As I prepare for the Worship Rally for Comprehensive Immigration Reform today at the Ohio Statehouse, I am reminded of a comment on the subject of immigration that I read a while back. The comment went something along the lines of "the Bible tells us that we should follow the laws set up by our government." The commenter then went on to say that "we must follow our laws unless they go against scripture and in the case of Arizona's new immigration law, they do not." This got me thinking. First I disagree with the commenter's point that the Bible tells us to follow the laws of our government. While it is true that there are a few references in the Bible (Romans 13.1-7, 1 Peter 2.13-17, Titus 3.1-2), these verses are often taken out of context, and are in many ways contradictory to the way Jesus lived his life. I also disagree with the commenter's point that we can only break laws that go against scripture. Again, Jesus not only broke laws, he broke laws that were specifically connected to scripture! Jesus healed on the sabbath, touched lepers, hung out with women, ate with sinners and was eventuallyreceived capital punishment for breaking those laws. All of this has been argued before, and most people know the facts of Jesus being a radical and chose to accept of dismiss it, so I don't think I need to say more about that.What really got me thinking is this: If I believe that as a Christian, I am called to live as Jesus lived, am I responsible to break laws in the name of God? Now, I am not talking about speeding or doing illegal drugs to "stick it to the man." Or more seriously, causing harm to people in the name of God. I am talking about disobedience to a law that is so against the teachings of Jesus (and the teachings of many other religious leaders for that matter) that the church must stand up against such a law. There have been instances of the church doing this in several cases. One such example, several years ago, California passed a law making it illegal to provide any social service to an undocumented person. That means, it is against the law for a church, non-profit or government agency to give shelter, feed, or clothe any undocumented person who comes through their doors for assistance, in which case, upon seeing a person in need, said church, non-profit or government agency is supposed to ask for that person's papers and if they have none, send that person back into the streets to die. In an instance of disobedience the Catholic Arch-diocese of Los Angeles publicly announced that they would not discriminate against any person seeking out one of their churches or charities for assistance and dared the government to do something about it. As far as I know, to this day, the Catholic Church in California, along with other Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations continue to provide non-discriminatory assistance to EVERY person who walks through their doors. In this case, the church saw that the law was against Jesus' teachings of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and loving the stranger, teachings that by the way weren't accompanied by any type of exclusion clause. So to answer my own question, should we break laws in the name of God when necessary? Absolutely yes!
Now, it is not enough to just disobey laws that you disagree with, and it is going too far to try and claim that all laws are subject to disobedience. Not only is the church responsible to break laws that impose on the human rights of any person, but the church is responsible to be a voice for the voiceless. In Arizona, and soon in many other states, laws are being passed that impose on the rights of many undocumented AND documented immigrants. Just as Jesus refused to exclude lepers and tax collectors, we should refuse to accept laws that will tear apart families or block educational opportunities for the brightest of students. So, not only must we, if necessary disobey laws, but we must speak out to change those same laws.
For further reading:
The Interfaith Platform on Humane Immigration Reform
Myths About Immigration
Above image taken from Immigrants and Refugees
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