LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 366

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366

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
Even as love for God and neighbor directs all Christian moral deliberation, so also do the Ten Commandments, for they give shape and substance
to that love. The aforementioned concerns for our immigrant neighbors’
physical, social, economic, and spiritual needs are examples of the shape love
takes as guided by the commandments. Flowing from love for God, Christian
love for our neighbors seeks their spiritual well-being and also seeks “to help
and support” them in every need, to help improve their economic well-being
(“property and income”), and to explain their actions “in the best possible
light.”32 As we will see in the next section, the fourth commandment—“Honor
your father and your mother”—also has direct relevance. It speaks not only of
the shape love takes in the home as children “honor, serve, love, and respect”
their parents, but also to what Luther called another “category of ‘fatherhood,’” civil authority.33 Christian love recognizes an obligation to honor
and support governing authorities so that our daily life might be decent and
orderly and chaos might be constrained (see 1 Tim. 2:2).
By serving as a point of departure for shaping the church’s basic attitude
towards immigrants today, the biblical teachings on loving the immigrant
neighbor as ourselves and on showing hospitality to the strangers in our
midst also serve as a good deterrent against the development of any attitudes
towards aliens, whether documented or undocumented, that are not driven by
a legitimate concern for the law and the neighbor. Faith and charity compel all
Christians not to form their final judgments concerning aliens on the basis of
discourse and opinions that are fueled by unfounded fears or myths concerning immigrants and/or racist or discriminatory attitudes against people of
other ethnic groups and nationalities.34 The remembrance of the LCMS’s own
immigrant past, including the fears and prejudices endured by many of our
Lutheran fathers and mothers in the faith upon arrival to the United States,
should help us to foster a charitable disposition towards immigrants today.
However, beyond appeals to our own historic immigrant identity, stands the
clear and timeless will and command of God in the Scriptures concerning the
church’s need to remember and care for the immigrant neighbor.
32
See the explanations to the fifth, seventh, and eighth commandments SC I, 9-10, 13-16 (KW,
352-353).
33
See LC I, 149-150 (KW, 407). “Through civil rulers, as through our own parents, God gives us
food, house and home, protection and security, and he preserves us through them. Therefore,
because they bear this name and title with all honor as their chief distinction, it is also our duty
to honor and respect them as the most precious treasure and most priceless jewel on earth.”
34

See, for example, Patricia Fernández-Kelly, “To Welcome the Stranger: The Myths and Realities of Illegal Immigration,” Perspectivas: Occasional Papers 10 (2006): 9-22; see also Lutheran
Immigration & Refugee Service (LIRS), “Immigration Myths and Facts.” Website: http://www.
lirs.org/mythbusters; for an example of a booklet fueled by subtle discriminatory remarks
against new immigrants, see John C. Vinson, Immigration and Nation, a Biblical View (Monterey,
Virginia: American Immigration Control Foundation, 1997), where he argues that God’s division of the nations since Babel and the distinction of Israel from the surrounding nations
supports immigration control for the sake of maintaining the traditional European White ethnocultural make-up of the U.S.

II. God’s Law, Civil Law,35 and the Neighbor:
On Christian Obedience to God’s Commands
While the Scriptures consistently teach the church to love the strangers in
her midst as a foundational value for all times and places, the Scriptures also
instruct Christians to obey or submit to the authorities whom God has sent,
instituted, and appointed for our good (Rom. 13:1-7, 1 Pet. 2:13-17). The one in
authority is to be honored and feared as “God’s servant” and minister, for he
bears the “sword” in order “to punish those who do evil and to praise those
who do good.” Submission to the authorities concretely means obedience to
the laws these servants and ministers are called to create, implement, and
enforce (e.g., paying taxes, cf. Rom. 13:6-7). While Scripture does not offer a
specific position on immigration law, it does bind Christians to obey the civil
authorities, including laws dealing with immigration.36
While Martin Luther includes the promotion of our neighbor ’s life
(including that of the stranger) under the fifth commandment (“You are not
to kill”), he also clearly teaches submission to the authorities God has placed
in our midst (including, civil servants) under the fourth commandment
(“You are to honor your father and your mother”).37 Both are the will of God
and, therefore, must be carried out. This means concretely that we must love
immigrants, show fairness to them, and promote their lives and well-being
regardless of their legal status in society and, at the same time, submit to the
temporal authorities and thus obey the civil laws they enact, promote, and
enforce in society (including those laws that deal with immigrants and their
legal status). Given these equally valid demands that God’s commandments
place on Christians, it is not uncommon for brothers and sisters in Christ to
struggle with and argue among themselves about the best ways to be faithful
to what God desires of His people.
The popular debate over whether immigrants without a valid visa
should be referred to as “illegal” or “undocumented” immigrants illustrates
what happens when we attempt to resolve the inherent tension between the
demand to preserve the immigrants’ well-being regardless of legal status with
the demand to obey the laws of the land regulating their legal status.38 On the
one hand, Christians who prefer to speak of “undocumented” immigrants
35
“Civil law” is used in this document in a theological sense to refer to all humanly instituted
law, enforced by earthly authorities, and intended to maintain order and justice. (See Appendix
II B.2.)
36
We want to emphasize that immigration law as such is not inherently bad. A government’s
efforts to provide secure borders and clear standards for managing immigration is a necessary
aspect of its responsibility to provide for the well-being of its citizens—the very vocation that
God gives to civil authorities. See Amstutz and Meilaender, Public Policy & the Church, 4-17.
37

LC, Ten Commandments, 141-142, 150-151.

