Theology in the Raw - Daniel Yang: How Should Christians Think About Immigration?

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Register for the Exiles in Babylon conference! April 30-May 2, 2026.Join me on Patreon for Bonus Episodes, Extra Innings, Discounted Tickets and more! Daniel Yang serves as the Senior Director of Global Mission and Church Movements for World Relief. Prior to that he was the director of the Church Multiplication Institute at the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. Daniel has been a pastor, church planter, engineer and technology consultant. He has planted churches in Detroit, Dallas, Toronto, and Chicago, either as the lead planter or through recruiting, training, assessing, and mentoring church planters. Daniel is a sought-after conference speaker, missional strategist, consultant, and co-author of Inalienable: How Marginalized Kingdom Voices Can Help Save the American Church (InterVarsity, May 2022) and Becoming a Future-Ready Church: 8 Shifts to Encourage and Empower the Next Generation of Leaders (Zondervan, October 2024).See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our nationality has borders, but when we operate from our Christian identity, we're part of borderless kingdom. And so it forces you to kind of think outside and transcend, you know, this current iteration of policies. And it forces you to think about like a long-term posture towards the world that is out there and then also the world that's come into your community. The Exiles and Babylon Conference is happening again, folks. April 30th through May 2nd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We're going to be talking about artificial intelligence, Christians and war, mental health in the gospel, is the Bible historically reliable, and how Christians should think about

immigration. We have so many thoughtful engaging speakers who will be at the conference, Shane Claiborne, Dan Allender, Peter, and Sandy Richter, and many others, including a couple leaders from World Relief, who will be guiding us in the Christians and Immigration session, which leads me to my guest for today's episode. Daniel Yang serves as a senior director of global mission and church movements for World Relief, and our conversation is all about immigration. Prior to his position at World Relief, Daniel was the director of the Church

Multiplication Institute at the Wheaton College, Billy Graham Center. And Daniel has been a pastor, church planner, engineer, and technology consultant. He's also the co-author of the book, Inalienable, How Marginalized Kingdom Voices can help save the American Church. How's that for our title? And becoming a future-ready church, eight shifts to encourage and empower the next generation of leaders. So please, welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Daniel Yang. Daniel, welcome to Theology Raw. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me, Preston. So you have been at World Relief for a couple years. You now serve as a senior director of global

mission and church movements for world relief. Can you tell us more about the work that you do? Give us the nitty-gritty. What is it that you do in your 9-to-5 job at World Relief? Yeah, yeah. And for those who are new to World Relief, I mean, World Relief has been an evangelical organization. It's actually the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. For 80 years, it has been what evangelicals have been doing around the world in terms of relief and development in places, especially in conflict zones. And so this kind of came out of a history of helping to rebuild Europe, eventually Korea, and then addressing issues like the AIDS epidemic.

And then in the U.S. had been primarily doing refugee resettlement. And so working with immigrants. So one of the few up until this year, one of the few organizations that were working alongside the government to resettle refugees. I came in two years ago, Preston to launch an initiative called Churches of Welcome, largely because as an organization would begin realizing that groups like refugees had always sort of been like the safe immigrant category.

You know, I use air quotes there for evangelicals. And then all of a sudden there was a shift in changing attitude towards vulnerable immigrants and suspicion. Like, you know, our refugees are really vetted and, you know, those kinds of things. and probably the elections of 2016-17, you know, there was a bit of a change in the conversation among evangelicals. And so began realizing that this is probably less of a political issue, is more of a discipleship issue. So how do we help churches really have a theological biblical conversation

around our obligations to what's happening around the world? And then how we experience that as Americans, and that is usually through immigration and welcoming refugees and vulnerable immigrants. So Church of the Welcome really became that vehicle where we came alongside churches and helped them to develop a discipleship journey. And then recently I've shifted in my role

to really reimagine the narratives in the theological framework for how we talk about the here and their aspect because, again, what we experience as quote-unquote immigration issues is actually the utter edge of what's happening in some other kind of, country where it's exploding and people are fleeing and we're having to sort of deal with the ripple effects of that.

Right. What's ironic? I don't want to get off track here, but it is a bit ironic that a lot of the countries where people are fleeing from have governments and economic systems that have been destabilized oftentimes because of prior U.S. intervention, installing dictators, disrupting the economy. And then decades later, there's people kind of fleeing those economies that come to America. And we're like, what are they doing here? You know, it's like, well, let's go back in history a little bit. Like, we had a hand in that.

Anyway, yeah. Well, I mean, let me just, let me just, you know, affirm that because if you look, let's say, for instance, a country like Niganagua, you know, which is going through a lot right now. I mean, we have a long history in terms of post-World War II involvement in places like that, you know, and I'll speak more generally, but the idea of banana republics, you know, the American CIA were very much a part of trying to install, you know, regime change. And we're having the same conversation right now about Venezuela. I mean, right now, right? And what a lot of people may not realize about the resurgent or the surge of Venezuelans that came into the country in 2018 was a direct. response to what our country's leaders at the time we're trying to do, which we sanction the oil, which if Americans know anything about Venezuela, it's oil rich.

Right. So we sanction the oil and the economy was already horrendous and the dictator was horrendous. But by sanctioning the oil, we completely collapsed the economy and that's what led to a surge of Venezuelans leaving. And so in the migration discourse, there's a saying people, come here because we first went there. Right. So that's common knowledge.

