Moving a motion for Sydney Anglicans “to think wiselyand theologically about immigration and nationhood,” Chaneg Torres a lay member of the Sydney Synod (church parliament)gave a speech that Dean Sandy Grant described as a model for the Social Issues Committee report that the motion sought.
I speak as someone who loves Australia and is deeply grateful to be an Australian and also as some one who’s an immigrant and also someone from Wahroonga Anglican,a church with agreat diversity background.
The first thing this motion affirms is that governments have a responsibility for wisely determined immigration policy; for the welfare, peace and good order of the people under their care.
Christians can have genuine prudential disagreements about immigration policy. Scripture doesn’t give up immigration policy, but as the motion affirms, scripture is clear about God’s heart and sovereign care for all people and all nations, and … the people are asked [to care for] for the vulnerable and dispossesed which includes the refugee and the foreigner. And, of course, has implications for how Christians think about a just immigration and social policy framework.
And that flows into the next part of the motion. Christians are called to seek the common good of the earthly nation. Jeremiah urged the expiles to seek the welfare of the city in which they live. The Bible tells us to honour governing authorities and submit to them, to pray for them, to give them what we owe in terms of taxes and to live such godly lives among the pagans. And Paul is, of course, happy to assert his rights as a Roman citizen.
So there is nothing unchristian about wanting the good of our country in Australia, particularly its people and valuing our Australian citizenship.
And this is the central theological point of the motion, our earthly citizenship can never be our ultimate identity and therefore conflicts about national identity and immigration must be seen in that light.
Saint Augustine wrestles with the issue of placing our hope in earthly political arrangements when Rome seemed to be collapsing around him. Christians should seek the good of the people in the earthly city and cooperate with them where we can, he argues, but they ultimately belong to another city, the city of God.
Their ultimate loyalty could never be to the earthly city for a Rome whose common object of love is ultimately the last predomination. For the Christian, we belong to a city, a new political community, a church whose common object of love is our royal Jesus.
It’s remarkable to me how often the New Testament uses political categories to describe who we are as God’s people. Paul tells us in Philippians three that our citizenship is in heaven. Ephesians two says that through Christ, we are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints. Paul tells us that we are no longers exiles on earth, but we have been made a holy nation. The writer to the Hebrews says that God’s people desire a better country, a heavenly one where God has prepared for us a city to which we truly belong. And I think that profoundly shapes how Christians should engage in debate about national identity and the question of immigration and who is considered in and out.
Because fourthly, the kingdoms of this world will pass away. Christ’s kingdom is forever. Revelation gives us that magnificent picture of the lamb who is slain being worshipped by people from every tribe, language, people and nation.
Christ has purchased with his blood a multi-ethnic people for himself and made them one new people, one new political community under him.
Interestingly with that image, eschatologicaly our ethnic and national identity aren’t necessarily obliterated, but they are relativised by something infinitely greater, our common belonging to Christ. And so at this point, our heavenly citizenship must affect how we love the people God has placed before us.
Saint Augustine again, in On Christian Teaching, speaks helpfully about rightly ordering our love. We are commanded to love everybody, but how do we order that properly? For Augustine to love our neighbour is to love the neighbour God has actually placed in front of us.
In many of our parish contexts that may be immigrants or refugees, people from very different ethnic or cultural backgrounds to us that God has placed in our area to seek out and show Jesus’ love to. Sitting beside us in church may be precious brothers and sisters who have come from all sorts of different places around the world. Our common identity in Christ must take precedence over ethnic based nationalism.
We belong first to an ultimate polity, an ultimate political community, a new holy nation gathered under King Jesus. And lastly as the motion states, the scriptures do invite us as God’s people to consider our identity in light of the memory of being foreign, once alienated from God. “Remember you were once foreign in the land of Egypt.” The book of Ruth invites God’s people to think of their identity as being open to the incorporation of foreigners.
So in terms of our cultural moment, debates about immigration and national identity are becoming increasingly intense in Australia and throughout the West. Many people in our churches and particularly young men are encountering widely-viewed, angry and anxious online arguments about ethno-nationalism and demanding the remigration of those who don’t share the dominant ethnic background of relevant countries.
We should therefore be equipped I think to think about these questions theologically and wisely with the help of the Social Issues Committee.
To close, I think there’s valuable work to be done in helping Sydney Anglicans follow these truths together that governments have a genuine responsibility to pursue the common goods including through immigration policies, that Christians may love and seek the welfare of their earthly nations, but that our ultimate citizenship is heavenly. Our ultimate loyalty is to Jesus Christ and the priority of our affections are for both brothers and sisters who Christ redeemed from every tribe, language and nation, and the neighbours that God has placed in our lives.
I think the work of the committee would help our churches models good neighbourliness in the midst of what will be growing social division around immigration, model within our church family, that multi-ethnic aspect of God’s kingdom while also thinking well about … the common good.. Thank you and I hope you can support this motion.
The motion passed on the voices.
The motion
Synod, noting the increasing intensity of debate about immigration and national identity globally and in Australia, affirms –
(a) the right responsibility of the Commonwealth Government to wisely determine immigration numbers and composition for the purpose of establishing peace and good order for the welfare of the Australian people,
(b)that Christians are called to seek the common good, including the good of the earthly nation that God has placed them in,
(c) God’s sovereign care for all people and nations and his particular heart for the vulnerable and dispossessed,
(d) that Christian identity must ultimately prioritise the reality of belonging to the Kingdom of God, our true citizenship being in heaven, from where we await our coming Saviour,
(e) that all the kingdoms of this world will ultimately pass away and be placed under Christ’s rule, and that he has purchased a people for himself by his blood from every nation, tribe and tongue and called them to be a renewed, holy nation,
(f) that the reality of our heavenly citizenship as members of God’s multi ethnic people, and our ultimate loyalty to the Lord Jesus, must lead to a priority of love for our Christian brothers and sisters who may come from different ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds; and for our neighbours regardless of their ethnic, racial or cultural backgrounds, desiring their earthly good and that they too would be part of God’s new people,
and therefore requests that the Social Issues Committee prepare a paper to assist Sydney Anglicans to think wisely and theologically about immigration and nationhood, and the way that the Gospel proclamation that Jesus is Lord should shape Christian thinking, including the ways Scripture uses the experience and memory of being foreigners to shape the identity and conduct of God’s people.
(Mr Chaneg Torres / The Rev Dr David Höhne)
Image: British Migrants arriving in Sydney 1949, on the deck of the Georgic. Image Credit: state Library of NSW / Picryl