Growing up, I had several teachers in school who talked about America as the "great melting pot." America, where immigrants were welcome. America, where our diversity made us beautiful.
Over these past few years, I found myself asking: What happened to all those messages? How did the script get so flipped that now immigrants are who make our country bad or bring us down? When did we lose that pride in being a country of immigrants?
However, as I was working on putting together a presentation on immigration (coming soon on YouTube!), I dove deep into studying the history of immigration in the United States. I realized that this flipping of sentiment was not so out of the blue after all. It was not so sudden, and it was certainly not new.
From the very beginning, the founders declared the United States was a country for "free white people." Mostly, they meant men. Free white men. Over the course of immigration history, time and time again, when lawmakers had the opportunity to change this narrative, they chose not to. This thread of a country for white people carries forward throughout our policies and practices.
What do we see in history? Exclusion laws for Chinese people and white women who marry Chinese men. Strict restrictions on people from Mexico and the Americas. Bans on immigration from Middle Eastern countries. The internment of the Japanese, many of whom were citizens. The racial rejection of refugees from WWI and II, including or perhaps especially people of Jewish descent. The racial targeting of Muslim and Sikh followers after 9/11. And so on and so on.
There have been many who have compared our current situation to Nazi Germany in the 30s leading up to the Holocaust, but we forget to mention that Hitler studied us to learn about how to turn members of a population against one another. (By the way, it should be noted that the U.S. currently is holding in immigration detention centers three times as many people as the Nazis had in concentration camps in 1939... just before the start of WWII.)
The one thing that has been consistent over immigration history is a desire to increase immigration from Northern and Western Europe. Think about who lives in those areas. Specifically, think about the color of their skin. When you study this more in depth, you see the threads of white supremacy and theories of eugenics that underline all of these major policy decisions. Certainly, these threads are impacting immigration decisions being made today. (Reese Jones does an amazing job explaining this in his book, "White Borders.")
This is the history I never learned in school. The dark side of our history. The dark side has now come out into broad daylight and is being demonstrated in increasingly violent ways in our city streets.
I was taught to be proud of America. That it was the greatest country in the world. The more I learn about our shameful past and the more disgraceful things that are happening in our present, the more I’ve come to realize that America is just a country like any other. It has had its high points and it has had its low points (right now is a very low point). We need to study both. We need to see the country for what it is.
We are a country of flawed, sinful people who have often allowed greed and pride and the sin of white supremacy to lead rather than our stated values of truth and justice. We claim to be a Christian country, and yet, time and time again, we have not acted very Christian.
We have condoned and participated in slavery. We have slaughtered, sidelined, and stolen from the indigenous people who lived here before we did. We have condoned racial segregation and the subjugation of people based on the color of their skin. We have discriminated against pretty much every people group that is not white men. We have started wars, gotten involved in wars that had nothing to do with us, and have justified the blood on our hands. We have created a society that privileges the wealthy above the poor, even though the Bible clearly states it’s supposed to be the other way around. We fail to meet the basic needs of our people, like health care and livable wages and affordable healthy food options. We have lax gun laws that result in thousands of innocent deaths every year. We kill people on death row. We think ourselves superior in front of a Savior who told us the first shall be last.
We cannot claim to be a Christian nation when we are decidedly un-Christian in our values, our laws, and our actions.
Truth be told, I am not concerned about living in a Christian nation. There are Christians all around the world who live in nations that are not Christian, and yet the Church maintains its integrity and continues to grow. I am not concerned about living in a Christian nation because that is not what the Bible tells us to do. The Bible tells us to build the Kingdom of God, not a kingdom of man. A Kingdom not governed by rules or laws, but by love.
My concern is with the Church. Jesus told us to go out and make disciples - not converts. Disciples follow the way of Jesus. Disciples love and care for others. Disciples multiply. If we are focused on building a nation rather than God's Kingdom, we are not growing disciples, as their focus and their loyalty are misguided.
My concern is also with the least of these. God's heart for the least of these bleeds all throughout Scripture from cover to cover. God loves the needy. The vulnerable, the suffering, and the poor. The sidelined, marginalized, ostracized, and targeted. And He gives us clear instructions to care for them.
Our duty is to the least of these. Not to a nation nor a flag nor a king. But to the people.
And we are failing.
The more we fail, the more people are turned away from God because He doesn’t seem real. We are to be the imago dei in this world. The image of God. We can only do that if we actually do the things He said to do. Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly. Love your neighbor. Feed the hungry. Welcome the stranger.
As our political leaders fail us and as democracy is dying a violent death, it is even more important that the Church rise to take care of those who are hurting.
What will you do? Where is your place? How can you show the love of God today?
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