That's common knowledge and migration discourse. Yeah. It's the push and pull factors of migration. Like people don't come to the United States because there was zero relationship with the United States. There largely was an obligation from the American government to that part of the world. I was just listening to a podcast. I listened to podcasts on all sides of the political aisle and stuff just to kind of see what's

going on and I never want to be just siloed, you know, like, and I forget, I can't remember the podcast, but they were saying that like under the Biden administration, there was almost like this invitation for migrants to come legally or not legally, whatever. And so there was this massive influx of millions and millions and millions of migrants that were negatively affecting the economy, let alone, you know, among some of those migrants are according to, again, I don't even know what this is true or not, but, you know, rapists and drug dealers and everything. Not, not all of them, not even most of them, but that is, you know, a percentage. And so now Trump is cracking down, probably not in the best way, but he is trying to deal with

this migrant crisis. Of course we want immigrants. Of course. I mean, our nation is a nation of immigrants by definition. But you can't just have like tens of millions or whatever the number is of migrants coming in in a short period of time and expect that and expect that not to negatively impact people's lives that are already living here, including migrants who came in legally. How would you respond to that? Is there some truth to that? And did I even summarize that perspective correctly? Yeah, yeah, sure. And if we studied their recent history, recent history, because obviously what's happening at the southern border, and immigration and migration is so much more than just the southern border, but obviously that's the one that animates everybody right now.

You know, the recent history of the southern border, you have to go back to at least, you know, in the 90s during the NAFTA trade agreements, North American free trade agreements between Canada, U.S. and Mexico, where that was, you know, and this was under the Clinton administration. So we can speak about both administrations because I think it's true that neither political parties have sort of created a solution. But NAFTA trade agreement was supposed to help slow down some of the migration patterns, which had been since the history of our nation. There's a saying at the southern border, we didn't cross the border, the border crossed to us, meaning folks have been living there for centuries. And then we drew an arbitrary line, largely through the nationalization of America.

Right. And so, but there are folks that have been sort of going back and forth across the border for, for years. The North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to make, you know, commerce easier between the three countries. But it also allowed multinational corporations in America to, to begin doing business in Mexico and largely decimated a lot of the farmers. And so you have a multinational corporation that can come into Mexico and do corn, soybean, other types of. of things. And so that actually led to many Mexican farmers not, you know, losing their businesses, losing their farms. So that was an early wave of Mexican migrants, which again, had sort of always been the case. Most of the migrants that had been come across the border,

you know, seasonal workers had always largely been Mexican. If we go back to why did that change in 2017, 2018, and it went from largely Mexican to all of a sudden in Venezuela. And that goes to the point that I was making earlier before. It was because the administration at the time sanctioned oil, among other things, trying to topple the dictator, which again, we're doing today right now in 2025. That same dictator is still there. And so think about this. I mean, again, it was already a terrible economy. So it wasn't like it was doing well. That's mismanagement of the dictator. But inflation goes up to like 1,000 percent more, beyond a thousand percent, right?

It costs $7 to buy a banana, right? It's just, it's not sustainable. It's not livable. And so what was already a collapse became sort of a complete, like, demise of the economy. And so many of the Venezuelans that have been going over to Colombia and other countries, obviously they look to the north because here's the Americans trying to topple this terrible dictator, right? they must be they must be trying to help us right and so the the whether that's whether that was true or not true the perception was Americans are trying to help us because they're trying to topple this terrible dictator and so the journey began from Venezuela to to the United States

which then again sort of created a pathway that others like Haitians and then Cubans who are fleeing similar situations right terrible economic conditions began. So that began happening already during the Trump number one administration. And so that wave was already happening and it was growing. And so the Biden administration came in and basically said, we can't, in an effort to try to curb the border crossings, let's create a pathway for Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans to come through so that they don't essentially, like, illegally cross the border, right? And so that's the pathway that most are talking about when they're talking about Biden led in a lot of immigrants. It was because, in his

mind, he was trying to solve what was happening by undocumented crossings. And it was, and it's probably certainly true that it sort of then encouraged even more people to go to the border because now they saw an administration that was friendly to this group of people

and so that encouraged even more people to come and I do I don't want to spend the whole time on politics but I do have more questions I do want to ultimately help you to let's get down into the church let's get down in a theology

and cultivate a Christian perspective on what's going on same um but you know within the political arena there's lots of stuff going on right now in real time um i mean we're recording what mid-october so depending on when this is released um some of this might be past news we'll see it doesn't seem like it's really slowing down but um you live in chicago is that correct and right now there's massive things happen in chicago uh ice raids and the whole thing seems incredibly politicized. I was telling you offline that, you know, I could watch one news channel and it's a bunch of, you know, people burning down stuff, rioting. And then another video is ICE agents going in and zip tying children and mothers and legal, you know,

documented immigrants who have been here for decades, you know? What's really going on? Like, can you give us any insight into like how we should think through what's going on? Chicago? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, unless it's AI, both both, both videos that are being shown online are probably are certainly true. There are people who are being threatened by the increased enforcement of not just ICE, but Border Patrol, because there's a number of Border Patrol that have been deployed, and then also the National Guard. And so the, the, the, the, the raid that happened two weeks ago, as of this recording, south side of Chicago, largely black community, the apartment complex, which I believe held around 900 people. Everyone in that apartment

complex was detained for some time, including children. And so, you know, that certainly did happen. And a large number of them, a majority of them American citizens, because again, it was a largely black and brown community, African Americans as well. And so, you know, you have the helicopters and, you know, folks sort of repelling down the wall. Every apartment complex, from my understanding, was, was smashed in. And so very upsetting to, to the community members there. So that's going on. And then what you're seeing on the news right now is an ICE detention center in Broadview, which is a suburb right outside of the city. And the protesters that are showing up there range from everyday people who their families have been detained.

