The Church and Immigration by Dan Allison
A recent article in the St. Petersburg Times (February 9, 2008) led with this headline: “America’s Muslim population is gaining a Hispanic accent.” Times staff
writer Sherri Day reports that, “Since 2001, Hispanics in the United
States have embraced Islam in increasing numbers.” Ms. Day says
scholars believe that between 75,000 and 200,000 Hispanics now practice
Islam in the United States; their numbers are not only growing, but the
rate of increase in those numbers is also growing.
Ms. Day’s article then focuses on a group of Hispanic-Muslim women
based in Tampa. The group, Piedad (Spanish for “purity”), has about
thirty members and meets on a monthly basis to discuss the unique
problems of Hispanic-Moslem women as well as topics like marriage and
child-rearing. Most of the women are ex-Catholics, and one told the
reporter something utterly astonishing:
“To me, (Islam) is more logical. And logic tells me to pray to
God, not to pray to candles and statues…Before, I had to speak to Mary
to get to Jesus to get to the Holy Spirit to get to God. Now, I just
pray to Allah.”
Plainly, someone along the way failed to teach this lady exactly
what Christianity is. I know plenty of American Catholics, and none of
them pray to candles or statues. In fact, I believe many American
Catholics are “saved” (and many are not – just like Presbyterians,
Baptists, and people in any other Christian church). Apparently the
situation is different south of the border, where Catholicism, it
seems, still smacks of magic and voodoo and outlandishness. While
American Catholics and evangelicals often work together, in Hispanic
nations the groups remain in competition and sometimes in direct
conflict.
If I had only two options, of course, I’d prefer John Paul or Pope
Benedict over, say, Osama bin Laden as a cultural and spiritual leader,
but that’s a topic for another essay. The point here is that no one
ever explained Christianity to this ex-Catholic, now-Moslem woman.
Perhaps no one ever explained it to the tens of thousands of Hispanics
now practicing Islam in our nation. In Colossians, Paul makes the
centrality of Christ abundantly clear: he tells the Colossians to
forget about praying to angels and saints, candles and statues, anyone
or anything except Jesus Christ, the Living Son of the Living God.
Through Jesus, and Jesus alone, we can approach the Father in confident
prayer. We can’t approach the Father directly because we are sinners,
and our relationship with Him was ruptured by the Fall. But we can
approach God directly in the sense that Jesus is God the Son, the
approachable essence and representation of God the Father. This is
basic Christianity.
Forgive me for taking so long to get to my real point, which is
this: why are these ex-Catholic Hispanics choosing Islam over
Reformed/evangelical Christianity? What’s wrong with our missions and
evangelization efforts?
Some of you might be offended, but here I go. I believe Hispanics
perceive that white, “right-wing conservative Christians” are against
them. They’ve heard the politicians and the talk-show hosts advocate
rounding them up, denying them basic services, and sending them back to
a life of grinding, hopeless poverty under corrupt and criminal
governments.
Look, friends, no one believes in enforcing the laws more than I
do, and no one mourns more than I the loss of the America we used to
know (even though we know that all earthly things must pass away). It’s
terribly easy to offer all kinds of rational and clever arguments
against illegal immigration (“What if someone crawled through your
window instead of knocking on your door? Isn’t it rude to cut in line
in front of others?”) I’ve thought like this myself for a lot of years,
but I’m beginning to think in a way that I sense is a little deeper
and, I hope, a little more Godly.
Firstly, rational thinking and logical argumentation doesn’t go
very far in today’s “postmodern” world. I can prove with logic and
rationality – a hundred different ways – that unborn children are
people who have a right to live, but all that logic and reason fails to
change one law, one heart, or one mind. The jury that acquitted O.J.
Simpson of murder had a mountain of evidence proving his guilt; they
simply didn’t like the facts.
Similarly, all the logical, reasoned arguments against illegal
immigration have gone nowhere with anyone. Immigration from the
overpopulated southern hemisphere into the northern hemisphere is a
world-historical trend, it has been since the 1960s, and nothing and no
one is going to stop it. John McCain and Hilary Clinton and Barack
Obama aren’t going to stop it. Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul and Tom
Tancredo and Pat Buchanan aren’t going to stop it. Nobody’s going to
build a fence. Nobody’s going to be rounded up and deported. It’s
reality-check time.
The sad truth is, the “conservative ideology” held to so dearly by
the talk show talkers (and many of the evangelical leaders) sometimes
is not the highest Christian view. If Hispanic people perceive that
American Christians are “against” them, we can’t be surprised if the
Moslems welcome these people with open arms and successfully evangelize
them.
So let’s open our Christian hearts to Hispanic people and pay less
attention to whether or not their immigration here is technically legal
or illegal. Let’s focus some mission work and evangelism efforts on
reaching these people who’ve never heard true Christianity explained.
After all, as Christ’s representatives to a broken and hurting world,
we should understand that whether or not a person gets into Heaven is a
whole lot more important than whether or not a person gets into the
United States.
Dan Allison 2-18-08 |
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