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Durham Declaration on Immigration and the Church by Noel Castellanos
Believing that God’s people are shaped by memory to imagine new possibilities, we refuse conformity to this world’s systems and commit ourselves to concrete practices of God’s beloved community.
• We remember that our forbearer Abraham was called to leave his homeland and live as a sojourner in a strange land (Genesis 12:1).
• We remember God’s instruction to our fore-parents after their liberation from slavery under Pharaoh: “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).
• We remember Jesus teaching that we welcome him when we welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:35).
• We remember that those of us who are Gentiles by birth were at one time “excluded from citizenship in Israel” (Ephesians 2:12), but that we are now citizens of God’s realm by grace.
• We remember the early church’s experience of showing hospitality to strangers and “entertaining angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).
• We remember that this land now called the United States of America was once home to indigenous peoples who were displaced by European conquest.
• We remember that the peoples who now live on this nation’s southern border practiced seasonal migration for generations before the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994.
• We remember that the injustice of racial inequality in this country demanded both civil disobedience and legislative reform in the Civil Rights movement.
Shaped by these distinct memories in this particular place, our eyes are open to the plight of immigrants and “undocumented” workers.
• We recognize that many who are considered “illegal” by our nation’s laws are our brothers and sisters in God’s family.
• We recognize and celebrate the gifts that our brothers and sisters from Latin America bring into the Christian family.
• We recognize the suffering of families who are presently being separated by arrests and deportation.
• We recognize a gap between this nation’s business practices and its immigration policy that creates a space beyond the rule of law where modern day slavery is accepted and overlooked.
• We recognize an urgent need for acts of hospitality, solidarity, and advocacy for comprehensive immigration reform in this country. Seeing these things, we are compelled to say “no” and stand against ideas and practices that are hurting our siblings.
• We refuse to accept a wall on this nation’s southern border as a solution to the challenges presented by immigration.
• We refuse to let any law prevent us from welcoming brothers and sisters and offering to them from our own resources those things which are required for health and well-being.
• We refuse to let political persuasions, be they conservative or liberal, trump our Christian identity.
• We refuse a cynical concession to the economic necessity of labor that allows immigrants to be here without welcoming them as equals.
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