And so the children are there just trying to figure out what's going on with my parents to professional organizers that are paid to really sort of stir things up, you know, because that's certainly true. We saw that happening in places like L.A. and we saw this, every time there's sort of some kind of riot, you know, we're not riot, but sort of kind of demonstration, there's always vocational, you know, paid organizers. But then you also have, you know, pastors and clergy that, you know, show up and, you know, they're trying to really sort of be a presence of God there. And then you saw probably last week, earlier this week, where one of them was shot in the head with one of those pepper spray bullets or something.

It wasn't a paint gun, but, yeah. So I think all of that stuff is true, Preston. In my neighborhood, I live in Aurora, which is the second largest city in Illinois. We're about 40 minutes outside of downtown, 47% Hispanic. We have ice trucks that patrol. I've lived here for almost nine years. I've never seen this before my life where ice trucks are patrolling. My wife does community outreach to our neighborhood.

and, you know, last week she was having some folks over, and two of them said, you know, we're not coming over because of the presence of ice trucks. And so that's just the lived experience. And, I mean, my neighborhood is not ground zero. We do have a large number of dreamers. And so Chicago is one of the largest population centers for dreamers, second generation. Can you explain, yeah, what dreamers? Yeah. Yeah.

So dreamers are, are migrant children that. came to the United States undocumented with their parents, but they were granted a pathway that protects them from deportation since they came here really young. And so, and there's a renewal period. And so there currently isn't a permanent pathway for all dreamers, but they can renew their, their dreamer status. And so many dreamers are well into their 40s right now and have been here all of their life. So virtually. So they're not, they're not U.S. citizens, but it would be illegal to deport them. Like they have, that's right. They're protected. They're protected legally to be here, even if they don't have a U.S. passport.

That's right. So if they are attacked and detained and deported, that would be a federal offense, right? I mean, that would be, should be. I don't know if it would be a federal offense, but I mean, it would not be awful, you know, for them to be detained. And we're seeing this with other populations, not just dreamers as well. I mean, you have folks that are in-country seeking asylum. They're waiting for their asylum case. This is true about many Iranians who were persecuted and they fled here because of that. And so they were detained and deported. And so they just weren't given due process that was promised to them through the asylum process. So going back to that apartment building where you said there were hundreds of people that were detained,

the majority or all were actual U.S. citizens, at least a majority? Is that like that? Yeah. And so detained, again, detained doesn't necessarily mean deported or taken to a detention center. But they were detained, put aside, many of them investigated. The children that you saw zip tied together, you know, sort of, you know, were kind of off in a corner, you know, until they can kind of sort through everything. And so, yeah.

I don't understand. I mean, that doesn't make any sense to me. Like, I, and I, I mean, if I was zip tied or my kids were zip tied in front of me, like, I would be like, I would not be okay. Like, that wouldn't be right. I don't care if I wasn't deported back to Armenia or England, wherever I used to come from, whatever. But I mean, these, is it just because they have, they're not, I mean, I, is it just

because they have brown skin or was there some sort of like? like credible suspicion that there's lots of like undocumented people in that building that were drug dealers and rape like was there was I'm just trying to I'm trying to think of the like what is the the how can I steal man yeah yeah what is going on like what is the best case for this was a legitimate raid yes they found out they were you know citizens so they did you know cut the zip ties, whatever. Still, it's like, what was the basis for them to go in and do this to people who have every right to be here? That just makes no sense to me. That particular mission was they were looking for Venezuelan gang members that they believed were living

in that apartment complex. And so, again, I don't have any insight as to why the operation unfolded the way that it did. But it apparently looked like, It was sort of like, you know, blitz them all and then triaged through the different groups of people afterwards. Did they get the game members? Are they gone? Did they arrest? I'm sure they had apprehended, yeah, they haven't released names or anything like that. I'm sure they apprehended numbers of people that they had intended to apprehend. So, yeah. Well, you're being very diplomatic.

Tell me what's going on. Like when you talk about this. We don't. So, I mean, I don't know all the statuses of the. the people that were detained, right? I mean, that's not public information. They don't, there isn't like, out of the 900 people that were handcuffed, you know, here are the, like, I don't, I don't have access to that information.

And so the community members who lived in that apartment complex, they don't have access to who were eventually detained and eventually are going to be deported. So there is some database out there that's really sort of behind all of this and none of us have access to that database. Okay. So we really don't know what percentage were part of a Venezuelan gang or how many were U.S. citizens have been near generations, how many were dreamers, how many were seeking asylum. We don't know the specifics on. We don't know the quote-unquote undocumented population that was sort of certainly detained or deport or facing deportation.

We do know the American citizens who were who were. detained or, you know, sort of apprehended that day and released because they're very vocal. They were very vocal about it. Well, I would be. Yeah, yeah, certainly. I'm a citizen. Certainly. We're all Americans.

