Christians should be able to agree with this principle: We are Christians first and Americans second

[Chip Van Emmerik]

Being here is an ongoing violation of the law. Any aid we provide in helping them continue breaking the law joins us in their lawless deeds - see 2 John.

Kevin,

The church’s response should be to begin discipling the person into obedient service to God. My policy was to never move forward with someone who wanted to become a member if the first thing we would have to do after they became members was begin the discipline process. Someone living here illegally is living in open and ongoing sin just as surely as if they got saved while shacking up with someone other than a spouse. What I would do in either situation is work with them to begin setting things right. For the illegal alien, that would mean either turning themselves in or returning to their home country immediately. I would be prepared to help personally, and to suggest the church provide help as well, in order for that to happen. I would also work with the individual to find a church in their home country.I would have no problem, after they have set things right, helping in every way possible to get them back into the country legally.

[Chip Van Emmerik]

Kevin,

The church’s response should be to begin discipling the person into obedient service to God. My policy was to never move forward with someone who wanted to become a member if the first thing we would have to do after they became members was begin the discipline process. Someone living here illegally is living in open and ongoing sin just as surely as if they got saved while shacking up with someone other than a spouse. What I would do in either situation is work with them to begin setting things right. For the illegal alien, that would mean either turning themselves in or returning to their home country immediately. I would be prepared to help personally, and to suggest the church provide help as well, in order for that to happen. I would also work with the individual to find a church in their home country.I would have no problem, after they have set things right, helping in every way possible to get them back into the country legally.

do you also provide a list to the local police of everyone that speeds in your congregation? If homeschooling is outlawed in the US, will you root, out the lawbreakers? Or is there a scriptural command (not principle) to educate your own children in a formal way?

Recycling is a mandate in many local governments, but I don’t know of anyone that would suggest that that is a matter of church discipline. What filtration system do you use to determine which laws you will enforce religiously and which are not your problem?

im just shocked that one of your responses to illegal immigration wasn’t to try to help them become a legal citizen….

Todd,

That was one of my responses.

[Chip Van Emmerik]

Todd,

That was one of my responses.

true, but only after deporting them. I just can’t get too excited over that level of brotherly love.

[Chip Van Emmerik]

For the illegal alien, that would mean either turning themselves in or returning to their home country immediately.

So if a person is following all the rules for applying for asylum, they should then be eligible for church membership, right?

[Kevin Miller]

Chip Van Emmerik wrote:

For the illegal alien, that would mean either turning themselves in or returning to their home country immediately.

Applying for asylum would be the same as turning themselves in, wouldn’t it? Once a person applies for asylum, the process takes about 6 months. The person can even apply for permission to work after 5 months if a decision has not yet been reached. http://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum

So if a person is following all the rules for applying for asylum, they should then be eligible for church membership, right?

First, it wouldn’t be brotherly love or koinonia in any way to help a brother disobey God. Your second hypothetical answers itself. If they are not breaking any laws, there is no problem.

[Kevin Miller]

Chip, I’m curious what you feel the response of a local church should be if an illegal alien were to get saved and want to join that church. Would such an individual be ineligible for membership due to their lawlessness? Would it be okay for them to be a member as long as they were seeking asylum, or would they actually have to be granted asylum first so that they would be legal? Do churches even ask about immigration status when people want to become members? (Other people besides Chip can answer as well.)

Kevin,

I have some limited experience working with recent immigrants (both legal and illegal) while we lived in southern NM. We had a boy who came to church very faithfully whose father was in the US illegally, although we did not find out about his immigration status until later. For the first year that I knew the boy, his father was in federal prison for illegally entering the country. After serving his sentence, he was deported back to Mexico, and within just a few days he was back in the states. When he was home, he brought the entire family to church regularly (while he was in prison, we brought the children on the church van), worked hard and paid all the bills. He even told his wife that he wanted her to quit her job and stay home to take care of the kids. He was not a perfect husband or father, but the family was certainly more stable when he was around, and he claimed to be a born again believer.

I still remember the day that ICE raided his home and dragged him out in handcuffs in front of his 3 children. As you can imagine, it was quite traumatic for his 12-year-old son, and he became very angry. He wasn’t angry with ICE for deporting his father, but with his father for causing the entire family to face such turmoil again. At only 12 years of age, he understood that it wasn’t the US government who was at fault but his father, who had persisted in putting their entire family in jeopardy by violating the law.

By breaking the law, he put his family in dire financial straights, since he had convinced his wife to quit her job, in the process making it harder for her to find work once he was gone. He forced his wife to be a single mother to their children, and he forced his children to be without their father. As I see it, those actions most definitely would prevent him from being considered for church membership, and had we known about his status we may have taken a different approach in our ministry to him and his family.

I am not sure that churches need to ask about a person’s immigration status, but certainly one’s obedience to the civil magistrates should be positively affirmed by all who would be members of a local church (Romans 13:1-5).

This article by Thomas Sowell focuses on a crucial question for those of you advocating some form of amnesty for illegal aliens. Since America is a substantially “better” place to live than the vast majority of countries today, where do you draw the line? On what basis will you stop anyone from crossing the border?

The real issue when it comes to immigration is not simply what particular immigration policy America should have, but whether America can have any immigration policy at all.

[Chip Van Emmerik]

This article by Thomas Sowell focuses on a crucial question for those of you advocating some form of amnesty for illegal aliens. Since America is a substantially “better” place to live than the vast majority of countries today, where do you draw the line? On what basis will you stop anyone from crossing the border?

The real issue when it comes to immigration is not simply what particular immigration policy America should have, but whether America can have any immigration policy at all.

1. People in families without fathers.

2. People who are uneducated.

3. People with “counterproductive or dangerous cultures.”

The article doesn’t take the time to mention what a counterproductive or dangerous culture actually is. Would the kids coming from Central America be bringing in a dangerous culture, or is this article actually talking about eliminating the possibility of immigration from Islamic cultures? The article states, “Questions about immigration and citizenship are questions about irreversible decisions that can permanently change the composition of the American population and the very culture of the country.” Should our goal actually be to keep a uniform “composition” to our population? If so, then laws would need to be changed in a lot more areas than just immigration, and I doubt people would support THOSE laws. Does Congress need to start defining our specific culture in order to keep out those people who do not fit it?

Why would the article start out by saying, “the real issue when it comes to immigration is not simply what particular immigration policy America should have,” and then list a whole bunch of groups that should be included in America’s policy? Is the article intending to say that we should keep EVERYBODY out in order to preserve ourselves from the groups that were listed?