Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1033: A Christian Response to Immigration: Karen González

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Karen González is a writer, speaker, and immigrant advocate who emigrated from Guatemala as a child. She attended Fuller Theological Seminary, where she studied theology and missiology, and she has worked in the nonprofit sector for thirteen years. In addition to her first book, The God Who Sees: Immigrants, The Bible, and the Journey to Belong, she has written for Christianity Today, Christian Century, Sojourners, and the Baltimore Sun. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. In this conversation, we talk about all things related to immigration, refugees, and undocumented immigrants. We also talk about Karen’s latest book Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in our Christian Response to Immigration.  Thanks to Doug Smith for helping sponsor today's episode. To check out Doug's newest book, [Un]Intentional: How Screens Secretly Shapes Your Desires, and How You Can Break Free: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1625861966/ Learn more about Karen: https://www.karen-gonzalez.com/ If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information! 

Hey friends, I just want to invite you to consider joining the Theology in the Raw Patreon community. This is a group of followers who believe in the ministry and work of Theology in the Raw and want to support it financially. And honestly, I've been so impacted by the people who have chosen to support this podcast. Every month they send in a bunch of questions. A lot of them are really personal and I get to spend time responding to them in a private podcast. And we, you know, we'll message each other throughout the month and post responses to each other's questions. I'm actually going to start something new this fall, a monthly live Zoom chat with some of the members. And I'm super looking forward to actually seeing more of their faces every month. And there's other perks to come up, like a free virtual pass

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you can join the Theology in Iran community for a minimum of five bucks a month by going to patreon.com forward slash Theology in Iran. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw community for a minimum of five bucks a month by going to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. The link is in the show notes. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is my friend and fellow Dodger fan, Karen Gonzalez. Karen is a writer, speaker, and immigrant advocate who immigrated from Guatemala as a child. She attended Fuller Seminary where she got a degree in theology and missiology. She's also worked in the nonprofit sector for over 13 years. Her first book is The God Who Sees Immigrants, The Bible, and the Journey to Belong. Her second book that just came out is called Beyond Welcome, Centering Immigrants in Our

Christian Response to Immigration. Had a wonderful conversation, as I always do with Karen. We do begin with a bit of banter about the Los Angeles Dodgers who are going to take the series next year. And then we dig into a kind of wide ranging conversation about all things related to immigration and how Christians should think through this important conversation. So please welcome back to the show, the one and only Karen Gonzalez. Karen, how are you doing over there in Baltimore this morning? Good. A tiny bit chilly, but doing well. Boise is getting really cold.

We got a blanket of snow on the ground right now. So, but yeah, East Coast cold is different than West Coast cold, I think. You guys got that cold that just rips right through your clothes. It's crazy. Yeah, it's that humid cold. Yeah, yeah. We got a dry cold out here. I want to jump into your book, Beyond Welcome, that just came out last month.

But first of all, I really, I've been looking for this conversation for several reasons one of which is i really need to debrief about our dodgers in october have you recovered yet because that was not okay what happened you know every year during the playoffs, I buy the full cable access so that I can watch the playoffs. I couldn't believe that after one round, we were out. See, this is why I really think, I told you this last time, I love Freddie Freeman. He's a good guy. We really needed to invest in pitching. We had this great lineup of really good hitters but we didn't have any

pitching especially once bueller went out on the il and may is out and may isn't reliable anyway right now just because he's so young and doesn't have good control and kershaw isn't the same kershaw we used to know you know he's older um he's still got his off-speed stuff and his curveball but he's just not the ace we used to be able to rely on so uh i think without pitching we had udias right yeah he was great he was uh like uh surprised he didn't get nominated for cy young because he was so good this year but yeah we just need pitching and i hope they're investing in pitching in the offseason. Not Verlander. We don't need him.

He's way past his prime. Yeah. I mean, he had a great – I was, you know, Cy Young. But you're kind of rolling the dice with a guy that's that old. I mean, I don't know. And he's not going to want a one-year deal, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I was actually in was while the game was going on so i would um i was kind of

waking up at like 3 a.m to kind of catch a little bit here and there and i was like all right first get the first win out of the way i'm like all right you know let's just get let's get past these padres we beat them what 14 out of 18 times or something and then they lost my guy this will be interesting lost again i'm like all right and then i literally woke up at three in the morning during that last game and it was right when they scored a couple runs i'm like all right and then i literally woke up at three in the morning during that last game and it was right when they scored a couple runs i'm like all right let's get let's get to the final game this is getting a little stressful you know and then i woke up and i fell asleep i woke up and they were gone i was like you got to be kidding me this is not this is not okay i think

you're right the pitching i don't know if it's every team because i don't follow other teams that closely but it seems like we just go through a lot of injuries. Like we always have six or seven capable starters, but then rarely do we have all of them firing on all cylinders. You know, they're in a seat. Do you think the Dodgers pitching is particularly prone to injury or is that kind of common for most teams?

If you know? No, I think it's common. And you know, ever since they have the expansion teams like the Rockies the rays all those teams there seems to be not enough pitching yeah for everyone and everybody's struggling for pitching ever since and like we just got really unlucky this year and also the padres got hot the right time at the end and we were cooling off by then you know even though we won 111 games i know yeah

by then we were you know on a downtrend and they were in an uptrend so they we just got unlucky with that timing so they had momentum going in yeah yeah yeah they had the momentum and you know they're like a young hot team we have a lot of veterans on our team we have a good farm yeah dodger seems to they do a good job of developing young players so but you know cody bellinger yeah isn't hitting i mean since his first season his rookie season he really hasn't been the same you know in terms of production so yeah i don't know i'm i'm worried that we're not going to focus on pitching this offseason and now we've lost some good hitters because i don't know why we're not trying to keep on wait is trey turner gone for sure or they just didn't return her

yeah most likely they're going to try to replace him and justin turner's gone who has been a reliable veteran you know a good clubhouse presence but i mean i understand why they didn't sign him he's older and he wants a multi-year deal and can't give that to a guy who's 37 or you know i don't know why we're not trying to keep trade turner he's the best one of if not the best hitting shortstops at least in the in the in the majors why are we not throwing a ton of money at him to keep him? I mean, he's one of our best players. Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to figure out what moves they're going to make.

