recount to bury his dead in response to his enjoy customs. He negotiates publicly, honors local merely norms and yet remains recognizably other. His presence is tolerated, even respected, without being absorbed.

In gentle of Johnson’s demand immigrant assimilation, this detail matters. The patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is no longer a settled landowner defending borders, however a migrant negotiating dwelling for distress in a land no longer his enjoy.

In the long line of descendants of Abraham, his myth is rarely an exception. Moses flees Egypt. Israel turns proper into a nation in exile. Jesus begins lifestyles as a displaced child, fleeing political violence. The Prophet Muhammad’s defining scuttle — the Hijra — is an act of migration. All the map through the Abrahamic traditions, spiritual identity is solid through displacement, no longer secured in opposition to it.

This does no longer mean Scripture has nothing to voice about law, recount or political authority. The Letter to the Romans does characterize governing authorities as devices in the course of which God restrains chaos in a damaged world. Yet the context in which this letter is be taught matters vastly. Paul is writing to fragile dwelling churches living below imperial surveillance, no longer to Christians wielding squawk power, and his concern is pastoral and pragmatic: how believers continue to exist below empire without sharp unnecessary repression. It’s no longer a blueprint for Christian governance, nor a timeless endorsement of every policy enacted in the name of law and recount.

To lift Romans wholesale proper into a contemporary political theology — particularly one that treats the squawk as the main factual agent — is to question the textual content to undergo extra weight than it’ll shield. Romans (along with the relaxation of Christian Scripture) wish to be be taught alongside Israel’s long abilities of exile, Jesus’ execution by the squawk and the Original Testomony’s routine suspicion of imperial power. The Bible offers no easy equation between God’s functions and the interests of any given authorities, even one that claims Christian privilege.

Here’s the set aside, for me, a concept from twentieth-century ecumenical theology proves helpful: missio Dei, the mission of God. Emerging in Protestant and Catholic conversations after World War II, the interval of time names a easy however profound conviction: God’s work of reconciling the world does no longer belong to the church. It belongs to God.

The church participates in that mission however does no longer control it, outline it exhaustively or contain it. God’s functions precede ecclesial institutions and, now and then, exceed them.

Viewed through this lens, the relationship between church and squawk turns into extra advanced, and further honest. The squawk can, now and then, rob part imperfectly in God’s reconciling work. Fashionable welfare methods that provide health care, education and safe haven would possibly possibly well presumably effectively mirror, nevertheless partially, Christ’s expose to handle the least among us. That such work is applied by governments rather than (or in addition to) churches needn’t be interpreted merely as the failure of Christianity. It’s miles more doubtless to be evidence that God’s mission extends beyond the partitions of the church.

But the reverse is also appropriate. If each church and squawk can rob part in God’s mission, then each would possibly possibly well presumably act in opposition to it.

Policies that handle migrants essentially as threats rather than neighbors, that decrease human beings to concerns to be managed or that invoke Scripture to sanctify exclusion would possibly possibly well presumably aloof exertion Christians deeply. No longer consequently of borders are inherently unbiblical, however consequently of the Bible resists being pressed into provider of any political project that confuses control with faithfulness.

The question sooner than Christians, then, is no longer whether states would possibly possibly well presumably keep in force regulations or shield borders. It’s whether our studying of Scripture serves God’s reconciling work in the world, or whether we are interpreting it merely to allay our dread about losing power, identity or security.

Abraham’s myth means that God’s covenant folk are, extra often than no longer, strangers negotiating dwelling rather than rulers enforcing boundaries. Paul’s letters remind believers to reside correctly below unfriendly authorities, no longer to confuse those authorities with the reign of God.

When Scripture is invoked in debates over immigration, it matters no longer only that the Bible is quoted, however how it is be taught, and to what cessation.