From the Roman centurion to the woman at the well, Jesus frequently interacted with and helped outsiders from differing tribes. His teachings regularly command love and hospitality toward immigrants and strangers, and at no point in the Bible does anyone ever call him an open-borders globalist.
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–“Love your neighbor as yourself” is quite inclusive and universal, extending beyond those who look and talk like us to include all of humanity.
–Jesus deliberately makes a despised foreign minority the hero of the Good Samaritan story.
–In Luke 4:24–27 a new-to-preaching Jesus enrages a hometown Nazareth crowd when he speaks of the Widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17) and Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5) as outsiders who were blessed by God during periods when the Israelites were not. He challenges any nationalist or ethnocentric beliefs about who God loves and aligns himself with foreign outsiders. The crowd responds by trying to throw him off a cliff.
–And of course, the small matter of Jesus clearly stating that he’ll judge us on that welcome-the-stranger business in Matthew 25:40, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
So what’s an immigrant-hating Christian to do?
There aren’t really any Bible verses devoted to “repelling the stranger.” But Christians who hate the undocumented have found a way around this: by ignoring all of the Old Testament, all of Jesus, and talking about law and order.
THE CLAIM: “Illegals are lawbreakers, so Jesus’s teachings don’t apply.”
In April 2018, Trump White House Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy for undocumented entry into the US. Under this policy, all adults caught crossing the border illegally were to be criminally prosecuted, while their children were classified as “unaccompanied minors” and placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services. This led to a policy that separated children from parents as a deterrent. America was stealing migrant kids.
Sessions, a Methodist, cited Romans 13 to justify the policy: “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”
Paul even goes on to say: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:1–2).
Romans 13? Hello again, Paul.
THE SCRIPTURE: Romans 13:1–2: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders supported Sessions’s use of Romans 13, emphasizing that it is “very biblical to enforce the law.”
THE DEBUNKING: First, if one wishes to interpret Romans 13:1–2 as divine endorsement of governmental authority, one must ignore all those inconvenient biblical themes of compassion, hospitality, and justice for the stranger and the marginalized. Scholars call this “throwing out Jesus and the entire Old Testament to pathetically cling to one line of Paul.”
Moreover, whenever a Democratic president has been in office, our Republican friends haven’t been so keen on “respecting the governing authorities,” as you may have noticed over the past few decades.
Finally, any foreigner standing on US soil has the right to claim asylum.
So where does the “illegal” part come in?
Paul, however, is not the anti-immigrant hero Christian nationalists have waited for. Consider the chapter that comes just before: “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers” (Romans 12:13 NRSVA).
And be sure to get your immigrant-hating, Romans-citing friend’s take on: “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8). “Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10).
Paul even goes on to say: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:1–2).
THE CLAIM: “God’s intention is for people to live in distinct and segregated nations.”
THE SCRIPTURE: Some anti-immigration fundamentalists are fond of Genesis 11:1–9, aka the Tower of Babel. Humanity, united by one language, settles on a plain in Shinar and begins constructing a tower to reach the heavens and make a name for themselves. God, annoyed, confuses their languages and disperses them, ending the construction.
Take it up with Jesus, nationalists.
Many choose to interpret this story as God wanting firm borders. But the central issue in Genesis 11 is not the separation of people, but their collective pride and attempt to challenge God’s authority. Yes, God confuses the language and scatters everyone, thereby creating linguistic and cultural diversity. But all that proves is that within the Bible, diversity is presented as part of God’s divine plan.
God doesn’t spend much time obsessing over the invisible lines in the ground we’ve created to separate our tribes.
THE CLAIM: “We must take care of our own first.”
It’s very human to justify prioritizing resources and attention for native born citizens over immigrants or refugees, especially if the human is JD Vance. However, as you may have guessed, this take is fundamentally at odds with Messiahs who emphasize self-sacrificial love, inclusion, and care for the vulnerable regardless of nationality or identity.
THE SCRIPTURE: None.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus specifically rejecting the idea of limiting compassion to one’s own group. A despised foreigner is the character who fulfills God’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus wraps this up with the command: “Go and do likewise.” This directly refutes any charming argument that Christians should prioritize care for “their own.”
Jesus called for his followers to sacrifice themselves at the expense of others:
–“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
–“Sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Luke 12:33).
How far individuals take this is, of course, up to them. But these teachings challenge any notion of hoarding resources for oneself—or one’s precious group—at the expense of others in need. Take it up with Jesus, nationalists.
THE CLAIM: “God told Nehemiah to build a wall, so Trump’s wall is totally biblical.”
In 2016, Donald Trump’s racist fantasia of a wall to keep out migrants and refugees offended Pope Francis, who’d said while visiting Mexico: “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel.” Pope Francis clarified that he was not telling Catholics how to vote, but it didn’t matter.