They already non-tendered Cody. Yeah, that was sad. I think on Turner, they're still maybe deciding or wavering. I think a lot of teams are going to want him and are going to want to pay. He's good. I mean, the speed, he hits for average, hits for power.

He's good defense. Maybe not the best defense, but he's good. He's got all the tools. I would go after him like we did Freddie last year, unless there's a money issue or something, or unless they have their eyes on somebody. But what other shortstop would you pick over him? Like Correa or something?

I don't want Correa on the Dodgers. They don't have money problems. They're not the Mariners or something. Yeah. I mean, every offseason, at least last few years, the Dodgers have always done well. They've always picked up some really great people. But they've lost.

I mean, Cody's my favorite player. I'll always be a Bellinger fan. But, man, the last three years have just even you know what it was too it was really the last half of even his mvp season in 2019 i don't know if you remember but i mean the first half he was just i mean smoke the second half he he was been dropping he's totally good but you know but ever since then the second half of his mvp season he has just not been the same so i it's super sad to leave i i feel like seeing him in another uniform is gonna be like seeing my wife with another man or something she doesn't like what i say but but he just has not been the

guy you know it's but anyway yeah i think they're gonna pull out somebody this year i'm sure all right well should we talk about some more kingdom so your new book beyond welcome uh centering immigrants in our christian response to immigration i love talking to you about immigration i love your i just i mean obviously you bring in your personal experience with a great knowledge of the scriptures, which there's just, there's so much there in the Bible. It's got to be like, when you talk about immigration from a biblical perspective, it's got to be like shooting fish in a barrel. There's just such a rich biblical theme that's so hard to miss. And yet a lot of people miss it. Why do you think

that is? Do you have any, I mean, I'm sure it's been frustrating for you to some extent, I would imagine. But why do people just not see this huge, rich theme in Scripture? It's because they're really not taught to see it. You know, most of us rely on our spiritual teachers, our pastors, our Bible study leaders, mentors, and they don't really focus on those passages. And they don't really focus on those passages. The majority of them are in the Old Testament. So in the Hebrew Bible, which we tend not to preach out of as much. And then we have that rich passage in Matthew 25, which gets translated as stranger instead of immigrant.

And for us, that has very different connotations, right? A stranger versus an immigrant. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. And I think also there's a, you know, in the church, there's an overemphasis on reading Jesus through Paul instead of reading Jesus' words. And so what you have then, which I think is ridiculous, I think it would really upset Paul if he were around. But for example, people take the Romans 13 passage about obeying the law and honoring and governing authorities. And they take that as Paul saying, oh, whatever the law of the land is, we should be agreeing with it. When we know Paul was executed by the empire. When the empire came up against his faith, he didn't choose the empire.

And defending the empire's laws and guidelines, he defended his faith. And so I think there is, it's not being taught largely. Some of that is not pastor's fault. Some of it is the way we've structured our churches to where, you know, churches, pastors are paid by the congregation. to where, you know, churches, pastors are paid by the congregation. And we all know of situations where an angry, wealthy member of the congregation gets upset, right? And threatens to leave and take their funds with them. I think some of that, which is why mainline pastors and priests are able to speak about it way more openly. They're not relying on the same, you know, source of income. Because believe it or not, I've had churches invite me to speak on immigration and it's

like they don't, they invite me to preach on it, but the pastor won't do it. And the pastor sometimes actually says, you can say things that I can't because you're a guest, you know? Interesting. things and I can't because you're a guest, you know? So there's a way in which they can get the message out without threatening their own position in the church, you know, and upsetting certain people in the church. So yeah, I think it's complicated, but I think a lot of it does boil down to a lot of us are not reading the Bible from the perspective of people on the margins. We don't read the story of Ruth as a story of migration.

We don't look at Abraham and look at the fact that the first time we encounter him, God asks him to migrate. So there's a lot of movement of people in the Bible. We're not taught to see it. Or with Abraham, we do read it as a story of faith. He left his homeland, whatever. But we don't, at least in my experience, you know, I can recall Sunday, you know, Sunday school lessons and, you know, the flannel graph and Abraham moving along and we sing about it and sermons on it and stuff. But we simply focus on kind of his faith and trusting God and leaving,

but we don't even, it's like we talk about him leaving his homeland, but we don't frame it through the lens of being a migrant, you know, like, or even making the application to today. Like we just kind of just avoid that. I wonder if that's part of the, you know, the translation thing in Matthew 25, that's interesting. I, yeah, I think that could be a big reason why. And even the Old Testament translates migrant or immigrant as stranger often, right? Or alien or something, which I guess is fine if we know what that means. Well, no, it's, it's, it's, yeah, I do think we'd probably need a better translation of that. What would be the translation? Would you say just instead of the word translated stranger, would you say migrant? Do you think that's the best?

I would say immigrant. That's why you see the Common English Bible. Okay. Translated, it's an immigrant. And I think I love using that version when I preach because it uses the words that we use. I think the NRSV uses foreigner as well, which is still better than stranger, which to us is just any random person we don't know right well where did that come from stranger i never thought about that just because i i've been used to when i see stranger i in my mind i see immigrant so it's not i've never really thought of it as a bad translation but yeah if somebody is not doesn't doesn't interpret it that way then

yeah that's stranger like don't talk to stranger can almost have a bad connotation like right like don't take candy from strangers yeah yeah it is i think it's it's unfortunate because then people don't like over and over again we have god you know when he when god brings the israelites um or the hebrews out of Egypt, over and over again, God tells them, you know, you must love the stranger as yourself for you were strangers in Egypt, right? But he's telling them that you were immigrants in Egypt and you were treated poorly. So now don't do that. Right, right.

You know, do well for immigrants. And you see it illustrated beautifully in the book of Ruth, where she is welcomed into this community as family, not as a foreign person, but as family. And you see the blessing for both sides, for her and for Naomi, right? At the very end, the women tell Naomi, your daughter-in-law who loves you is better than seven sons. I mean, what does it take in a patriarchal society to say that a foreign woman is better than seven sons? Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, it's a really powerful thing. But we always focus on Boaz as the kinsman redeemer instead of the fact that the story is really about Naomi. Naomi is the only one who changes in that text.

