Below is a letter that I received from a friend of mine who is Latino and Reformed. It is a plea to the Reformed Churches to reach the Samaritans of our day:
On this May Day, as we see in the news or in your home town the Latino/Mexica people protesting and marching for immigration rights, I would like to offer these insights and even challenge.
How will the Reformed and Presbyterian Church respond to the growing number of immigrants, particularly the Latino/Mexica immigrants, which are the largest group?
Will individual Reformed and Presbyterians jump on the Republican, Nationalist, anti-immigration band wagon and thus alienate the immigrants from even giving an audience to the Reformed Faith? Speaking out against the "invasion" of the other cultures within our borders and wish to turn these "illegals" over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)?
OR
Will the Reformed and Presbyterian Church/individuals act like Christ and stretch out their hands to the disliked and unloved Samaritans of our time? Dine with the harlots and tax collectors (so to speak or as many see the immigrants)? The duty of Christians is to proclaim the Gospel to all people regardless of their social standing, and not to be an agent to oppress those that are perceived below their status.
We talk about sending missionaries to foreign lands, what will we do with those from foreign lands that are at our doorstep? Ignore them or reach out to them with the one True Gospel? Many of them are Roman Catholic or Muslim by profession, WE can reach out to them and by the power of the Gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit they can become followers of Christ.
The Church has a tremendous opportunity and even obligation to reach out to the newly arrival in this nation. I pray that the Church does not squander this due to political ideology that can cause Christians to act contrary to the Gospel proclamation as was done towards the African-Americans.
4 comments:
"Speaking out against the "invasion" of the other cultures within our borders and wish to turn these "illegals" over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)?"
-Does the book of Philemon have any wisdom to speak to these
matters?
-What did Paul do responding to Onesimus?
Nate, the PCA magazine, "By Faith", published an interesting article about this a couple of years ago:
http://byfaithonline.com/page/in-the-church/is-it-right-to-love-illegals
That's an excellent letter. It's a thorny subject, but it's good to be reminded of what the church's ultimate goal should be.
The Apostle preached the Gospel to Onesimus and led him to his savior.
Then he gave instruction to obey the law and be reconciled with his master.
To Philemon (the master), he paid all of the debts owed (or at least offered to) and told him to treat him as a brother.
Yes, there is a lot of useful insight in how we should treat those who are illegally here. We should preach the Gospel to them and then have them either reconciled with their own country or work with the authorities to have them naturalized. They are much more 'useful' (which is what Onesimus means in Greek) to our culture when they are Christians.
Of course, we would have to bring them the Gospel.
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