38
On the use of the modifiers “illegal” and “undocumented,” see Leopoldo Sánchez, “Immigrants Among Us: What Are Confessional Lutherans to Do?” LOGIA 19/1 (2010): 57-58.

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might desire to affirm the basic dignity of immigrants (along the lines of the
fifth and eighth commandments), showing sensitivity to their plight and the
need for promoting their well-being. Consequently, they might appear to give
less weight in their use of language to current demands of the civil law regarding legality or illegality without ultimately denying the need for the rule of
law. These brothers and sisters in Christ generally tend to be in disagreement
with those aspects of current immigration law that they consider inadequate
to address the fair treatment of immigrants. On the other hand, Christians who
speak more readily of “illegal” immigrants might focus on the need for obedience to the civil law (a fourth commandment concern) as it applies to current
immigration law, but in doing so might appear to come across as insensitive to
the plight of immigrants and as somewhat uncritical concerning certain potentially problematic aspects of current immigration law that might not address
adequately their fair treatment.

commandment) in their approach to immigration are not necessarily insensitive to the need for obedience to the civil authorities and the laws of the land.

These popular uses of language to refer to immigrants in our midst, even
within church circles, are instructive. They reveal to some extent how Christian conversation about immigrants today can be shaped significantly or at
least in part by Christian attitudes and priorities concerning what it means
to be faithful to God’s commandments.39 Some acknowledgment of the basic
assumptions underlying our discourses about immigrants helps us to recognize that brothers and sisters in Christ with an equal desire to be faithful to
God’s commands may actually disagree on how best to carry them out when
it comes to dealing with their immigrant neighbor.
Acknowledgment of genuine and legitimate Christian disagreements
about the application of God’s commands to reflection on and attitudes
toward aliens also serves as a deterrent against caricatures of each other’s positions on a delicate issue. On the one hand, Christians who tend to give priority
to obedience to the civil authorities (fourth commandment) in their approach
to immigration are not necessarily insensitive to the plight of immigrants and
their families. On the other hand, Christians who tend to give higher priority
to the well-being and fair treatment of immigrants and their families (fifth

39
It is interesting to note, for instance, within the Evangelical tradition, how Hoffmeier’s and
Carroll’s differing starting points in their studies on immigrants in the Bible give their assessments of contemporary illegal immigration a different tone. Hoffmeier takes as his starting
point and overall framework obedience to the law, which leads him to stress the distinction between a legal alien and a foreigner and thus the need for border enforcement today. This leads
to a strong focus on obedience to the law with minimal concern with whether contemporary
U.S. immigration law actually promotes a just state of affairs or not for our immigrant neighbors. See The Immigration Crisis, 29-57, 153-160. Carroll, on the other hand, starts with the immigrant as a human being created in God’s image and then highlights his identity as a stranger
who is to be shown hospitality. This leads to a strong focus on the Christian’s disposition to see
the immigrant as a neighbor in need and, while the command to obey the law is affirmed, the
focus is given to the Christian’s duty to be a responsible and well-informed citizen on the matter of current immigration law and the forms of injustice it arguably promotes. See Christians
at the Border, 63-134.

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2013 Convention Workbook

Although adjectives such as “illegal” and “undocumented,” when
referring to immigrants, assume and manifest to some degree different yet
legitimate Christian attitudes on what it means to be faithful to God’s commandments when dealing with immigrants, Christians must also remember
that the use of such terms has limitations. Since such adjectives are neither
forbidden nor commanded in Scripture, Christians are free to use them. At
the same time, while Christians can use them as they see fit, they should do so
critically and with charity. For example, when used in the presence of immigrants or people who work to advocate for their fair treatment, the adjective
“illegal” will likely be seen or heard as uncharitable and become an unnecessary obstacle to further Gospel proclamation to the immigrant or dialogue
with those whose vocation is to advocate for them. Similarly, when used in
the presence of some legislators, border patrol agents, or citizens who want
to honor the rule of law, the otherwise valid use of the adjective “undocumented” may be interpreted as a lack of proper concern either for the rule of
law or proper appreciation of the work of those who enact and enforce the
particular laws of the land.
Furthermore, Christians must exercise good judgment in their use of
extra-biblical terms such as “illegal” and “undocumented” because these
adjectives are also limited in their scope. Such terms clearly operate within
the narrow confines of legality. Precisely because of this focus on legal status
alone, they offer neither a comprehensive picture of our immigrant neighbors
nor an accurate portrait of the complexity of the immigration problem.
On the one hand, recognition of the intended scope of these popular terms
prevents Christians from reducing the alien or immigrant neighbor to a legal
category, label, or problem. Immigrants are, much more basically, human
beings, God’s creatures, and sinners just like each one of us. Their physical and
spiritual needs must at the very least be taken into account in any discussions
about the role of the individual Christian and the church in dealing with them.
When applied to the alien, for instance, the term “illegal” fails to distinguish
properly between the immigrant person and the specific act he or she has committed that is contrary to the law.
On the other hand, and not least importantly, recognition of the narrow
legal scope of the terms “illegal” and “undocumented” allows Christians to
consider seriously a broader and more comprehensive range of factors related
to civil law in the immigration issue. Such factors may include but are not
limited to family unification, labor demand, economic need, law enforcement,
national or border security, workers’ rights, human rights, and earned paths
to legalization.40 In dealing with aspects of civil law that may be considered
40
SRIC reads: “As corporate citizens of this nation, we recognize that solutions to the problem
of illegal immigration are complex. There are many factors that deserve consideration, each

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