And Ruth and Boaz are both important characters in the story, but really the focus should be on Naomi and her experience. But we don't learn it that way. Some of it is we don't have women teaching these stories. I think we also see it in the story of Rahab. You have this foreign prostitute. She is treated like an outcast in her own community of Canaanites. And she's not someone who's fully part of the community, which maybe is why it makes it so easy for her to betray them, right, against, to turn on them and support the Hebrews. But when they conquer Jericho and they settle the land, she doesn't get marginalized in the community. Like, okay, we're giving our promise to you, so we're going to put you in some little corner here. No, she's welcomed as family into the community, and she becomes part of the lineage of Jesus. She marries, she lives with honor, and her children end up in the lineage of Jesus, which is really amazing, right? Right.

children end up in the lineage of Jesus, which is really amazing, right? Right. So I think there's something in those stories that we're missing. We're only learning the perspective of what the men were doing or perhaps focusing on God's actions within it, which is also good. Also things that are part of the text, but we're not focusing on the fact that God could have done this any way God wanted to and God chose to include this foreign sex worker into the community, right? So, yeah, I think there's a lot that we're missing when we're using only one lens to read the Bible.

And then I think, to some extent, it also absolves us of responsibility, right? If we're not reading it through the lens of immigration, when it's such a, such a polarizing topic since the Trump administration. Yeah. Well, now, so you, you went there, um, did you see a major turning point in people's thinking or just even the, even the cultural climate since, say, 2016? Have you noticed that? Oh, definitely. Well, Trump began scapegoating immigrants and refugees.

Refugees had always been considered the quote-unquote good immigrants because they come here, they're suffering, right? And so they're brought here and they come in legally. And this is a big sticking point for a lot of people is that people aren't legally in the United States. So people were always fully supportive of refugees until Trump. Trump really turned against them and even they weren't considered, quote unquote, good enough to be here. You know, I understand why so many people held on to Trump's words. When you're economically imperiled, when you see jobs disappearing and moving overseas, you want someone to blame

for this changing world, right? Trump gave them someone to blame. Trump said, look, it's these people's fault that you're imperiled. And people grabbed onto that. But, you know, it isn't immigrants' fault, NAFTA, you know, the North American Free Trade Agreement that took tons of jobs away that were working class jobs. That's not immigrants' fault. This was something decided at a leadership level, and it was really bad for Latin America too. It was not good for Mexico at all. Tons of farmers who had had these corn farms for generations lost them because they couldn't compete with the price of corn from the United States that was coming from the Midwest. And then we had all these factories.

That wasn't great either because guess what? With that came a lot of crime. In Juarez, there's still so many dead women and girls. It wasn't good for Mexico either. And it definitely wasn't good for the U.S. When my family migrated to the U.S. in the 80s, most of the adults lived in Rhode Island. That's where we moved originally. And they all worked in these like costume jewelry factories. So they had these nine to five kind of jobs working in these factories, making these jewelry things, you know, for Kmart or whoever. And it was really a good job for them because it was eight to five. And then you came

home, you have dinner with your children after school. All those jobs have disappeared in Rhode Island, all of them. So now immigrants are working service jobs, which means they're working weekends, they're working nights, they're not able to go to parent conferences at school, and they're not able to be there for their kids in the evenings like they used to be. So it was really a harmful thing all around. It wasn't really free for everyone. It was only really good for corporate America and not really good for anyone else. And so I get it. I get why people want someone to blame.

But the blame is on the wrong group. It's not the brands who are at fault. I assume, and I think it's probably not a good assumption, that it's primarily conservatives, whether religious or not, in America that are maybe most resistant to immigration as a whole. It's interesting because a lot of people coming into America from other countries are actually bringing fairly conservative values with them. Isn't that true? Isn't it kind of a little odd? It's like, well, wait a minute. Like if you want to return to kind of the good old days or whatever, um, some, a lot of, a lot of people from different countries kind of have those kind of values that they're bringing with them. Is that, is that true?

Or why do, why don't people kind of notice that or do they just not connect those dots or whatever? I think people don't connect those dots and they don't realize too, you know, immigrants are more likely to attend church or worship service they're more likely to stay married at least likely to get divorced family there's all kinds of ways in which yeah they're very very conservative very family focused it lines up really well with conservative values it's just the language and culture barrier and the racial component i think in, in some cases, right?

Because we saw, for example, a lot of goodwill toward Ukrainian refugees. And we saw some goodwill initially toward Afghan refugees when Kabul fell. But now we can't pass the Afghan Adjustment Act. And now even the goodwill to Ukrainians. It's not that it's disappeared, but we just don't hear about it as much because the war has been going on for so long now that it's no longer a novelty for people. It moved on in the news cycle. Yeah, it's a really interesting phenomenon the way that that works, but people don't connect those dots very often. And to be honest, it's not just conservative Christians. I speak to a fair amount of mainline churches.

I think that conservative Christians get scapegoated a lot in this conversation. I find that mainline Christians, now the pastors are very different. Pastors tend to be very progressive and have really strong social teaching in their denominations around immigration. The congregants are no different than those that I find in conservative evangelical churches. They ask the same questions, and I don't really note a difference. So, yeah, that bothers me a little bit when people say that it's just conservative Christians. I'm like, no, it's, it's really a lot of Christians. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up in my anecdotal experience, which is only anecdotal. I mean, I live in a very conservative, very white area,

Boise, Idaho, which is one of the main was, and I still is, I guess, relatively speaking, refugee resettlement communities. And we're pretty involved with the refugee community. And for the most part, Christians here, very conservative Christians, are very pro-refugee. They open up their churches. They have a lot of conservative churches give free space to refugees gathering there. One church I know has like three or four different churches that gather there. Yeah.

I know several friends of mine who are just personally just very, very invested in helping resettlement and housing. And so I, but I know that's probably not the norm. I don't know why it's like that. Maybe because we just have had a rich history of refugees being here, but, and I'm sure there's antagonism. I'm sure there's exceptions to that. But I would say, again, anecdotally, the majority of conservative Christians here are very

welcoming. I wonder, is there a difference? So you mentioned, so there's like, you know, your standard immigrant that goes through all the right processes or whatever, then you have refugees, and then you have undocumented immigrants. Do you find some maybe Christians resistant to all of the above? Or is it primarily kind of maybe refugees from Muslim dominated countries, you know, certain kinds of refugees, and obviously, I think undocumented immigrants, most people are going to have a problem with that. Yes. So yeah, definitely. People are resistant to Muslim refugees and they think all refugees are Muslim, where over half of refugees are Christians.

