Human Dignity and Immigration Reform

August 21, 2012 By 10 Comments

Just days ago, on August 15th, immigration policy in the United States experienced a significant change.  For undocumented immigrants under 30 who came to the United States as children, the Department of Homeland Security will now accept applications for two year stays in the country.  It is expected that about 1 million people will apply this year by the deadline six months away, although in a report released August 14th by the Pew Hispanic Center, it is estimated that up to 1.7 million people may qualify.  While such a plan does not create a pathway to citizenship, it does eliminate some of the fear associated with deportation—at least for two years.

This policy change has not been enacted without opposition. As many recall, the DREAM Act, which proposes a path to citizenship for many of the same people targeted by the current policy, has repeatedly failed to be passed by the Congress. Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona, who is infamous for her stances on immigration, signed an executive order the same day that prevents undocumented immigrants (including those granted “deferred stays” through the policy) from receiving public benefits; a move that effects a potential of 80,000 immigrants in Arizona who would be eligible for stays in the United States.

USCIS, 2012

While I recognize that many readers of the blog will have both strong—and different—views on the current immigration change, I think it also worth acknowledging that this is an issue where evangelicals of various political (and theological) stripes have come together to try and move past bipartisan conflict.  In the Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform, released in June 2012, leaders such as Jim Wallis (Sojourners), Jim Daly (Focus on the Family), Richard Land (Southern Baptists) and David Beckman (Bread for the World) came together.

Our national immigration laws have created a moral, economic, and political crisis in America…. As evangelical leaders, we call for a bipartisan solution on immigration that: respects the God-given dignity of every person….

This letter, issued days before Obama announced the potential for undocumented immigrants to receive immunity from deportation, also calls for supporting secure borders, protecting the unity of the family, respecting the rule of law, and establishing paths for legal status and citizenship.

Regardless of how one responds to this recent effort at reform, or more comprehensive strategies being proposed, what does it mean for people of faith to respect and affirm the God-given dignity of every person?  As someone who studies discourse in the public realm, I would argue part of the answer entails examining our language (and assumptions) about others.  While this clearly is not the only way—or even the most central way—to affirm the dignity of one another, it is a start.

What language do we use to talk about immigrants?  “Undocumented immigrants” clearly conjures a different image than “illegal aliens.” There need to be an increased recognition that those who are here unofficially rarely see that as a good option. I often hear comments that people should just come legally; that would solve the immigration problem.  There is a lack of recognition of the real obstacles that immigrants face in coming to the United States.  Respecting the dignity of people requires acknowledging their stories and their realities.  For example, for those coming from Mexico and Central America unofficially, they often face the steadily increasing risk of dying in the desert and being separated from their families.  What are we doing to better understand those stories, and respect the dignity and lives of all in America?

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The Cost of Vocation

August 7, 2012 By 2 Comments

As the summer months come to a close, students and teachers alike are gearing up to start back to school.  August is the month that I often hear colleagues and students lament that the summer just is not long enough. While professors do work over the summer, many of us get a break from the heavy teaching loads we carry during the academic year.

The start of a school year is a good time to reflect on why it is we (professors and teachers) do what we do.  For many of us, there are the logistical explanations for our career: many of us need paychecks to support ourselves and our families.  But most in this profession did not sign up because of the size of the salary, but because we believe that what we do is important. As people of faith, we often speak about the idea of vocation and calling, and for Christians in the academy, we often think of our work more as a vocation than a job.

In my last post, I wrote about some of the experiences that I had while attending CLADE V in Costa Rica.  One of them served to remind me that I chose my line of work as a way to be faithful and serve God. In speaking with a participant from Mexico about my commuting marriage (my husband, Steve, also works for a Christian institution of higher education, but in a different state), he didn’t respond as many acquaintances have in the past.  Instead of asking “Who watches your kids,” or commenting “I could NEVER do that,” he affirmed the work that both my husband and I do.  He encouraged us to be faithful.  A similar sentiment was echoed by others I met at the conference.

This stands in contrast to several other conversations I’ve had during the last year and a half, explaining to many people why my family has chosen to commute. Such a conversation often entails explaining that our jobs are more than work–they are our vocations. They are a way of living out our passions in the most faithful way we know how. A commuting marriage is one cost to what serving and following God has looked like for my family, but it’s a much smaller cost that many people confront in their choices to be faithful.