They're all migrants. I don't care what color of your skin is. You are a migrant on some level, unless you're a Native American, I guess. I share that, you know, because, you know, as a person who lives in these kinds of communities, like I'm sharing this with you Preston as sort of a citizen you know these are you know these are community members I go my kids go to a school where there's a large number of

of the kids' parents who are undocumented and so you know this is sort of ground level like what people are feeling I texted my school superintendent the other day and say what's our plan for when somebody in our school their parents get detained so you know it is the lived experience, you know, I think as an organization, world relief, you know, we're asking

the question like the church can't solve the politics, you know, I think the church can be a voice. The church can, but, and there's a sense in which maybe the politics don't want to be solved, you know, because there were opportunities last year. There was a border bill that was proposed last year that was not voted on that could have potentially resolved some of the stuff that we're seeing happen today. But where can the church be present? And I think that's probably top of mind for me is like amid all that's happening. Where can the church be present? So that's certainly the conversation we're trying to advance. So as you probably know, I talk a lot about health on this podcast. And one major area of health is your sleep. And the quality of your sleep is

directly impacted by the quality, what you're sleeping on, even the kinds of sheets you use. This is why I recently switched over to bowl and branch sheets. Probably like many of you, I heard about bowl and branch from ads on other podcasts, and I wondered what all the hype was. So I tried them out, and I must say they are noticeably different. Bull and branches' sheets are made with the finest 100% organic cotton and a soft, breathable durable weave. They are so comfortable, and the more you wash them, the softer they get, the more

comfortable they get. Now, the biggest test for me is the breathability of sheets. I tend to sleep really hot, like sweaty hot. And I recently found out that this is actually not good. You shouldn't be sleeping in a pool of sweat. It's not good for the quality of your sleep. With Bull and Branch, I no longer do. Their sheets are super breathable. And because of Bull and Branch is high-quality cotton, their sheets actually last longer and get comfier over time. So feel the difference that an extraordinary night's sleep can make with Bull and Branch. Get 20. 20% off plus free shipping on your first set of sheets at bowl and branch.com forward slash t-I-T-R.

That's bowl and branch, B-O-L-L-L-A-N-D, B-R-A-N-C-H. Make sure I spell that right. Bullandbranch.com T-I-T-R to save 20% off and unlock free shipping. Exclusions apply. Okay, I'm turning 50 years old next year. I can't believe it. And I'm already feeling the effects of aging. I mean, our bodies simply make less energy as we get older,

but now you can help recharge the batteries of your cells by taking Mitapur's longevity gummies, which transform cellular damage into energy by delivering six times more Eur Lithian A than a glass of pomegranate juice. Matapur is the only Euro-Lithian A supplement on the market clinically proven to target the effects of age-related cellular decline.

And now you can take this powerful supplement in gummy form. That's right, the first ever longevity gummies, powered by mitochondria make it easier to put energy into your day. The longevity gummies will increase your sustained energy, boost muscle endurance, and support faster recovery after exercise. If you want to stay strong and energized now as you age, then you have to try these might appear gumbies. And my friends over at Timeline are offering my listeners a free sample of the new might appear gummies. Just head over to Timeline.com forward slash theology gummies to get started. That's timeline.com forward slash theology gummies.

Your cells will thank you. So let's, yeah, let's shift gears a little bit. Let's let's get out of the political realm a little bit and follow your lead and trying to maybe steer people from just, you know, scrolling Twitter and Instagram and getting all upset and everything. And if the images are seeing, like, let's, how can Christians productively and Christianly respond to the immigration, call it a crisis, or let's just say, the immigration things that are happening right now.

Yeah. What does that look like? Well, I think there's tears. And depending who you are in sort of your engagement with church leadership, I mean, you might have different approaches. But I think as Christians, you have to go back and really, like, try to understand, like, the heart of scripture behind this, because we're not left without. sort of a framework, you know, throughout all the pages of scriptures. I mean, from the Old

Testament to the new, God has a very special place for foreigners and strangers. As a matter of fact, there are parts in, you know, Leviticus where God will remind his people, you, you were once, you know, foreigners yourself, and therefore you should not mistreat foreigners in your own way. This is sort of like the ethos of the early people of God, right? God was reminding them that, hey, you can't do to foreigners among you what happened to you when you were in Egypt and other places, right? So he wanted his people to be marked for the dignity that they gave to people, even to those that were different than them. And I would say this, man, probably in the Old Testament times, it was harder to do that then than it is to do it in 2025. It was harder to welcome the stranger, welcome the foreigner, treat them as if they're one of you.

It's hard to do that in that environment in the ancient Near East than it is today. But yet, God, that was sort of like the heartbeat. As a matter of fact, a part of the growth of the nation of Israel was that they were so good at hospitality that, you know, people think that Israel grew as a nation primarily biologically. That's not true. A large reason why Israel did grow as a people is because they were able to welcome people into their field and integrate them, you know, into their culture. And so I think that's one aspect. There's certainly, you know, I mean, probably the key text that people often point to is Matthew 25 where Jesus talks about welcoming the stranger. You're welcoming me.

And I think for several years, we had primarily thought about like, this is our obligation to help, you know, foreigners and immigrants. And that's probably still, you know, a good reading or application of that. But I think deeper in what Jesus is saying there, and it's true what Jesus is saying about, like, the poor and others, is that God is present among the sojourner and the foreigner in the migrant in a very special way, you know, just like he's present among the poor in a very special way. He is present among the weak in a very special way. And so I think we have to ask and we have to grapple with that. Like, how is it that, you know, there's 123 million displaced people today. That's one in 70 people. I mean, that's a huge chunk of humanity that have had to leave home because of war, catastrophe, persecution, something like that.