And the United States takes in the most refugees from persecuted Christian communities. Oh, wow. So the church in Egypt, the church in Iraq, the church in Palestine, all these places. And so 55% are already Christians. But yes, it's Muslim refugees and then undocumented immigrants. But here's the interesting thing. I point this out to people. They say they don't want undocumented immigrants. And yet there's very little punishment for the people who hire them when they're here. Once they're, you know, if they're discovered to be employing undocumented immigrants, there's no real punishment. It's a slap on the wrist if it's discovered at all. And the majority of our food, like, you know, Thanksgiving food, I don't know if you saw this,

but we just had Thanksgiving, right? There was this meme going around that said, you know, thank Jesus for your food because he's the one harvesting it. 70 to 75% of our food is harvested by people who are undocumented because our citizens do not want to do those jobs. And there are states who have tried, like the state of Washington tried to only hire people who are not undocumented, have the legal right to work in the U.S. Apples literally rotted on the trees because they couldn't find enough workers. They were even offering like a $15 an hour rate and still could not get enough American workers. So that's part of it. Also like the slaughterhouses, poultry farms, dairy farms, all those places, it's immigrants who do that labor as well. I live in Baltimore. We have all these Johns Hopkins hospitals and

it's a big Mecca for people who are looking for sort of cutting edge medical treatment. But there's a real reality to the medical world in that in Baltimore, there are all these industrial laundries because you need the linens from those hospitals cleaned. And it's all immigrants who work in these places. And it's really terrible. It's freezing cold in the winter. It's incredibly hot in the summer because of the dryers. And it's immigrants doing this work nobody else wants to do.

Because think about hospital linens and the things that are really, really bad. hospital linens and the things that are really, really bad. So, and you know, the thing is, Preston, America has always been this way. Always have immigrants become the backbone of the working class, the Irish when they came. If you go to New York, they'll give you a tour of the Brooklyn Bridge and they'll tell you how many Irish immigrants died in the building of this thing because it's before OSHA, before there were safety regulations. So it's always been this way, but all of a sudden people have really turned. It's not that Irish immigrants were treated well because they weren't when they arrived either, but eventually they became part of the landscape of the country.

And now people very proudly speak about their Irish heritage, right? And that doesn't seem to be happening with a lot of, you know, Latin immigrants. And some of it is that racially, we really can't blend in the same way, even if we've been here for generations. Yeah. Yeah. So my family, I've, I've, uh, Armenian roots and that was the same thing. They, a lot of Armenians came over to central California during, after the genocide a hundred years ago. And, um, uh, they, they, they started as farmers and workers and everything. And, and they ended up now, I mean, now several generations later owning all the farms and they're known for being very wealthy now but that you know they started very much on on the ground like that is that good for the image like are they happy and it's such a broad statement a broad group of people but like um is it still like oh this is still better than

what i left and i could still make more money even though it's not a lot by American standards, it's still more by the standards that I left? Or do they feel disappointed when they migrate here or whatever and they find themselves in kind of more menial jobs or whatever, jobs that other people don't want? Is there a general perspective there? It's hard to say general, but people come here to work and they're able to find work. They're able to find work that can support their families back home, can sustain themselves, and they can build a life here. So they are able, people are happy to be able to find work because that's what people are coming for. Immigrants are like 13

percent of the population but they make up 16 percent of the workforce oh wow okay so everybody who comes here comes here to work yeah yeah and so which again is again is something conservatives should celebrate it's like priding ourselves on you know hard work good work ethic and everything and it's like who who works harder than immigrants that come here man yeah and so and and without protections you know under threat of deportation if they don't have the legal right to be here so it's a little bit confusing i think for a lot of immigrants because on the one hand there's a this is there's this do not enter sign in the borderlands right do not Do not come in here. On the other hand, there's all these help wanted signs. There's all these jobs that are available. And frankly, if we deported every single undocumented immigrant, it would tremendously hurt the economy, tremendously. And almost all economists agree on that.

You can access all these different think tanks, even libertarian think tanks. The Keto Institute is really supportive of immigration and even undocumented migration because of the way that it supports the economy. So, you know, there's a sort of a, it's kind of thinking that people have about, well, they're not documented, they shouldn't be here. And then again, also benefiting from their labor in a lot of ways, right? And so to me, that's what's hard. It's like, well, okay, if they weren't here, this is what it would mean for you. And you probably don't want that, but you also don't want them to be here. And frankly, even though immigration is good for countries and their economies, Christians, that shouldn't matter. What should matter is, well,

what does my faith say about migration? You know, what does god say yeah what what it does if it did something negative to the economy in america as christians that should never trump our christian ethic um but you're saying and i've heard this too and i just want to verify that the whole idea of their you know immigrants are coming and taking our jobs especially undocumented ones you know are you you're saying that's just factually untrue. That's not, it's not taking, it's taking jobs nobody here wants to do. And it's not actually hurting the economy. It's helping the economy. Is that, that's, and that's pretty, that's not just a partisan talking point. That's well established. That's been proven true over and over again. And you can access all these different immigration think tanks that are nonpartisan

that have done this research over and over again. It's also true that our country sends them a very conflicting response because you have the IRS and the Social Security Administration saying that they'll accommodate payments from immigrants who are undocumented. They've gone on the record to say this. And then you have DHS saying, well, no, they don't belong here. So which is it? Because last year, undocumented immigrants paid about $11 billion in taxes. Undocumented immigrants? On our money. Wow. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So immigrants do pay taxes, whether they're documented or not. Of course, there's always things like state taxes and property taxes that you pay through rent, right, or through buying clothes or whatever. But then there's also most people work either with a fake social security number, or they work with something called an individual tax identification number, and the IRS will give them this number. And this is what they use to pay taxes. So the IRS knows that only undocumented immigrants request this number, and they provide the numbers that people can pay their taxes. And so this is what I mean. So they just turn a blind eye to the fact that – You can't have some government agency saying, yes, here, we'll take your money, and some saying, well, you don't belong here.

