With the carnival of carnage continuing unabated in the Middle East, so much is unknown. What is pretty certain is this: More refugees. When homes, hospitals, groceries and gas stations are reduced to rubble, Gazans will be looking for new places to live.
Maybe you side with presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis who says they should be taken in by Middle Eastern countries, not the U.S. Maybe you think we should throw open the doors as we did recently for Ukrainians.
Either way, I’m wondering how you feel about the idea of sanctuary. Not what you call the room where you hold worship services, but allowing migrants to stay in your church building even though they lack legal right to remain in the U.S.
If someone was being deported and you understood their life was legitimately in danger in their homeland, would you try to help them by letting them stay in your church? Whether “yes” or “no,” I’m curious how you come to the decision.
If you think, “I’m not sure a church building is really much protection,” you’re right. While no law prevents ICE from serving warrants at churches, some reports indicate they’re reluctant to. If you think, “My church is tiny. No one wants to stay there,” you might be right. Although my guess is that the tiniest of churches beats the specter of torture and death back home.
Maybe your mind goes quickly to Paul’s admonition in Romans 13.1, to “be subject to the governing authorities.” But we’ve always realized there’re moral limits to that verse, haven’t we?
I admire churches in the U.S. who are taking risks to care for migrants this way, but I realize it’s easy to be for something that’s likely not going to happen where I live, to “pre-decide” a decision I likely won’t be called upon to make. That admitted, the world does seem to be on a Tilt-a-Whirl right now. Who knows what decisions we might actually face?