And Jesus is present among them in a very special way. And so I think there is a deep, like, we have to ask ourselves, what's our obligation to the displaced? What's our obligation to the foreigner and the sojourner? and how do we honor and find the dignity of God in them? And so I think there's some theological pinnings that we have to really dig deep into because if we don't, then we sort of kind of revert to not our theological identity. We primarily revert to our national identity or our ethnic identity to try to solve for some of this. And although those things really are important, our deeper identity, obviously, is biblical and theological.

school. But, you know, probably pressing, going a few levels above that, most of us just need to really, if we live in a community that have recently arrived immigrants and migrants, we need to better understand like what's happening right now. For instance, many of them are going to lose. If they're a refugee recently arrived, many of them will lose things like food stamps. Many of them are going to lose access to Medicaid. And so what does that mean for our church? If we have refugees in our community and they're losing access to food stamps and Medicaid, how do we come alongside of them? This has been true for the history of America.

It's certainly true in our time. ESL, you know, ESL is sort of the lynchpin. If you don't know English, you're probably not going to thrive as a family. And so one of the greatest ministries that address the holistic need of a family is ESL. because when you're in relationship, teaching people English, you begin to learn sort of what they need emotionally, spiritually,

physically, materially. And so these are just some examples of engagement. A few years ago, I guess it was 2016 or in the wake of Trump 1.0. I live in Boise, Idaho, and I'm pretty sure I'm almost positive that our World Relief Center here in Boise you had to close down because there was tons of funding cut.

Can you tell us about what happened there? Because I know not every World Relief Center closed down across the country. I mean, it still exists. What happened in that moment? And what has that done to World Relief since 2016? Yeah, yeah. In 2016, I wasn't with World Relief, but during Trump's first administration,

the numbers of refugees were dragged. drastically, drastically reduced. Okay. And because our offices were primarily, especially in regions like yours, refugee resettlement, because there were no refugees than many of our offices had to shut down. So Nashville, Atlanta, these are some key offices that eventually had to shut down because of that. And realized that, you know, it was sort of a lesson to learn as well, from what I understand from our current leadership is that, you know, we had largely, again, a war relief is in relationship with the government to fulfill a particular

role that the government is trying to do, and which is since 1980, the government has had a hospitable response to refugees. And so every year, roughly between, you know, depending on the year, 80,000 to 100,000 refugees are allowed to restart their lives in the United States. And that number is being set by the president. It's a presidential determination. So every year since Jimmy Carter, the president would say this year, we can accept, you know, X amount of refugees. During the early Reagan administration, when my parents came, my parents were refugees from Laos via Thailand, you had as many as 200 to 300,000 refugees being resettled in the United States, which is sort of a drop in the bucket when you look at the number of displaced people in the world,

But it's, you know, we're sort of shielded by two oceans. And so we can, you know, sort of turn that switch on and off. And then during that first Trump administration, those numbers went to record lows. And so that's largely why offices like ours ended up shutting down key places. And then this past year, the executive orders came out that basically shut down refugee resettlement. And so we currently don't, you know, in my life, time. I'm 45 years old. In my lifetime, we are no longer resettling refugees at all. So that whole infrastructure has been completely shuttered. And so there are a small number of South Africaners

that have been brought in under sort of refugee status. Afrikaner, that's that's white South Africans, right? That's right. Yeah, the white South Africaners. And so there's some rumblings around increasing that number right now for white South African honors, but the government's currently shut down, so we don't know what's happening. So what's the logic? Is it, I mean, I can imagine it's, well, we're going to, we need to secure our borders, keep terrorists out. And no, not every refugee is a terrorist, but some are.

And so we're just going to shut the whole thing down. Is that like, what is the argument for closing down refugees coming into America? I think that what's presented is largely sort of, we don't know. I mean, you know, our vice president went on TV and says, you know, our refugees, you know, really vetted well, right? So this sort of kind of introduced this idea that, you know, that maybe even the refugee resettlement process needs to be recreated. So I think, you know, again, I don't have access to our current leaders right now. But I think the idea is that we need to stop all types of immigration that we don't know like sort of the origins of the people, you know, especially when they're coming from countries that we feel like could put, you know, our security at risk. And so I think my best reading is that let's kind of stop everything and then let's sort of like focus on what is in front of us and then we'll kind of slowly turn it back on.

So I think that's the approach, you know, which from a, from a bigger perspective, we're in a reset period, you know, we have a broken system. Why keep working it? Let's just shut it down and let's kind of restart it when we're ready. So I think that's what's happening. And if that's all that was happening, you know, I think most of us would be, okay, right, you know, we've been trying to fix this for 20 years. And so. Maybe that's the right approach. I think what has made many people nervous is that there were people that were in-country, that were invited into the country, and all of their services are being taken away. And then also some of their statuses are being taken away. So I think that's what makes most people nervous. Is there any truth to the fear of national security among refugees? I think you've had incidents.

where there are folks who have, I'm trying to remember, there was a, oh, was it in Tulsa, there are a few incidences where there were some that come in through either the asylum process and that there were some incidences there. I don't think you can sort of project that and say that means that refugees are an unsafe population because they're not vetted just through our American system. They're vetted through the UN. Refugee is a very particular status that's designated onto a group of people. That's not just an American standard, but it's a UN standard. And so I think largely, you know, is it bulletproof? You know, I mean, I don't know, but I mean, I don't think it is the majority experience, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, we have several friends that are from that came in whose families came in under under refugee status from primarily like East Africa. Yeah. And it had like years, years of waiting in camps and Tanzania and another country is to get in. I mean, it was not. And even sometimes like half, like some of their family members were allowed, some weren't, or at least some stayed behind.