How do you wrestle with – and I appreciate that you pointed out that when we talk about policy and politics, all of this is secondary to the Christian ethic of welcoming the quote, quote, stranger, whatever. But assuming that, and I think my audience probably gets that. You and I get that. We don't need to keep harping on that but um well like just from a policy how from a policy perspective from a political perspective like all countries have borders right i mean you and they have paul i can't just waltz into you know bolivia without proper documentation i would have to sneak in or so um so you have i mean i said to have no border policy that doesn't make no no country does that and you have to have some kind of okay if you want to be a citizen here's the channels to get in and yet you do have like you said undocumented my immigrants coming in um a lot of people turn

a blind eye we all know it's actually helpful so we don't maybe crack down or whatever the way we should but then should we crack down then? It seems like a catch. If I just put my political hat on, it's like, okay, well, where do we draw the line? Do we just tear down the board? There's open borders. There's no whatever. It's like, well, no, that's not realistic.

So if we do have processes to get into the country, then we should say undocumented immigrants aren't allowed. Like you have to have the proper documentation or how do we wrestle with that? Just for, again, just from a, from a Christian, I'm like, tear down the wall. I don't care. Let all the people in whatever. Like I want to, I want to love the world, love my neighbor, love my enemy, whatever. And you know, whatever, whatever Babylon does with the policy is kind of like a distant secondary in my mind. I think it's a good question. And the thing is, there's a lot of policy people who've thought through that already.

And part of it is, we need to provide a lot more work visas to accommodate our labor needs. Okay. Because we have labor needs. We don't have enough American workers for them, particularly in certain jobs, agriculture, for example. And yet we don't provide enough visas for this thing. So what that means is that people get jobs industry because they don't have the legal right to, you know, if someone was cheating me out of wages, I'd call the police, I'd call the Department of Labor because I have the legal right to work in the U.S. But if I didn't, who do I go to? Nobody. I'm stuck, right? So it leads to more abuse as well. So we need more work visas to accommodate our needs and to protect our immigrant neighbors as well.

So that is one thing that we could do. And in the past, we did do that. We used to have this program called the Bracero Program, which wasn't perfect, but it would provide work visas so people would come into the U.S. work and then they'd go home again. People would come in here for work.

They would prefer to live in their own home, you know. But so it was this circular sort of, you know, back to their homeland. Then we ended programs like that. And so now we just have undocumented people who stay because if they leave, they won't be able to come back. Okay. So that's one thing. The other thing is we have a lot of people here, for example, full under DACA. So these were people who were brought into the U.S. as children and their parents were undocumented, so they were

too. So they're under this protection that President Obama started called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. And this protection is just, basically they're dangling out there because this protection could end at any time. And people in the U.S., like three quarters of Americans support providing them a pathway to citizenship. Our legislators just haven't had the will to pass the DREAM Act. Same thing with the Afghan Adjustment Act. Most Americans support it, but our legislators just don't have the will to pass it, to work together for that. And so we have some legislations out there that could provide people who've been in our country, who've been contributing a pathway to citizenship, but they don't have it. So that's another thing is

that, you know, there's something that you hear sometimes called, it's called comprehensive immigration reform, the policy, and this is not what they propose. So they propose providing more work visas. They propose having a secure border, but letting in enough workers, right, so that we can, our labor needs can be met. And they support also providing a pathway to citizenship to people who've been here for a long time. Perhaps have them pass a background check, have them prove that they've been paying taxes, and then provide them a pathway. So there are several parts of it that are just very practical and very feasible. Nobody that I know of who is an immigration advocate is saying,

let's erase every border everywhere. Nobody's saying that, but that's the extreme that people go to. They're like, oh, you must want this. Nobody proposes that because nobody, nobody believes that that would actually work as legislation, you know, in Capitol Hill. So what they're proposing is actually very much makes a lot of sense all around. But again, we have to have legislators who have the will to push this through. And so, so far we haven't had that under any administration, Republican or Democrat. Why, why, why not? Like what's, what's the, in their mind, what's the fear of doing it? Just that they would lose their support. Like people wouldn't want that. The populace wouldn't want that or. I think that's part of it. And I think the loudest voices who contact Congress are anti-immigrant.

And this is why I always tell people it's important to call. It's important to write emails to your legislators, letting them know, hey, I support this. I support the DREAM Act. It doesn't even have to be long. You know, if you call your legislators, somebody answers the phone. A staff person answers the phone. You don't get a voicemail. Really? Because, yeah, if you call, you will get a person on the phone. Generally, they will ask you your address to make sure you're a constituent. And then you can tell them, hi, my name is Preston Sprinkle, and I want you to know that I really want my legislator to support the Dream Act, the Afghan Adjustment Act. I want America to continue to be

a country that welcomes immigrants and refugees and provides a safe haven for them. That's it. You don't have to have a script. There are scripts out there that you can Google, but that's all you need to say and they write it down and you can say i want a response from my congressperson you know whether it's your senator your representative whoever and they will respond so really that just seems to and that that one phone call will do something a little nudge the person a little bit so if you had 100 people call this week um that's gonna that would i mean put a lot of pressure yeah it matters yeah one time at work uh because i used to work for an organization that served um refugees and other immigrants and one time we called we all during lunch 10-15 minutes to call you know and

we all called our uh our legislators and wanted them to know so you know, and we all called our, uh, our legislators and wanted them to know, you know, people in Baltimore, some people live in Pennsylvania, some people live in Maryland. So yeah. And it was a really, it's a really easy thing to do. It just has to be during business hours, right? Sure. You can email anytime, but if you're going to call, it has to be during business hours. And that really matters. The fact that Trump was able to really generate so much anti-immigrant sentiment tells you that leadership really matters, too. And so the things that our leaders are saying really affect people who are on the margins of society. And so it really did affect the country and it affected churches as well.

