Christian discipleship

Review: Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus

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Cover image of "Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus" by Dave Ripper

Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus

Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus, Dave Ripper. InterVarsity Press | Formatio (ISBN: 9781514013106) 2025.

Summary: How the approach of Dallas Willard to reading scripture may transform us as disciples.

The late Dallas Willard was not only a distinguished academic philosopher. He also was known for his teaching on spiritual formation. At the heart of that teaching was the idea of experiencing transformation from the inside out, becoming more like Christ. Willard understood this in light of the biblical idea of discipleship. He observed that “disciple” occurs 269 times in the New Testament whereas “Christian” occurs only three times. For Willard, that transformation as disciples came, at least in part, through his reading of scripture. His own Bible was marked up on every page with underlines, circles, and notes.

As Dave Ripper read the works of Dallas Willard and then had the chance to meet him, Willard’s engagement with scripture fascinated him. Whereas for many, reading scripture was about information, Willard encountered Christ as he read scripture. So, Ripper wanted to read the Bible like Dallas Willard. Both during Willard’s life and through his writing, he came to understand how Willard immersed himself in the text But Willard never wrote a book about this. This is that book.

Ripper begins with Willard on John 17:3. Jesus says to his disciples, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (NIV). Willard stressed that this is relational, intimate, personal knowledge and by this we experience that eternal life of God in us now. Willard urged expectancy that as we read, we will experientially know God. He goes on to elaborate Willard’s view of scripture as establishing the boundaries of what he will say to us. While we may hear God in prayer, it will always be within these boundaries. But Willard expected God to speak, as Ripper describes in writing about Willard as a mystic. He believed God would both speak through this text and speak personally.

But how do we read like Willard? Similar to Mortimer Adler, Willard was a believer in marking up the text. He believed in the over-arching story of scripture of God forming a People for himself, a theme he traced in fifteen movements. Willard also believed it was more important to get scripture through us than to get through a lot of scripture. He stressed meditating on shorter texts and doing so through memorization of those texts.

Ripper explores Willard’s adaptation of both lectio divina and Ignatian approaches. Ripper then distills Willard’s ideas into a seven-step process defined by the acronym IMMERSE. These steps are;

  1. Immersion. Our posture of reverence and expectancy that God will speak.
  2. Meditation. Spending extended time mulling over what we’ve read before God.
  3. Memorization. Start with key passages and memorize as much as you can.
  4. Encounter. Using our imagination, we become a participant in the text, addressing and being addressed by God.
  5. Response. How are we being invited to act upon what we’ve heard? What does it mean for us to trust and obey?
  6. Supplication. Asking God for what we need for what we’ve heard to become so for us.
  7. Experience. Knowing God to be truly present with us amid our circumstances.

Through this process we move from communication to communion to union with God.

Then Ripper devotes two chapters to elaborating how Willard experienced the Old Testament and then the New. Finally, Ripper discusses how to teach scripture like Dallas Willard, offering ten short aphorisms. For example, the first is “speak from the overflow of a satisfied soul.” I liked the fourth as well: “Give ’em heaven!” If all of us who teach heeded these ten, the church would be immeasurably enriched. And it would not be at the expense of our souls.

This book is hardly a substitute for either the scriptures themselves, nor the writings of Dallas Willard. But the ideas here may well whet your appetite for a richer engagement with scripture and the Lord who waits to speak to us. It was twenty years ago that I heard Willard speak and read his books–and not all of them. Ripper’s study of Willard is a spur to me that led me to move a couple of the unread books to my TBR pile.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Imitating Christ

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Cover image of "Imitating Christ" by Luke Timothy Johnson

Imitating Christ: The Disputed Character of Christian Discipleship, Luke Timothy Johnson. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883100) 2024.

Summary: Contends our understanding of Christian discipleship has shifted in recent centuries from personal sanctification to social justice.

C.S. Lewis made the case for reading old books as offering us a different (not better or worse) perspective on our world by which we may better evaluate our own. New Testament and Christian origins scholar Luke Timothy Johnson offers something of that kind of perspective taking on the matter of Christian discipleship. He argues that the prevailing understanding of the church for the first eighteen centuries was that discipleship was imitating Christ, growing in holiness through walking in the way of the crucified one, which included suffering and martyrdom as well as spiritual practices. Such discipleship resulted both in devotion to God and loving service of others. Johnson traces this shared understanding from earliest Christianity up to and through the reformation.

But everything changed with the advent of modernity. The church was weakened and changed by four factors in his reckoning:

  1. The ideology of enlightenment wedded to technology.
  2. The weak and fragmented state of Christianity.
  3. Dramatic social change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
  4. The ideological attack on Christianity from science and philosophy in the nineteenth century.