Like it seemed like a pretty vetted process to me. I mean, that was, you know, a decade and a half ago. But, yeah, you know, and I think, I mean, the issue is. sort of, there's two layers to this. You know, what's the church's obligation? And then what's sort of our obligation as Americans? But speaking from the church's obligation, we may or may not be able to contribute to fixing, like, the policy issues. I think we can. I mean, we have an advocacy arm. And we think it's important for churches to be in the civic spaces and to speak into those things, to not be silent. You know, I think that that is our Romans 13 obligation in addition to

other things, is to be able to speak into policy. But I think the church should be concerned about what's happening in South Sudan today, you know, where many of those people will never, ever reach our borders, but it is the largest conflict in the world today, you know. 10 million people are displaced, and that continues to grow. and South Sudan is an area where the U.S. has been present before. It's a, you know, so we have to ask ourselves, like, especially we're great commission Christians, what does it mean to bring healing?

What does it mean to be present in those spaces? You know, the Democratic Republic of Congo, we receive a lot of refugees from the DRC. And that's a conflict that many Americans don't know about, but it's very similar to what happened in Rwanda. and if you were to trace back, why is there a conflict? I mean, it's a tribal war. It's civil war. But it's also stems from the interest of the West in lithium battery, in lithium. Right.

And so it goes back to the point you were making earlier. Yeah. And America helped yet again install one of the most brutal dictators who butcher just people back into, I think, 50s or 60s in Congo. Yeah. I mean, the current destabil- What's that? When it was that, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was horrific. You read the accounts of that. You're like, there's no way the U.S. could have been involved in this. I mean, it was like Hitler level kind of brutality. But anyway. So there's a bit of, you know, I mean, this is a whole other podcast for you, Preston, but what's our theology of nationality? What does it mean?

Or our theology of being American? Because I think there's sort of like, while we can't sort of inherit everything that our nation is done, you know, in our current times. We also have to realize that we're a part of a context. And so we act from that context. And by and large, America has always tried to, you know, try to be accountable for its policies. So, for instance, like my family, we were in Laos and America was fighting a proxy war in Laos.

And they had recruited my dad and other, my uncles and other people as guerrilla fighters. And so, you know, when America was left. left Laos, and we were facing ethnic cleansing. We swam across the Mekong Delta and were refugees in Thailand and eventually, and again, mind you, while we were in Thailand, we were considered undocumented and we were a threat to the borders and threat to security. It's always sort of a very similar narrative. And then we were sponsored by a Lutheran church as a part of the American effort to be accountable for its policies in places like Laos. So that's always been, I think, the American ethos that we sort of should hold on to. And I think the church has always been sort of on the front end of that. And so it would allow America to have those kinds of responses. The church was the church was present in the late 70s.

And that gave Jimmy Carter the ability to say, you know what, we're going to be a welcoming country to refugees because it had the infrastructure of the church already present. And so I think that we have that ability to do that again. Okay, so little known fact about me. I am a dog owner and I absolutely love my dog. His name is Tank and he's a German short hair pointer and my kids, they make fun of me all the time. You know, they'll catch me talking with them, which is kind of awkward.

But anyway, naturally, I want to take care of Tank because he brings me so much joy. And this is why I was thrilled to learn about Sundays. Sundays is fresh, air-dried dog food made from clean ingredients. So when it comes to dog food, it seems like you have to make a choice between, you know, either having fresh and healthy food or you can have easy to store and, you know, easy to serve food, but you can never have both. But you don't have to choose anymore thanks to Sundays. Unlike other fresh dog food, Sundays does not require thawing refrigeration or preparation

because of their air-drying process. You just pour and serve, and that's it. It's 100% all-natural meat and superfoods. with 0% synthetic nutrients or artificial ingredients. So I encourage you, make the switch to Sundays. Head over to Sundays for dogs.com forward slash TITR and get 50% off your first order. Or you can use the code TITR at checkout.

That's 50% off your first order at Sundays for Dogs.com forward slash TITR or use the code TITR at checkout. So what can churches do? So I promise I would talk more about the church in theology and I brought us back into politics 20 minutes ago. So let's bring it back to the church. So we have all these political divisions. Everybody's all up in arms and everything. How can the church be the church in the midst of all these immigration debates?

Well, I'll give an example. And let me sort of use the church in Antiochus. of a framework and let me apply that to a specific case study um you know you think about the church in antioch number one the church in antioch if you remember it was established because of persecuted christians so christians were persecuted in jerusalem they had to flee they ended up in antioch and they began sharing the gospel first with other jews that were kosher jews and eventually they started sharing with hellenistic jews and the hellenistic jews were like you know what this isn't just for us jews this is for everybody and so the hellenistic jews began sharing

sharing the gospel with all of the nations that were present in Antioch. And once they figure out who they are, and it wasn't like they knew who they were, they just knew they were different. And then it was ascribed to them, you know, they were Christians for the first time. Says in Acts chapter 11. And the very first thing they did was, and this is a particular, I don't have it in front of me, but it says this was during the time of Claudius. And there was a famine in the land.