People in churches are constituents. All right. Hello, friends. Today, I want to tell you about our recent guest, Doug Smith, and his newest book, Unintentional, how screens secretly shape your desires and how you can break free. Look, I'm all about thinking deeply and loving widely, but many of us can't actually think deeply because we're addicted to screens. And that's why Doug Smith wrote Unintentional. It's the tech-focused discipleship book I've been looking for. With biblical wisdom from Greg Boyd, Oz Giddens, and others,

Doug helps you and your family overcome screen obsession. So check out the notes where you can find a link to purchase Doug's book, Unintentional. What do you say to people that the argument that if we relax, or maybe not relax,

but expand our immigration policies to allow more people in, make it easier for people to get in, get a work visa that we're going to open up the floodgates to criminals and gang activity and drug smuggling. And if you turn on more conservative news outlets, they'll highlight cases where this person got raped and it was an undocumented immigrant or whatever. So obviously that can and does happen. But is there any legitimacy to that being kind of a widespread thing? So here's something really interesting. When Italians were migrating to the U.S. over 100 years ago, it was said that they were prone to criminality and that they were intellectually inferior. So they started doing research about connection between crime and immigration. And there is none.

Immigrants are five times less likely to be in prison or to commit crimes because, again, they come here to work. And it's not because we're better people. It's because we know we'll suffer more or the same thing that a Native citizen could do and get a slap on the wrist. An immigrant would get deported. For example, a DACA recipient, they associate with people who are – they don't have to be committing a crime. They associate with people who are criminals, could lose their status and get deported. They associate with people who are criminals, could lose their status and get deported. So because of this, immigrants don't do these things because we know we'll suffer more for the same actions.

They've done this research over and over again for 100 years. Oh, wow. And there is no connection between that. So you have a situation, for example, like what you just mentioned. So you have a situation, for example, like what you just mentioned. There was a case in Iowa during the time that President Trump was in office where there was an undocumented immigrant who was accused of raping and murdering a young woman. And of course, a lot was made of this as like this immigrant. See, immigration causes this. The thing is, immigration does not cause violence against women. Patriarchy does that.

does not cause violence against women. Patriarchy does that. The fact that some men feel entitled to women's bodies, that's what causes violence against women. The culprit there wasn't immigration. It was a man who committed this crime. Does that make sense? And so I think sometimes, too, we hear this and we put the fault on the wrong thing.

And there are lots of immigrants here that are working that are not committing crimes like that. So to use this example to represent all immigrants is really faulty reasoning. So yeah, there's a lot of research done about that. You can read about it as well. And there is no connection between immigration and crime. The more immigration there is, the more crime drops, actually. People don't always understand this because they see a lot of immigrants, for example, that are newly arrived living in under-resourced neighborhoods. That's because that's what they can afford. It's not because they're prone to criminality. And the other thing is that, yeah, immigrants, because they're coming here to work, that's what they're doing. They're actually, we have a visa called a U visa. But the actual truth

is immigrants are more likely to be victims of crimes. And that's the actual truth. And in fact, the U.S. government knows that. So they've developed something called a U visa. This is a visa given to an immigrant person who is a victim of a serious crime. If they report it to the police and cooperate with the district attorney, they will receive this visa that has a pathway to citizenship. they will receive this visa that has a pathway to citizenship. So there is a waiting list for this visa because there are so many immigrants who are victims of crimes. So that's the reality. Immigrants are more likely to be victims of crimes. And that's because they don't know the language, the culture. Also, people target them because they know they carry cash. They know they come here to work. There are also targets of things like wage theft, of working without paid time off, without any sick days. So that's the reality. And in terms of drugs, because I get asked this a lot about drug trafficking. Drugs are coming in through ports

of entry. So they're not coming in through the desert. You know, you see these movies where they build a tunnel in the middle of the desert. It's not how drugs are coming in. That's a great like narco season on Netflix, but most drugs, um, the majority are coming in through ports of entry. So when you hear that drugs were seized and they found all these drugs, it's at a port of entry, at a shipping port in Miami, at a driving, you know, through in California or Texas, that's how drugs are coming in. The number of drugs that come into the U.S. are just too massive to, you know, put a kilo or two on every undocumented immigrant. It's just not even realistic in terms of how drugs are coming in. They're being trafficked in cargo ships. And sometimes you hear about this, right, in coffee cans or something like that.

That's how they're coming in. So drugs coming into the country and immigration policies are two different conversations. It's almost unrelated. Yeah, that makes sense. Karen, I was about to ask you about your book 40 minutes ago, and then we got sidetracked. So talk to us about your new book, Beyond Welcome, because your previous book was on immigration too. What's the difference between these two? And then tell us, walk us through this new one. I would say my first book, The God Who Sees, is more like a one-on-one conversation for people who are really new to learning that the Bible speaks to immigration and what the Bible has to say about it. And this book is really part two. These are people who are already welcome and care about immigration. But that's now the next part of the conversation. How do we move beyond welcome into things like solidarity and kinship and advocacy together? kept as kind of the objects. Even if you think about a slogan like we welcome refugees, right?

We is the subject. Yeah. Refugees are the object. There's a power dynamic there. Yeah. Right. It's a power dynamic at play there. And so what I'm talking about in this book is how do we keep immigrants at the center? So how do we have a mutual hospitality, for example. And I use Jesus as the example of Jesus was poor. We know that a lot of people supported his ministry, right? The three years that he did ministry. And we know he himself said he didn't have a place to lay his head. But what he offered to people was he fully listened to them, engaged them, was present to them. And when the night before he died, he told his disciples, you know, I'm leaving, but I go to prepare a place for you in my father's house. So this person who had been a receiver of hospitality was now going to become the host.

And he says, I'm going to prepare a place for you and I will receive you when you come. And so often what we do for immigrants is that we make decisions for them. We assume what they need and how we're going to meet that need instead of really listening and engaging, instead of asking them for feedback on services that they receive. And so what I'm proposing is let's keep immigrants at the center of the conversation. And so what kind of words do we use? Are the words that we're using dividing us, keeping our neighbors far from us? How do we think about land as Christians?

