Good Samaritans and Immigration Laws

I live in Chicago, which is admittedly a very politcal city. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to witness a protest in downtown Chicago. Estimates were that anywhere between 50,000 and 300,000 showed up. It completely shut "the Loop" (kind of like Chicago's major financial and government district) down. Incredible. What were they protesting? The new immigration law that is set to begin debate in Congress this week. There have since been similar protests in Milwaukee and Los Angeles. And on April 10, the protests will continue in ten other major cities.

This law is basically a law that makes anti-immigration laws stronger. It says that if you are an undocumented citizen in the US, then you are a felon (up from a misdemeanor). It also makes the process more stringent for getting into the country from Mexico - by literally building a wall along the US-Mexican border. Of course, this is all done in the interest of national security (where, then I ask is the wall cutting of Canada?).

Something else the law does is make it illegal for anyone to help or employ an undocumented citizen. So, if you are a person that gives food to another person or money or shelter or clothing or whatever, and that person is an undocumented citizen, then you are subject to a fine and arrest also. Essentially, the US Congress (with the backing of G.W) is going to make it illegal for US citizens to help certain people. This should make Christians stand up and take notice.

The second greatest commandment that Jesus gives Christians (His words, not mine) is "to love your neighbor as yourself." In Luke, this commandment is immediately followed by the story of the good samaritan. I believe that it can interpreted, and really should be interpreted, that the good samaritan is the archetype of what it means to love one's neighbor. Jesus gives the parable of the good samaritan showing us what it means to love neighbor as self.

We all know the story. It has become commonplace in our culture - a metaphor of what it means to do a good deed. We walk a lady across the street and we are a good samaritan. We give a sandwich to a homeless guy and we are a good samaritan. Etc. Etc. However, it does not seem to me that this is enough.

The story of the good samaritan is a story of someone that breaks the ties that bind society. We must remember that the samaritan would not have been allowed to talk to the person he helped if they had encountered each other on the road. This would be because of the social norms of the time. We must also remember that the person he helped was probably someone that talked badly of him, despised him, and may have even killed him. Yet, love of neighbor - who is really the samaritan's greatest enemy - wins out. The samaritan helps.

However, not only does the samaritan help, but the samaritan builds bridges. He makes sure the person's wounds are bandaged and covered. He takes him to an inn to heal, where he pays the bill (money he probably could not have afforded) and tells the innkeeper that he will be back to make sure the person is alright. This is above and beyond loving neighbor in our sense.

What is amazing about the good samaritan is that he is someone that ignores the stigmas, the mores, and the normal social code. He probably even ignores some laws. He completely gives himself to the cause of helping the other. This is what Jesus commands us in his telling of the good samaritan.

Christians should be outraged by the new immigration bill because it outlaws being a good samaritan. It becomes against the law to offer people help. To love one's neighbor (for me literally, I live in and among people who are probably illegally here) is now outlawed. To support this is to go against Jesus and His teaching. It is to be unChristian.

Why Wesleyans Should Oppose the War in Iraq

From the title of this post, one need not guess what I am going to talk about. However, I find it pertinent to interrupt my ramblings on social holiness in Scripture to talk of the war in Iraq. This is because we are approaching the three year anniversary of the war in Iraq and many in my world have said little to nothing.

Below, one will find my reason why Christians, and especially Wesleyans, should oppose the war in Iraq.

1. Iraq is not a just war
In Christianity, there are three different views of war. The first is a crusade model. This model essentially says that war is a means of ending evil and bringing people to Christ. It is obviously based on the crusades of Middle Ages. Almost all of Christianity has rejected this however due to the debacle that was the Crusades.

Christianity's second view of war is pacifism. This is where the likes of Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder, along with the Amish and Mennonite traditions would fall. It basically says that Christians must abstain from war. It was the dominant view of Christians in the early church until the legalization of Christianity under Constantine.

I would also fall into this camp and advocate that Christians should not participate in war. However, the tradition has also accepted another view of war which is just war. As the tradition finds this acceptable and that this is the dominant view today, I feel as though this is the proper grounds to look at the war in Iraq.

Like I said, Iraq is not a just war. There are multiple criterion for just war, all of which must be met to make the war just. However, the war in Iraq fails on multiple fronts. I need only bring up two examples. The first is that just war must be defensive. A party automatically forsakes just war status when it is the attacker. America attacked Iraq without provocation of any kind. Iraq never attacked the US. In just war, the fact that Iraq may have in the future attacked the US is not sufficient to launch an attack. So, sense the US attacked Iraq first, this is not a just war.

The other criterion I want to bring up is that the war in Iraq is not proportional. What proportionality basically says is that "what you do to me, I can do to you." It essentially means that the damage of war to each country must be relatively proportional. Thus, if Iraq did attack the US and wiped out Washington D.C., under proportionality the US could attack Iraq and wipe out Baghdad. However, Iraq never attacked the US and the US has attacked Iraq, killing scores of people (it's hard to get an accurate count because the US refuses to do body counts). Even if it could have been proven that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the war in Iraq would not be proportional. The 9/11 attacks, as horrid as they were, were nowhere near the damage that has been caused in Iraq due to the war there.

So, Wesleyan should oppose the war in Iraq because it is not just.

2. The Iraq War outlaws Love of Neighbor
As Christians, we believe that two commandments sum up all of what we are about. The first is to love God with all heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is like it - love neighbor like oneself. The war in Iraq outlaws the latter.