After years of publicly suggesting that President Obama was secretly Muslim, an outraged Trump cried, “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”
And that’s how he got into a fight with the pope. The nice pope.
His Holiness versus His Assholiness.
Of course, Pope Francis calling Donald Trump “not Christian” is like James Brown calling Trump “not Black.” But when it was pointed out that a wall spanning our southern border violated the Bible’s commandments to welcome the stranger, the right found a brand-new way to go around Jesus.
THE SCRIPTURE: The book of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah was a Jewish official and cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes I (likely Artaxerxes I of Persia, who ruled 465–424 BCE). Being the official “cupbearer” likely meant Nehemiah was a eunuch, a class of people who were, in Deuteronomy, forbidden access to temple worship.
But Nehemiah was ordered to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, which had been destroyed during the Babylonian conquest. This was a symbol of restoration, renewal, and the fulfillment of God’s promises to His people.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this presented as proof that Christians are supposed to build walls to keep out the undesirables. Why listen to Jesus when you can disfigure Old Testament stories to demonize migrants?
THE DEBUNKING: The only problems with this thesis would be that:
1. God never actually speaks to Nehemiah.
2. Nehemiah didn’t build a wall to keep out immigrants and asylum seekers.
3. Nehemiah lived five hundred years before Christ, aka it’s not Christian.
4. Jesus, whom Christians are supposed to follow, commands us to welcome the stranger.
5. Nehemiah was a eunuch.
6. They’re comparing Donald Trump to a eunuch.
In 2023, the Houston Chronicle published an editorial on Christmas Eve, titled “How Would Governor Greg Abbott Treat Mary and Joseph at the Border?”
Governor Abbott was by then known as one of the harshest and most inhumane Christian politicians when it came to border crossings. He wanted voters to see him being as cruel as possible to those undocumented brown folks who keep coming here for all those jobs white Texan employers keep handing out.
Now, this shouldn’t have been controversial. You don’t have to like undocumented immigration to agree that these are humans who deserve to be treated like humans.
Abbott was not, it must be noted, interested in punishing the employers who hire undocumented labor, which is, again, the reason they come here. That’s how we generally know this is all a scam.
Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021, which deployed the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety to the border, arresting asylum seekers who were legally entitled to seek protection. He began busing migrants from Texas to other states in very public media stunts that used vulnerable and confused humans as pawns.
But in 2022, Governor Abbott topped himself when he ordered the installation of razor wire along sections of the Rio Grande River. What better way to honor Christ’s commandment to welcome the stranger than slicing up some of the more desperate ones?
A federal judge and the US Supreme Court all ordered Abbott to remove the razor wire. The governor, apparently not a fan of Paul’s letter to the Romans about respecting authorities, ignored the orders and continued to let migrants be shredded in the river.
The Houston Chronicle’s Christmas Eve 2023 editorial was devastating: “Like Joseph and Mary and their child, more than 100 million people around the world are estimated to have been displaced this year, many of them on the move this very night. Refugees and migrants, they are fleeing persecution, grinding poverty, war, and unspeakable violence.”
The editorial finished with: “The Christmas story we tell, the story the infant Jesus grew up to tell, counsels sympathy toward the less fortunate, compassion for those in need, kindness toward strangers.”
Now, this shouldn’t have been controversial. You don’t have to like undocumented immigration to agree that these are humans who deserve to be treated like humans.
The day after Christmas, Abbott tweeted, “[The Chronicle] doesn’t know the story of Mary & Joseph. They weren’t ‘refugees’ (look up definition). Read Luke 2:1–10. They were ordered by the govt to go to Bethlehem to register for the census. Nice distortion. Doing Devil’s work.”
THE CLAIM: Calling Mary and Joseph “refugees” is “doing devil’s work.”
THE SCRIPTURE: Luke 2:1–10 tells the story of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem for the census: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world” (Luke 2:1).
Let’s note that there’s no historical evidence of any Roman census with those requirements ever being carried out. And if you’ll take a moment to think about it, on what planet would any government order a nationwide census to return to your ancestral home?
What the governor really gets wrong is that the census story isn’t even what the Chronicle was talking about. The editorial wasn’t referencing Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem, but their flight to Egypt, to flee persecution.
After Jesus’s birth, they had to escape Herod’s decree that all male children under two should be killed. “An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him’” (Matthew 2:13).
Mary and Joseph were absolutely refugees according to both the dictionary and the Gospel of Matthew. They fled Herod’s kingdom to escape violence, took their child to Egypt and stayed there for years, in hiding.
Our right-wing Christians are fighting to turn away the most desperate foreign refugees, all while worshiping Jesus, who was once a foreign refugee.
This means that Joseph and Mary most certainly did not “respect the governing authorities.” It also means that Jesus of the Bible spent his formative years as an undocumented kid.
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Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang is available from Avid Reader Press.