Do we think of it as this is my land and I have a right to keep people out? Or do we think of it as, no, this is God's creation. This is God's land that was given to us. How is it that we think about like myths, like what makes a good immigrant, bad immigrant? Because that's a myth, right? Of a good kind of immigrant and a bad kind. And is that really a gospel oriented question for those of us who receive grace just as we are? And then there's also myths like pressuring immigrants to assimilate, which is really harmful and ultimately is a huge loss. So how do we instead focus on integration and encourage people to keep their language, their culture, all of that? And frankly, immigration is really normal

these days. We still think of it as something that's really unusual, but if all the people who are displaced in the world today were to gather in one place, it would make up the fifth largest country in the world. That's how many people are on the move in the world right now. Think of it, even within the U.S., people move all the time, right? And they move for the same reasons that immigrants move, to be closer to family, for work, right? To find a job. And in recent history, we've seen people move because of things like Hurricane Katrina, right? Displaced a lot of people to Texas, or fires out West, caused a lot of people to move to other places. So people move within the U.S.

for the same reasons people always move. And so how do we create a conversation about the fact that it's normal? And the fact that, you know, Paul exhorts us that the only citizenship that matters is citizenship in heaven. And for someone who was a Roman citizen to say that, it's a really big deal. Right, right, right. The assimilation integration piece, I think, is so important that even well-intended Christians, I think, miss. And here again, I think we're being discipled by political commentary more than the Bible. Because I'll even hear Christians say, who maybe are pro-immigrant, like, yeah, welcome the immigrant. As long as they become American and value our culture and all this stuff.

It's like, well, where is that in the Bible? Like, I don't, you know, the Bible celebrates other cultures. And then, you know, when we go overseas, we love, oh, we love to go to France or Germany and that culture, whatever. But then don't bring that, you know, if you come here, don't be bringing your culture with us or keep that off to the side rather than integrating and celebrating different ethnic and cultural values. I think that's a huge change in thinking. I'm curious, Karen, if you can help me out with this. So I mentioned in passing earlier that we have churches here in town that host other immigrant churches.

So my church, we have two English services, then we have a separate Spanish service, which is pretty much a whole different congregation. We have an Arabic service, and then we have, I think, one Swahili service, I think. A Congolese service. Maybe it's in French. These are all completely separate. Maybe it's in French. How these are all completely separate. What if we said, hey, are we, is this the best we can do? Or is there something more we can do to integrate? What would you say to that? What would be your counsel to churches that do have these kind of separate services? Is that, should they be kept separate? Is that like, oh, no, this is just leave

it the way it is? Or is there some kind of integration, more integration that would be more celebratory of the gospel, for lack of better terms? And how do we accomplish that? Yes. So I think that's a great question. And I don't know if you remember, because you know, you and I were both at Fuller. And I remember taking a class at Fuller. I wasn't at Fuller. I was down the street. I weren't at Fuller? I was at Master's Seminary. Oh, you were at Master's. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Sister schools, but basically sister schools. So, you know, in seminary, right, they offer preaching classes. So I took a class on preaching, homiletics. They offered a class at Fuller that I thought was interesting. It was called Preaching in the Black Tradition. So I asked my professor, well, who's preaching are we learning in this class then? That class is preaching in the black tradition. Whose tradition is this? Oh, this is just regular homiletics, regular preaching.

Regular. No, somebody's preaching. So that's the sticking point, I think, when people tell me, well, So that's the sticking point, I think, when people tell me, well, I just think it's better, you know, it reflects God's kingdom if we're all together, you know, in the same church service. I'm like, okay, but whose culture is going to be centered there? Are we going to expect the immigrant community to worship exactly like the white dominant community? Or are we really going to have a blending right of of services i have a good friend who um you know speaks spanish and english equally well and she whenever she preaches whether it's a latin community or not she will preach bilingually spanish and english, you know, really bothers people.

They're like, oh, it breaks my train of thought. It does this and does that. She's like, well, I want you to imagine sitting there and not understanding anything because it's not in your language. Right. So I think if communities want to do that, I think they can have a conversation. But often what people do is they expect the immigrant community to just adapt, assimilate into the white community instead of really having a full bicultural service. So if you're going to do that and you're going to do that work, which is hard work,

I think that's great. But if not, I think it's okay. You don't have the capacity to do that or the will to do that, I suppose, because sometimes it's a whole congregation, right? It's okay. Allow immigrant churches to use because, you know, God shows up in different cultures and different ways and people can express that fully. I grew up in a Catholic immigrant church. And you know what? My parents, you know, my dad did custodial work, even though he was a college educated person in Guatemala. My mom was like a home health care worker, even though she'd been a nurse in Guatemala. But when they went to church, you know what? All of a sudden they weren't an invisible service worker.

All of a sudden they were Senora y Señor y Don Jorge and Doña Mayra. You know, they were dignified in a way that they didn't receive that in the culture. And it was a safe community. They could speak Spanish. They could be themselves. And this is a real haven for many immigrant people. You know, when they go to a church service from their community. Honestly, my parents were not even very serious Christians. That community was really important to them as a cultural, comfortable, you know, touch point. I think if you are allowing churches

to use your space, that is a wonderful and really good thing. And not all churches do it, you know? And so I think that is a wonderful thing to do. If you are open to relationships and conversations with pastors of these communities, I think that's great. And I think jumping to integrating the two is a more difficult conversation just because then you have to really be intentional about making sure you're not pressuring them conversation just because then you have to really be intentional about making sure you're not pressuring them to just become like you. Right, right, right. So the leadership, it would have to be a true blend, not a top down where the white, or just not the white, but just the dominant American church is kind of running the

show. One of the challenges I see, and I don't know what to do with this, because it sounds good on paper and I'm like, oh, it'd be so good. Let's just blend it all together. And I would be all for like one week you have it English translated into Spanish. Next week you have it Spanish translated into English. And the people that don't like that can go somewhere else. We're okay with other people having the translation, but when it comes to us, oh, no, it's hard for us, whatever. So I don't.

Worship can be multilingual. Preaching, I would have different preachers from different whatever. But the hard one for me is I can think right now of several churches in town that are immigrant churches. And they're very conservative, very conservative. Like women head coverings and preacher suit and tie. Like, you know, women head coverings and preacher suit and tie. They're typical. The ones I'm thinking of, at least, are very patriarchal, very male dominated and theologically extremely conservative.