And you get a sense that Claudius just didn't have enough to figure this. out, right? And so the church in Antioch, they end up actually, they end up providing relief for other places, including Jerusalem. And I think that's a really good sort of like framework for us. Like if I'm, if I'm right now, if I'm a missions pastor, and I'm like, I don't think we can fix the domestic issues. We are welcoming refugees, but we want to do more. I would ask myself, hey, what's our obligation to places like Haiti? We're like, for years, Haiti was a short-term mission capital for North Americans. You know, we would send youth groups there.

We would do tons of development there. And Haiti is probably at its worst today. And I would ask myself the question for the Haitians that have recently arrived in our community that are facing being repatriated, deported in the next couple of months back to Haiti, how can we help them? How can we help the Haitians in our community? And then how do we reimagine our strategy of serving in Haiti? because it's some of them are going to go back.

And so how do we actually help those that are going to go back to homelessness, joblessness? And so how do we think about like how do we help them to restart their lives once they go back to Haiti? Like I think it's really important for churches to have that long-term kind of vision that they can see themselves engaging locally, but also it connects with what they're doing globally as well. And so if you think about Acts 1-8, we kind of thought about Acts 1-8. Jerusalem and then Judea and then Samaria and the ends of the earth. And we're finally at a point now where I think we're sort of doing Acts 1A all at the same time. It's sort of bringing healing to both the nations in our city, but making sure that that's consistent with what we're doing in places like the ends of the earth, like Haiti.

Yeah, I love that so much. I constantly am reminded of the power of the church and the mandate and mission of the church to be the church and sometimes getting just so suffocated and bogged down in the political debates and political war or frustration over political policy. And like you, I'm like, I think there is a place for us to engage in policy change. Meanwhile, we can be the church tomorrow. You know, we can be Christians today in embodying the gospel center vision toward how we're supposed to treat a foreigner and the stranger. the wake of, actually, I don't think it was a wake. It might have been right before, but

you know, the World Relief Office had to close down here in Boise because of a lack of refugees coming in. But some friends of mine started an awesome organization called Glocal, where they basically, I don't, I think they work with other churches and whatever, but they started a low, basically doing on a local level what World Relief was doing on a national level. And it's like it can't, it's just two people that started it, you know. And now they work with churches, they help the refugees that we have here, and they're doing amazing work. And they're being the church in a time when, geez, the time when the church needs to be the church. Yeah. As you're, as you're, oh, sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, I'm just add to that.

I mean, and, you know, when you're doing what your friends are doing, you sort of begin to understand that, like, you have a global identity that doesn't, like, erase your national identity as Americans. But it's sort of. It does supersede it, though. It supersedes in a lot of ways, and it sort of gets us sort of more integrated with understanding that the kingdom, you know, our nationality has borders, right? I have a passport. I have an American passport. So we have, our nationality has borders. But when we operate from our Christian identity, we're part of a borderless kingdom.

And so it forces you to kind of think outside and transcend, you know, this current iteration of policies. And it forces you to think about like a long. term posture towards the world that is out there and then also the world that's come into your community. As you're working with churches and leaders and trying to cultivate a more gospel-centered perspective on immigration, what are some of the main hurdles you face? Is it political assumptions? Is it fear of the other? And yeah, what are those and how do you deal with that? I think sometimes the presenting issue feels like it's political. So, for instance, like most people are like, oh, we just want secure borders.

And then if you have a longer conversation, you begin realizing that for some people, they feel like they'll lose their prominence in society, you know, if there's an increase of the numbers of immigrants or, you know, there's some version of the replacement theory, you know. And so, but also you'll hear from other immigrants, you know, and other immigrants will say, we came here the right way, right? And so they feel slighted because they waited, you know, five years. And so they did it the right way. That seems really legit. Like that, that seems very reasonable that someone would feel that way. It does. But when you realize, and certainly not downplaying their experience because, you know, again, my parents, quote unquote, came the right way, but they paid a heavy price, right? They were refugees of war. so um but they did come the quote unquote right way but if you if you understand our immigration to be like if you ever been to the DMV do they have a DMV in Boise yeah yeah it's it's i hate the DMV imagine the DMV with one person who's working the line that really hates his or her job and so you got somebody is all in back there and he's he he's got like a nosebleed and he needs to get inside and he needs to use the bathroom and so he's kind of being ushered past everybody else so he can go to the bathroom i have the right as number you know ticket numbers you know 58 in line to say hey

why is that guy going you know i have every right to feel that way but that whole scenario is our immigration system you know and so um we have a we have a DMV you know and i i don't want to I don't want to be kind of second towards the DMV. But praise God for our DMV employees. Yes, yeah, yes. People can kind of sort of understand like that's the system. And so probably, you know, that's a long-term approach. But going back to your original question, though, for some folks, I think I found that most Christians, they feel like if you work through sort of their presenting issues and you help them understand that, okay, you know, those are rational.

there's ways in which those are being addressed already, then they're willing to engage in the conversation. Nobody wants families separated. Like very few people, like, see what's happening with ICE in Chicago right now. They're like, that's what we want to have happening. Like, very few people want that, right? Most people want things to be orderly and done in a way where it's fair. It seems like most of it's based on misinformation, right?

Yeah. So, for instance, like, most people think, well, you know, ICE is detaining those that have criminal backgrounds. Right. And then you'll say, well, you know, most of them, they have not, they don't have a criminal offense. Well, and then the comeback will be like, well, it's not a criminal offense, but being here undocumented makes them a criminal. And the reality is actually no, like being here undocumented doesn't make you a criminal. Not having documentation might be a civil offense, but it is not a criminal offense. So legally and in layman's terms, being undocumented is not a, is not criminality.