The dramatic social change combined with the intellectual attack led to a shift from inner to activist expressions of Christianity and the rise of the Social Gospel and concerns for abolition, women’s suffrage, and other social needs in an industrializing society. The combination of scientific attacks and biblical criticism led to an increasingly ethical rather than theological focus. Instead of imitating Christ as growth in holiness, discipleship was framed by imitating the deeds of Jesus.

The heart of this book, for me, was chapter 6, “A Critical Analysis of the Two Visions.” Johnson contrasts the use of scripture and the theology of the two visions. For example, he contrasts the two visions understanding of the world, God, Christ, Salvation, Anthropology, and Eschatology. Johnson recognizes that the shift in focus reflects an attempt to engage with modernity. However, he holds that apart from the classical understanding of discipleship, a focus on social activism is rootless, as valid as the concerns to which it responds are. Thus in the latter two chapters he explores resources that integrate the two approaches ranging from Mother Theresa in Calcutta to Tim Keller in New York City.

He concludes with considering Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Thomas Merton as models. He offers three reasons for this. First, they are radicals rather than progressives, going to the roots rather than aligning with a party. Second, while intellectually engaged with culture, they did not submit to modernist epistemology but to scripture. Finally, they read all of scripture as both for them and the world.

The choice of these two as models, as fascinating as their lives and works were, was questionable to me. Both were arguably moving away from orthodox belief later in life. Stronger examples for me might be Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and the Catholic Worker Movement, and John Perkins, at Voice of Calvary Ministries, a pioneering movement in Christian Community Development.

However, this should not distract from the clarion call to re-examine our lives and thinking around Christian discipleship. I think Johnson spots the danger in our social activism that it can lose its rootedness in Christ, ceasing to be Christian in any recognizable sense. Meanwhile, he affirms the need in the context of modernity for discipleship that imitates Christ in the world. A thought-provoking book to be sure!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Jesus Changes Everything

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Cover image of "Jesus Changes Everything" by Stanley Hauerwas

Jesus Changes Everything (Plough Spiritual Guides), Stanley Hauerwas, edited by Charles E. Moore with an Introduction by Tish Harrison Warren. Plough Publishing House (ISBN: 9781636081571) 2025.

Summary: The radical implications of Jesus’ call to follow him for every area of life from personal to societal.

Did answering the call of Jesus to follow him turn your life upside down (or rather right side up)? Stanley Hauerwas has maintained through all of his writing that Jesus changes everything. Following him isn’t about inspiring messages followed by polite chit-chat in the church lobby that has little effect on life Monday through Saturday. Rather, this collection of readings from his works demonstrates how Jesus indeed changes everything from our life orientation to our identification with God’s people to our money, our pursuit of peace, and even our politics.

The book is organized in six sections. What follows is a brief summary to highlight what you will find:

Part I: Following Jesus. Jesus call is a call to follow him, giving him our ultimate allegiance, even unto death, to get out of the boat far from shore and come to him. It’s not a call to an abstract kingdom but into relationship with the living, breathing king. But to follow this king is not a modification of the existing social order, but to become part of a new social order. While love is central to that life, it is love defined by the cross, where Jesus fully identifies with sin and suffering to raise us to new life.

Part II: Good News. The good news is that in Christ the impossible of the sermon on the mount becomes possible. There is really more to life than living for ourselves. Jesus means it when he calls us to be perfect because that perfection is already in effect in him, and may be in us as we look at and follow him. This way of living subverts the existing social order as it embraces a community of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Part III: God’s Alternative Society. At Pentecost, God created something new out of people from every language group. Specifically he created the alternative society called church. It is a society characterized by truth and charity. It is our first family through baptism. For Hauerwas, this has radical implications for marriage, which is supported and derived from our other commitments. Hauerwas contends, “You do not fall in love and then get married. You get married and then learn what real love requires.’

Part IV: Kingdom Economics. Hauerwas is blunt. We have a problem with wealth and we try to soften the radical teaching of Jesus. The issue is whether we see our goods voluntarily at the disposal of others and are able to say “enough” to ourselves. To not offer help we are able to give is theft. Even the prayer for daily bread is for our bread. He asks whether we are closer to the extravagant Mary or the grifting Judas.

Part V: Sowing Seeds of Peace. The way of Jesus is the way of peace. He made peace with God and with one another possible at the cross. He challenges Christians to practice this when we have grievances and he speaks a challenging word to divisive political partisanship. Any identification of Christianity with party or nation is idolatrous. Rather Christians are to “help the world find habits of peace.” He unflinchingly calls Christians to non-violence which may mean “that we and those we love cannot be spared death.” This is dangerous business, only to be contemplated with the hope of the resurrection. He makes the modest proposal that Christians begin by at least agreeing that they will not kill each other.