For this friend at CLADE V (and others like him), he viewed our jobs as vocations, and he believed that we were seeking to be faithful to God.  Leaving this conversation, I realized how much I appreciated this attitude.  Too often, I meet Christians where the underlying response seems to be one that I am not following the “best practices” of raising my family.  At some level, I have violated what it means to be a mother.  I have, it seems, put a mere job over a more serious call to motherhood (with all the implications that entails in evangelical settings).  Unfortunately, such an attitude greatly trivializes what it is that work represents, and also sets up false expectations for what it means to parent well.  Even worse for people of faith, it limits our ability to follow God.

As I begin to prepare lessons, engage in discussions over curriculum, mentor students around me (all while continuing my research), I am thankful for my experiences this summer with friends like those mentioned above.  They have reminded me not to put expectations on others–or myself–on what it looks like to serve God.

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The context of religion

July 17, 2012 By 2 Comments

I had the privilege to spend the last week at the 5th Latin American Conference on Evangelization (CLADE V in Spanish), sponsored by the Latin American Theological Fraternity (FTL). FTL is well known for its emphasis on integral mission, a Protestant response to many of the social, political, and economic problems occuring in Latin America during the 1960s and 70s.

Sociologists would classify most of the people at the event as conservative or evangelical Protestants.  The average participant reads the Bible regularly and takes a high view of its authority; she believes in  the power of the Holy Spirit to work in the world.  The group prioritizes the need to share ones faith and live the Gospel. Relationships are of central importance, both regarding one’s relation to God and neighbor.  Among the denominations represented were the Evangelical Free Church, Mennonites, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Assemblies of God, Christian Missionary Alliance, Baptists, the Christian Reformed Church and independent Pentecostals.

As studies of religion and political life reveal, theology often seems to matter inconsistently (or very little) when it comes to political and economic issues for the average person of faith.  Within the United States, for example, Kenneth Wald and Allison Calhoun-Brown (in Religion and Politics in the United States) show that socio-economic status (and history) are much more important that the theological beliefs of a group in predicting their political views on economic issues. In the United States, due in part to the upward mobility of this group, white evangelicals have tended to be more politically conservative regarding the economy (think of issues such as welfare or taxation policy). Yet among Black Protestants (also theologically conservative) and evangelicals across the Global South, this same connection is not present.  Increasingly, scholars are also separating Hispanic Catholics from other Catholics, as faith seems to matter in different ways for these different groups as well.

While social science data often seems to support the idea that theology and religious beliefs do not matter in any consistent ways when it comes to views of the economy, we should remember this does not mean theology is not important for the ways people engage and think about economic life.  As Hart found in the mid 1990s in his study of Christians in the United States (What Does the Lord Require? How American Christians Think About Economic Justice), people use their faith to develop ideas about economic life; yet people pull from different religious ideas, and those who worship together may arrive at contradictory conclusions. While many in the United States would still say theology doesn’t matter much when it comes to their economic views, for others, religious ideas are very important.

Sitting in a room with my Latin American sisters and brothers, I saw the social sciences played an important role, and I doubt few would have been surprised by any of the statements listed above.  However, they take such ideas a step further, arguing that theology itself is contextual.  So the issue may be less that one’s economic position takes precedence over one’s view of scripture in predicting certain political views, and more that economics has the power to deeply shape ones view of scripture and theology.

Many of the arguments I heard last week were uncontested, yet they were not ones you would hear at the typical megachurch in the United States. Access to water should not be bought and sold. No person is illegal. The high level of consumption many of us have is not a good use of the earth´s resources.  When abuse or exploitation happens, real justice demands responsibility for one´s actions.  These views are deeply theological, flowing from beliefs of most participants in the global South: that the image of God is in every person, that the Holy Spirit brings life where there is death, that solidarity with our sisters and brothers is a demand of the gospel, and that obedience to Christ is about a covenant with God and those around us.

Recognizing that context matters as it does should cause all people of faith to re-examine their own theologies and religious beliefs. Evangelicals of various political stripes in Latin America tend to see destruction caused by US mining efforts or manufacturing of weapons. Christians in the United States must at least seriously consider these claims (and our responsibility).  As I find in my own research, among Christians in the US who share some of these concerns, it is often those with connections with Christians abroad. That is, although their context is that of the global North, their perspective is shaped by those outside such a context. This seems to resonate with what Christian Smith and Michael Emerson (Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America) found over a decade ago when studying white evangelicals. It was those who were in networks with black Americans that were more likely to see systematic injustice– in this case, to recognize racism and discrimination as significant problems.