Let me explain. Before the war in Iraq, due to UN sanctions, anyone going to Iraq to help anyone by giving them food, water, shelter, health care, etc. was arrested, fined, and spent time in jail. Since the war in Iraq began, the criteria has changed, but not much. The US still controls who may go in and help the people. How do I know? Well, Kathy Kelly is in charge of a group called Voices in the Wilderness. The sole mission of this group is to help the people in Iraq. The US has fined and imprisoned Ms. Kelly multiple times because she has gone to Iraq and given food, shelter, medicine, etc. and spent time hugging children and talking to people. This happened before the war and after.

What I am saying is that as Christians, we are commanded to love our neighbor. This means all people. To put a limit on who we can love through certain means is to deny Christians the ability to fulfill what they see as commanded. To tell Christians that they cannot go to Iraq to give food, shelter, and medicine is to place a sinful construct on Christians. Therefore, we must oppose the war in Iraq.

3. War is Sinful
The last reason that we must oppose the war is because war is sinful. Our Reformed brethren do not have as much a problem as we do. They believe in a two kingdom model, where on earth sometimes one must participate in sinful structures just because. They believe that there is no way to eradicate sin from the earth, and so participation in it is inevitable.

We have been influenced by them. Wesleyans typically believe this. They believe in God's power to overcome the sin in one's own life through sanctifying grace, but then say that God does not overcome the sinful constructs of the world around us. This is to do incredible damage to the Wesleyan Holiness Tradition.

It must be remembered that we were a denomination (the Wesleyan Church) was a denomination founded on two issues - holiness and against slavery. This was a melding of two ideas where we believed in the coming of Christ to earth to set up His eternal kingdom. We believed that it was the duty of believers to believe and act like we were participating in the kingdom now. This can be seen not only in reference to our participation in abolitionism but also in relation to how we fought for equal rights for women. And, much of the opposition to the Mexican American War was found in the holiness tradition, saying that this war was a sinful construct that we must not participate in.

What I am saying is that Wesleyans today have forgotten this. We have acquiesced to the rest of the world and said that we must participate in this sin until Christ comes. We have forgotten that Christ has already come and broken the bounds of this sin that through the grace given by Christ through the Holy Spirit, we need no longer participate in the kingdom of earth because we are now members of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is why we must oppose the war in Iraq.

Exodus - Utlimate Liberation

So, in the last few weeks I have posted on the nature of social holiness in the OT. First I posted on the nature of Israel being called to be socially holy. Next, I posted on the idea that Amos calls us to be socially holy and that Israel's failure to fulfill this is what brought them into exile (by the way, see AP's great response to my post. It is fantastic and typical of AP.) Now I want to look at the ultimate act of liberation in the OT - the Exodus.

As Exodus opens, we find an oppressed Israel. Egypt oppresses Israel by making them slaves. Part of the reason that Egypt does this is out of fear. They are lots of Israelites in Egypt now and the realization comes that if they wanted, they could cause some major trouble. The decision is natural of many political leaders - put them to work, oppress them, and give them no voice. This is the plight of Israel in Egypt.

Enter Moses. Moses stands at the crossroads of the oppressor and the oppressed. He is born a Hebrew and is raised an Egyptian prince. He has one foot on both sides. It amazes me how God chooses to work in this situation in contrast to how we often work.

If we think about it, many of us have one foot in both places. Many (a very relative term as I do not think there are many) who read this blog are middle class to upper middle class and naturally participate in some sort of oppression through the lives that we live. We do not like this and try to fix it. Our fixing of it is to go and try to put pressure on the major oppressors - the rich, polticians, etc. We naturally go to the people who have power and tell them to stop.

God calls Moses to something radically different. God calls Moses to stop being the prince of Egypt (which is a place where it seems that Moses could have enacted some real change). Instead, God calls Moses to go and free the people. God calls Moses to go and be a Jew, the oppressed. So, Moses goes among his people and gives up what it is that he has always identified with and identifies with a very different communtiy. This is the community of the Jews, the have-nots of Egypt.

Moses then speaks from this community. When he goes to Pharaoh to ask Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go, he goes not as a prince of Egypt, but as a Hebrew. He goes as one who is not influential but as one who trusts in the promise of God to liberate those who are being oppressed. The full alliance of Moses is in the corner of the oppressed against the oppressor. Moses does not have two feet in two worlds, but identifies with the one over and against the other.

Moses speaks on behalf of God, who has chosen to be the Liberator. He is going to overcome the oppression of God's people by the Egyptians. God has chosen those who are oppressed. God is not the God of the winners, but is the God of the losers.

The Exodus then becomes a freeing of an oppressed people through the power and will of God. God does the work through Moses. He uses Moses to empower the people, the give the people confidence to let go of their oppression. It is a liberating act. It radically changes the economy of the Hebrews. They are no longer slaves, oppressed in Egypt. They become an empowered community, a community waiting to enter the promised land.

In this quite disjointed thinking through of the Exodus, we see God as the ultimate liberator of the Jews. God brings the Jews out of a terrible world. God does this through the human action of Moses who chooses to identify with the side of the Hebrews, the oppressed, rather than the side of the Egyptians, the oppressor.

The question to end this with then is why God chooses to free this people who chose to settle in Egypt with Joseph. Is it because these are God's chosen people, who have left where God has chosen for them? Or is it because God sees the injustice being enacted against a weaker group by the more powerful, identifies with the weak, and frees them? I imagine you can guess where I land.