Part VI: The Politics of Witness. The question is not which party or policies ought the church support. Instead, Hauerwas argues,

“Put starkly, the first task of the church when it comes to social ethics is to be the church. Such a claim may well sound self-serving or irrelevant until we remember that what makes the church the church is its faithful manifestation of the peaceable kingdom in the world. As such, the church does not have a social ethic; the church is a social ethic.”

Jesus alone is king. Rather than killing for freedom, we are called to faithfulness, even unto death. Instead of seeking social status through political alliances, we pursue our freedom to be the church apart from any social order. Rather than the polite society of Sunday mornings being the church could actually get us in trouble, Hauerwas concludes; “By God, sisters and brothers, being Christian could turn out to be more interesting than we had imagined.”

More interesting indeed. This is an uncomfortable book. But it has the ring of truth as being faithful to the one who went to the cross and bids us die. Charles E. Moore captures the message of Hauerwas across the years, and articulates an alternate path to quiet discouragement or political captivity. He skillfully edits the readings to make this a seamless composition. He also offers a brief biography of Hauerwas complemented by an Introduction by former Times columnist Tish Harrison Warren.

I love these Plough Spiritual Guides. Each one I’ve read calls me into both an encounter with Christ, and to the life of following him. This one is no exception. If you are discouraged with the state of the contemporary church, pick this up. It will both challenge your heart and capture your imagination.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: God’s Revolution

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Cover image of "God's Revolution" by Eberhard Arnold

God’s Revolution: Justice, Community, and the Coming Kingdom, Eberhard Arnold. Plough Publishing (ISBN: 9781636080000), 2021.

Summary: A collection of the writings of Eberhard Arnold, describing the life of discipleship embodied in the Bruderhof, as a radical alternative to the institutional church.

I was in an online conversation today, provoked by posting an image of a new book titled Claiming the Courageous Middle. The person who responded thought I was talking about the idea of being a political moderate and wondered how many biographies have been written about great moderates. I remarked that none of those labels fit what I’m talking about and I rather agree with the implied characterization of moderate as being something like insipid. As a Christ follower, I have a different allegiance, to God’s kingdom and a way that is far more radical than anything politically on offer, the way of Jesus. If I were with the person, I would just offer him a copy of the book I’m reviewing by Eberhard Arnold and say, “Read this, if you want to understand what I’m talking about.”

Eberhard Arnold is the co-founder of the Bruderhof, “an international movement of Christian communities whose members are called to follow Jesus together in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the first church in Jerusalem, sharing all our talents, income, and possessions (Acts 2 and 4).” Writing in the 1920’s and early 1930’s as National Socialism was rising in Germany, he articulates the defining features of this alternative Christian community, differentiating it from the institutional Christianity of his day, increasingly identified with and supportive of the state. Eventually the German community fled to neutral Switzerland, while other Bruderhof communities flourished in England, Canada, the U.S. and eventually South America. This work was drawn from his notes as he taught the German community and is organized thematically with the date the message was given.

This work is organized into four parts. The first reflects his own sense of the crumbling civilization of his time and contrasts this with the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. He describes the Church as “an embassy of God’s future reign.” that looks for the day when that kingdom will extend to the whole world, uniting all under Christ in peace. The Sermon on the Mount reflects the way those who embrace the hope of the kingdom live, and the early chapters of Acts, on which the Bruderhof is modeled, reflect the living out of the sermon.

The second part talks about the fleshing out of this new order heralded by Jesus. The church was established and continues to be established by an outpouring of the Spirit, forming her as a community and empowering her for mission. He writes about the community, that it must be built by God in contrast other communal efforts built on human effort. He recognizes the evil power of money as the reason for the sharing of possessions and no private ownership or savings. Entry into community comes through repentance, a “recognition of the gravity of what we have done.” Baptism represents our break with the status quo, reflecting our spiritual rebirth. The Lord’s supper is a feast of bread and wine, remembering not only Christ’s perfect sacrifice but our communion with each other, one cup, one loaf. Arnold takes seriously the scripture saying we ought not worship if we have a quarrel with someone in community; we should settle it first. Finally, the expectation of the coming kingdom of Jesus calls every one of us in some way into the church’s shared mission.

Part three focuses on the individual in relation to the community. Our bond is not our intention or vision but the Spirit who unites very different people, and fits them, with their gifts, together. Arnold doesn’t speak of leaders but elders who are servants of the word (and housemothers responsible for the women and their work–it appears there was for Arnold a real gender division in the communities). Arnold emphasizes how important is the heeding the leading of the Spirit in one’s speaking in the community. This is a community that practices discipline–“straight talking with love.” At the same time, life in community is always voluntary. If one wishes to leave, they may. All are expected to work, health permitting, according to their gift. Arnold considers marriage a sacrament to be enjoyed in unity and purity between man and woman. Life is to be revered, children welcomed. He denounces abortion. Singleness is also honored. He discusses the high value the Bruderhof place on education although his emphasis is one the formation of character through consistent discipline. The aim of education is to help children see Christ everywhere, in every field of study.

