How should Christians think about immigration? - Albert Mohler | Ask Anything Live

darriel from Ocala Flordia how should Christians think through the new administration's changes to our country's immigration policy more specifically how should the church respond lovingly biblically to our neighbors who are illegal immigrants okay I talked about this on the briefing I certainly did at great length after the first iteration of President Trump's immigration policy this isn't easy but one of the things we need to recognize is that the church is called to minister to people wherever we encounter those people we are called to minister to persons regardless of their citizenship regardless of their legal status and you know I think here's good news I think most Christians would know somebody's hungry and and we have the opportunity to feed them we must feed them if somebody is naked we have the opportunity to clothe them we must clothe them someone has the need a shelter we have that opportunity we need to meet it but we also understand that every nation has to have a set of laws on immigration one of my frustrations right now is that just in the last 24 hours I've seen in almost every newspaper an article saying that the enforcement of immigration laws is going to cause very real human pain well of course it will I mean in other words saying no to anyone for any reason is going to cause very real pain and and especially a nation that has not enforced its immigration laws or certainly with any consistency or for that matter sanity for for a generation is in a very bad position now all the sudden to say you know we're going to we're going to apply these laws but a nation that doesn't have same laws and doesn't expect those laws to be enforced and respected you know we'll all be a nation so we've got to respect that the nation has a responsibility the government has a responsibility and Christians should be a part of that conversation about where those lines should be drawn where the the guidelines should be set how citizenship should be recognized and and what kind of Immigration and Refugee policy should be put in place that is responsible for the nation that is that is faithful to American Prince American ideals and and to our governments responsibility to protect and even to define the nation that's very important the church's responsibility however is not limited at all by citizenship and this is where I think too many Christians are conflating the two you know they're our nation's immigration policy sets our our ministry so that's not the case our ministry is set by by going to all the world and preach the gospel and in other words we don't minister just on that basis but we should respect the laws of the country and even as we're engaged in those laws and trying to to make sure those laws are most just and most righteous we we also have to to work within those laws so I'm not sure I've clarified this a whole lot other than to say every Christian and every church needs to minister to persons regardless of their of their status according to the law but that does not mean that we don't respect the role of the government and the rule of law and and so that doesn't mean that we can take upon ourselves the definition of their status over against the laws of the country in terms of residents it also means that that we do want to be a part of a nation that responsibly deals with needs around the world but we also understand the government has a responsibility to define how how it believes those needs can and should be met and what our national role is that's different than the church's role and in the same way we don't look to the the state to tell us what our mission strategy should be we shouldn't look to the state to tell us what our strategy to reach persons regardless of their citizenship should be and so it's it's very complicated there's not if there were an easy way to just say this is how we should do it and and or even if it were easy to say this is what our immigration laws should be well that would be a different situation and the reality is even people in the same party even people who would agree on the same platform statement are not at all sure exactly how that issue is to be enacted in law and then enforced in reality so we're in for a very long national conversation let's remember the immigration has been of controversy in this country since 1776 intensely since the late 19th century throughout the entirety of the 20th century and and so this is an ongoing conversation it's an ongoing very urgent conversation in Europe and in other nations as well we need to remember in large parts of the world there really is no such conversation because immigration into the country is really not a part of the culture it's not according to law and it's not a part of what they understand to be their mandate so we're looking at a global situation and how much brokenness do we detect in the world around us I mean we're talking about more than four million refugees from the Syrian conflict alone that's a very daunting reality it makes us yearn for Jesus and for the day in which these problems will cease to be until then Christians have a gospel mandate and and nations have their own responsibilities in their own sphere of sovereignty and working out how that's related that's going to be with fear and trembling you

Channel: Southern Seminary

Views: 4,571

Rating: 4.8000002 out of 5

Keywords: christians, christianity, bible, immigration, mohler, albert mohler, ask anything, ask anything live, illegal immigration, immigration policy, immigrants, illegal immigrants

Id: cKAt1uM1Ngo

Length: 5min 44sec (344 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 13 2019