So 70% of those that have been detained since the executive orders are not criminal. You know, they don't have a criminal offense. So case in point, let's, our president was convicted on civil offenses, but not criminal offenses. So he technically is not a criminal because he doesn't have a criminal offense that was convicted. So that's true about a lot of the 70% that are being detained. So, but if you don't know that, then you can kind of latch on to the idea that like everybody is a criminal because they're here undocumented and that's just not true technically in in layman's terms so that's not true do we know about how many undocumented immigrants would fit in the category

of being dangerous to society or you know the rapist drug drug dealers uh murderers and stuff do we have is there actual indisputable data on is that a high percentage low percentage tiny percentage i i don't have that information offhand but the only one way that you would probably be able to know that is if they had created some kind of offense in country where we're you know we're tracking that in country it would be I mean I'm sure it's it might be possible to try to track those offenses outside of the country but I'd imagine our country doesn't have access to all those records every study that I've either read parts of or come across and not a ton so please I've invite everybody fact check me on this

make sure you do good fact-checking. But everything I've read has said that the percentage of criminal activity among undocumented immigrants is much lower than the percentage among U.S. citizens. That doesn't end the discussion, but that does put things into perspective, I think. Now, some people will say, well, whatever, even if it's one undone, undocumented immigrant. They're undocumented. Of course, I expect, you know, our citizens. Their course is going to be crime, whatever, but they're citizens, okay? That it is what it is. So the percentage difference doesn't really matter. I'm like, well, okay, I just, I do think there is a fear among some people that, you know, a huge percentage of undocumented immigrants are just rushing in because

they can't wait to pillage and burn down the place and do this. And I just think that that perception, I think is just factually wrong, but again, invite people to fact check me on this. I'm going to get some emails from that one, I'm sure. Well, you know, and I think the larger point there is that there are many narratives that are circulating, and all of them probably have truth to it. As followers of Jesus, we should work hard to look at the purpose. person in front of us. And I, you know, if you're in a community that has immigrants and migrants, and they are

especially fearful in this current moment that we're in October 2025, like, I think, we all should give them sort of the benefit of the doubt and ask, you know, why are you fearful, you know, or, you know, if you're, if they're a recent refugee, you know, what's going to happen when you lose Medicaid, right? Because that's a question you can ask somebody and you're not having to worry about whether or not they're going to rape and pillage, you know, your community, because you just know they go their kids go to school with your kids and they're going to lose Medicaid. And most Christians, I don't think you, if you're only looking at the social media headlines, you're actually not practically thinking about, you have kids in your community

that are losing access to food right now because of recent executive orders in legislation that's going to remove some of those. And so what's your obligation to those? that are already here that have permanent status. We're talking about refugees that living in the United States are given permanent status. They're never leaving if they don't want to, right? And so secondly, is for those who have come here to seeking asylum, which is a large number of people, and they're in our communities because they're fearful because they're going to face deportation, I think it's important for us to ask the question, hey, whether you're here for the next three weeks,

three months, three years, 30 years, how can I help you? you feel like you have maintained your dignity during this time where there's an increase fear around your status. And as you're waiting for, you know, to figure out your future, how can we come alongside of you? And I think those are, you know, things that churches shouldn't shy away from. Sometimes we will use a national narrative to abdicate a local responsibility. and that's what the Pharisees did. They took an understanding of the law, let's say the Sabbath. And they're like, I'm not helping those poor people over there

because that requires me working on Saturday, right? Jesus goes in and says, you would help your ox. Why wouldn't you, right? And so we got to be careful not to take these grand narratives and use them as an excuse to abdicate our responsibility. I love those around us. That's a great word, but two final questions. First of all, what resources would you recommend? Books, articles for people that want to read more. I know you've written a couple. You can advertise those if you want or if there's others. Yeah, we have a discipleship journey for churches. You can go to churches ofwelcome.com. Churches of welcome.com. It's what world belief has produced to help churches think through this biblically, theologically, and also, mind you, evangelistically, because we do think this is an opportunity to share the gospel of Jesus with the world's most vulnerable. And then certainly Welcome the Stranger is sort of our key resource where we have developed sort of the theological framework.

And then a lot of the nuances of the different types of immigrants like that book does a really good job. Because a lot of times people come to this conversation and they're a little bit embarrassed. Like I don't know the difference between an immigrant and a refugee. We're like, don't be embarrassed. Like we want to be here to help you. Welcome the Stranger helps you do that. That's Matt Sorens and Jenny. Jenny Yang, yeah.

No relation, by the way, but she's a great, she's a great sister in Christ. And then how could people get involved with World Relief or if it, is there anything World Relief does to like come alongside churches? Like there's some pastors listening that said, man, yeah, I would love to dive into this. Can World Relief help? What does that look like? Totally. Yeah, that's Churchesofwalkim.com.

So that is our initiative where we come alongside churches to do that. And then I also know right now churches are asking like, how can we help with what's happening in sedan, what's happening in the DRC, what's happening in Gaza, right? Because of potentially right now, there's going to be a lot of opportunity for aid to pour into Gaza. And so a lot of our work at world belief.org, you can find out what we're doing in those parts of the world. Fantastic. Daniel, thank you so much for being a guest. Learned a ton. You love, love your posture. And yeah, thanks for guiding us in this really, well, heated conversation. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, brother.

You know,