In an age of globalization, we have more chances than before to be a part of global networks, with those in different positions in the international system. How might we—here, I specifically mean people of faith within the United States—allow ourselves to think more critically about our own context and how it shapes our theology?  How might we think about issues like economic globalization (which tend to benefit many of us in the middle or upper class of the United States) as deeply theological ones? These are issues of life and death, as my brothers and sisters consistently confirmed last week. As people of faith, we can not afford to ignore the context of our own theologies.

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Sexual Exploitation and Religious Advocacy

July 3, 2012 By 2 Comments

Anyone who has leafed through an airline travel magazine can probably name a number of ways that they stand out from other publications. Flying just this week, I saw many of the same messages I’ve seen in the past.  Multiple advertisements promise to help professional and ‘quality’ men find the ‘quality’ women they deserve.  Other marketing materials identify the best steakhouses, the best plastic surgeons, or the newest (expensive) sports equipment.

This time around, a particular advertisement caught my eye precisely because it did not fit as well with the others.  Still targeted towards an upper-class, internationally networked, professional male population, a child’s eyes took up the top quarter of the page.  Under the image was the following caption:

I’m not a tourist attraction.
It’s a crime to make me one.

Stop child sex tourism.
www.seekjustice.org

Although the audience was the same, this advertisement, sponsored by World Vision International (WVI), with support from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, speaks a very different message.  It is part of a broader initiative to combat the growing problem of exploitation, enabled in part by the power this magazine’s audience holds.

Sex trafficking and forced sexual labor is a growing problem.  Along with other forms of forced labor, it is an issue that evangelicals and other faith-based organizations are increasingly protesting.  Recent statistics released last month from the International Labor Organization suggest that approximately 20.9 million people globally are victims of forced labor. 4.5 million of those are exploited for their sexual labor.  If we consider the millions of other sex workers who “voluntarily” chose the trade, often with little real choice, the numbers rise significantly. Evangelicals, alongside of feminist groups and other concerned about human rights, have worked together in coalitions (such as the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women) to support legislation and lead campaigns aimed at ending sex trafficking and forced sexual labor. The International Justice Mission is one organization that has galvanized attention in the evangelical community to this problem; they work to change structures, and hold accountable those committing and enabling the abuse.

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The location of this particular advertisement speaks to the larger context in which forced sexual labor occurs.  The audience for this magazine is the opposite of the image in the advertisement.  The picture is of a presumably non-Western girl.  We know that children and women who are predominantly the victims of trafficking; further, it is the ‘other,’ the foreigner, that is often trafficked. Although discussing the commercial sex industry more generally, Kevin Bales notes how power differentials play into the growth of sex trafficking, specifically in Thailand (“Because She Looks Like a Child” in Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, Harry Holt Publishers, 2002):

Commercial sex is a legitimate form of entertainment and release.  It is not just     acceptable: it is a clear statement of status and economic power.  Such attitudes reinforce the treatment of women as mere markers in a male game of status and  prestige (216).

I have been encouraged by religious actors’ responses to the devastating problem of forced sexual labor.  Teaching at Wheaton College, I see some of the consequences of this engagement: many of my students are committed to working for social change in this area.  They see the responsibility for the church to mourn with the victims of sexual violence, and to struggle for their justice.

At the same time, my hope continues to be that the issue of sex trafficking will also draw attention to the problem of sexual violence and sexual commodification committed in less egregious ways, but ones that still strip women (and children) around the world of their dignity.  Sexual violence is an issue that plagues the church.  While some religious communities give significant attention to these issues, many do not. Scholars consistently try to correct the myths surrounding the violence: that it exists only in certain communities, that victims are somehow responsible, that is is mainly due to alcohol or drug abuse.  Instead, they point to ways such violence is made possible through the power dynamics at work (as highlighted by Bales above).

The work of groups like WVI, IJM, and many others in the faith community to combat sex trafficking is important and necessary. There still remains, however, a need to reflect more on the norms that also contribute to a demand for human trafficking.

Women are for the consumption of men.

Sexuality is something to be taken, or something that can be bought and sold.

Those who are foreign, or racially and ethnically different, are less human.

Men are naturally sexually deviant.

While few might fully endorse the statements above, these norms are present are various levels throughout our culture–unfortunately, even in the church.  Continuing to address them is vital in struggles not just against sexual trafficking, but also other forms of sexual exploitation and violence.

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