What the Bible Says About the Stranger

"Religion continues to be a powerful persuader in our societies. This is increasingly recognised in our post-modern world. One of the tasks of believers is to look to their foundational texts and see how the urgent human and ethical questions of the day are reflected in them. In the case of the Christian churches, our classic text is the Bible, which, significantly for our theme, is itself multi-cultural, both Jewish and Christian, in origin. The very collection itself is “trans-national”, in a manner of speaking.

What does the Bible have to say about the way foreigners and refugees are treated?

What does the Bible have to say about cross-cultural and cross-community issues?

Given that the Bible is both a reflection of human experience (static fact) and a resource for profound change (dynamic ideal), we find in the Bible both the fact of discrimination and ethical ideals which challenge and eventually undermine any abuse of other human beings on the grounds of race, religion, gender and so forth. Thus we may find for today material in the Bible which helps us to recognise discrimination and arms us in the struggle against it...

For our Irish context, where discrimination on the basis of religion has not been unknown, it seems important to add that, while here we are dealing primarily with racism, immigration and asylum seeking and therefore, in the first instance, with foreigners who come to our shores, cross-community issues are not at all to be excluded. It is often the case that the near neighbour is a greater stranger than the (safely) distant foreigner."

does the Bible have to say about the way foreigners and refugees are treated? What does the Bible have to say about cross-cultural and cross-community issues? Given that the Bible is both a reflection of human experience (static fact) and a resource for profound change (dynamic ideal), we find in the Bible both the fact of discriminationideals which challenge and eventually undermine any abuse of other human."

Quoted on page 3 from the Prefeace of What the Bible says about the stranger by Kieran J O’Mahony OSA. The Irish Inter-Church Meeting, AICCMR (All-Ireland Churches' Consultative Meeting on Racism) Belfast, 2nd edition, 2009.

For a PDF copy of this resource, click here.

Hospitality & Immigration

While extending hospitality as an individual or even as a church can seem complex at times, the issues surrounding hospitality on a national level are all the more difficult and nuanced as we face questions of legality and ‘rights’. Often the debate surrounding immigration starts from a position of defence: how can I counter the argument put forth that ‘our’ society is threatened by an influx of people from another country? It can be helpful to know statistics and the latest research to assist in developing counter-arguments to challenge unhelpful stereotypes and myths, but is that really the best place to begin?

As a Christian, it seems as if there is another place we might begin the conversation on immigration and the complexity of issues surrounding it. What would happen if our starting point was the Bible? What might we find in the text that could help us explore this issue further?

These questions, among others, are explored in the publication “Immigration and the Bible” published by Mennonite Mission Network (USA). While it’s written from the perspective of a North American, the Biblical commentary and challenges are universal in scope and have something to offer us all, especially the reminders that all people are created in the image of God, migration is a part of the Biblical story, the Old Testament laws helped the vulnerable in concrete ways and that the epistles called the church to have an hospitable spirit towards the ‘outsider.’