And so part of me is like, oh, I don't I'm not down with that. of ethnocentrism that my more, not even progressive values, but relatively speaking, progressive theology, which some people laugh, you know, what do you say about that? I mean, that's... Yeah. I mean, it's really true. It's why I don't go to an American church. There are very few. There is one in my city that's very progressive. It's an Episcopal Spanish-speaking church. But yes, I agree. They are very conservative. And so that would be hard if you had a more progressive congregation and you were trying to sort of do a bicultural service with a really conservative. Where, for example, if you had women preachers in the English service, but they weren't allowed in the Spanish speaking service, that would be a huge issue, right? A huge theological conflict there. And so, yeah, it is true.

A lot of churches are very conservative, which is really, you know, interesting, right? When you think about the way that people in the church think about immigrant communities as like lawbreakers or something, and these churches are so conservative and so aligned with just values that are just seen from another time, right? The head coverings, like you mentioned, you know, not allowing women leaders, all of that. So I think that's also makes it very complicated. Just because you're allowing an immigrant community to worship in your space doesn't mean that they align with you on everything theologically. And so that could make it really, really challenging. There are churches that are doing that.

There's a Nazarene church. But again, they're all Nazarenes. So they're on that same page. There's Pasadena Nazarene in California that does that really well. And they do. They'll have the bilingual. Is that the Pasadena Paznaz or whatever it's called? Yeah. Yeah.

I've been there before. Yeah. It seemed very, yeah. Forward thinking in this area. I think it's more like second generation churches that would be more, more in line with that. So in California, for example, I visited some Asian American churches that are second generation churches that would be more in line with that. So in California, for example, I visited some Asian American churches that are second generation. They're no longer first generation. So they're in English. They are more progressive. I think that is more of a possibility

because you have a lot more, you have a common language at least, you know, and both groups understand the culture of the U.S. really well. I think it's okay to let people have an immigrant service because, again, there are things that they will lose with integration. Right. This is a good space for them. And, again, it's more than just the worship time. It's being able to be fully yourself. Right, right, right. Yeah, totally.

And that's something that you can't do when dominant culture people present. I think that is a real gift to communities is to allow them to use space. And I think you can have those conversations at a later time. Once you build relationship, you build trust. And it's also good to find out where they're coming from, you know?

I think it's important for pastors to have accountability, kind of like having a denomination for that reason, or at least having a network of churches, you know, that have things like vineyard churches where like that Calvary chapels right i think x 29 has that too where they have agreement right on basic tenets that the churches have to agree to that they're part of i think it's good to have like i think what works at pasnas is that they're they all agree they're nazarenes you know uh and so that they have some theological overlap even though the expression of it might be very different. So there are ways to do that, but I think it is a much more complex conversation if you're not just asking them to assimilate to your space. Like, come into our space, we welcome you, but you have

to be just like us when you're here. Right. But my pastor, he went with our Congolese, But my pastor, he went with our Congolese, the pastor of the Congolese congregation to Congo in Kinshasa. And the pastor was like, hey, can you make sure you bring some like nice clothes, you know? Because, you know, it's actually a very conservative theological, theologically conservative church, but culturally it's very relaxed. It's a Calvary Chapel. So it's like, you know, fundamentalists in hawaiian shirts and you know birkenstocks

whatever so so my pastor i don't even think he owns like a suit a tie and so he thought like dressing up was like a button-down shirt and like nice jeans and so he got over there and the pastor's like all right that's good you know you're gonna speak at this church throw your suit on he's like i don't bring a suit he's like wait no you have to you have you can't not you can't preach in that like you can't it's just not you can't do that like it's that's that's not what we do here so um even even something as small as that like a mixed congregation where the preacher is you know wearing a t-shirt and jeans that can just be very offensive or just that's a huge stomach block for some people you know oh yeah i remember going to church with my grandma it was really

getting fully dressed up yeah every sunday that's yeah that's part of the culture is that you're really dressed up and putting your best side forward and yeah it's true um even that is just a difference there's no sort of casual coming to church and flip flops or anything like that. It's not okay. So yeah, those are big, big differences. I, um, as part of my degree at Fuller, I had to do spend time in a church that was not from my culture. And I ended up going to an Asian American church out in Pasadena for a while. And there were so many things that I learned that were so interesting. Like, for example, after the service, there was always the feast where we would gather together, you know, as a church, you know, and we'd all eat together.

And it was really, really wonderful. But there are things that I think about that church when I think back, I'm like, oh, there are things about this church that if you didn't really understand, Asian culture would feel wrong to you. You might feel them that way, even though they're just differences in the way that people worship, the way that people express their prayers. Um, so yeah, and I don't get me wrong. I think there's a richness if we can all come together, people from all different, you know, that sort of revelation, um, picture of everyone coming together and worshiping God. But as long as we don't, we're not forcing people to worship our way and we really are allowing that freedom of, okay, we're really going to have difficult conversations about how we're going to do this. Because usually what I see is that churches will do a, oh yeah, you know,

we welcome everyone. And they'll have one song they sing in Spanish during this. And that's the, that's the extent, you know, and I'm like, no, this is really, really different. Also, a lot of immigrant churches, the services tend to be long. Right. And think about it. I mean, for them, it's really important to have this long service. It's the only time, right, to get to be with all these people. And usually there's meals that are connected to it. And so all of that, I think, is part of a lot of white people might come and think, oh, my gosh, this is so long.

What is it going to be over? Right? Totally. I would be that way. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I went to a church here in Baltimore that was in Spanish. And I remember like four hours in thinking, I'd really like to go home now.

I'm so tired. It seems nowhere near ending. Yeah. I preached at a – it was actually at a YWam base in mexico and so it was in it was very bilingual and uh i think it was an hour and a half of pretty aggressive worship before i even got on stage to speak i was exhausted i was like i want to go take a nap and i'm like now just started to speak you know and like yeah you can speak for an hour i'm like i get sick up here myself after a half hour karen i'm gonna let you go thank you so much for

the conversation uh again the book is beyond welcome centering immigrants in our christian response immigration uh thank you for the work you're doing i always love talking to you learn a ton so um and let's let's go dodgers next year let. Let's hope that they pick up some pitchers. Let's go Dodgers. Yeah. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

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