The final section concerns the commitment to peacemaking and non-violence. What is striking is that this commitment rules out work in government, which only makes sense for these self-sustaining communities. While not anti-government, the call is one of “hands off,” of no political involvement. I do wonder how, beyond personal service to humanity and in the order of Bruderhof communities, justice is pursued. What is clear from the final chapter is a deep call to identify with Christ’s sufferings in the suffering of humanity.

I certainly have not captured all the nuances of Arnold’s thought here. He offers bracing challenges to the comfortable traditional church, foremost of which is, do not the scriptures call us to this kind of life together? Nor do I know the extent to which this describes present day Bruderhof communities, although the description on their website sounds consonant with the teachings of Arnold. What is striking to me though is that Arnold thought and taught deeply about how the kingdom life should be lived out among God’s people, particularly around the issues of money and property, as well as the renunciation of violence in any form (including corporal punishment). He challenges all the excuses we make for why we don’t pursue this life. He reminds us of how radical it really can be to say, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Following Jesus in a Warming World

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Following Jesus in a Warming World, Kyle Meyaard-Schaap. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: By combining biblical and theological framing with personal narrative, offers hope and practical steps to those daunted by the immensity, and perceived hopelessness, of the realities of climate change.

Kyle Meyaard-Schaap grew up in a conservative, Christian-schooled community voting heavily Republican. The one social issue his community cared about was a pro-life opposition to abortion. Until his brother came home one day and announced himself as a vegetarian. He had not deconstructed his faith. As they talked, it became more and more apparent that his brother was living into biblical truths they had been raised upon, and commitments to life that were dear to them.

Meyaard-Schaap traces his own journey to becoming an evangelical environmental activist, currently serving as vice president of the Evangelical Environmental Network. Part of the book is theological. He overviews the sweep of scripture from creation and our mandate to serve and protect creation, the impacts of human fallenness, and God’s purposes for new creation, where heaven comes down to earth as we reign with Christ and restore creation with him to what he intended. He argues that this is good news, and in one of the distinctive contributions to the Christian environmental conversation, contends that climate action motivated by the vision of the kingdom, is evangelism. He also proposes that climate activism is pro-life. Climate change is killing people. In the decimation of forested land, new diseases are arising for which we have no immunities, and vector-born diseases are expanding into formerly temperate zones. Especially, climate change is killing those with the least resources to protect themselves in coastal communities and rapidly warming parts of the world where temperatures are exceeding what the human body can tolerate for any length of time.

The news about climate change seems daunting and Meyaard-Schaap acknowledges how many of his generation have lost hope. They are not having children. From his field experiences, he shares the power of stories. Defying the image of guilt and drudgery, he relates how both advocacy and personal disciplines of climate care are sources of joy and hope. He discusses how we replace climate arguments with conversations about the things we care about together in God’s world and how we can ensure their continued existence. He offers practical instructions on effective climate citizenship and various forms of advocacy, including an appendix on how to write an effective letter to the editor or op-ed piece. And he lists practical disciplines of good creation care.

Some of the book draws upon the thought of others, notably Dr, Katherine Hayhoe’s framework for climate conversations that bond, connect, and inspire. What is unique about this book is his account of his own journey through conversations like that with his brother and his ability to connect theologically with concerns of evangelical Christians around the creation, the return of Christ, evangelism, and the pro-life cause. He shows in his own life that becoming active in climate causes reflects Christian faithfulness rather than deconstructed faith. He offers practical advice drawn from his own experiences in advocacy.

What I thought most significant is that he addresses at different points the decision many are making not to have children, perhaps most eloquently in a letter to a grandchild at commencement in 2066. He writes:

By the time your dad was born in 2018, though, the consequences of our [climate] procrastination were becoming harder and harder to ignore. There were some our age, even then, choosing not to have kids. Deciding that the future was too dangerous, to unpredictable to morally justify yoking a human life to it without that human’s prior and informed consent, a sentiment your grandma and I could certainly understand, though never quite embrace. I guess our hope in God’s good plans for the world has always been more stubborn than our fear of our ability to derail them. But that doesn’t mean the fear hasn’t been there, ever mingling with the hope.

On the day your father came into the world, that alloy of hope and fear was forged in my heart for good….It’s a phenomenon that repeats itself whenever we make the dangerous, awesome choice to love (p. 176).

In sum, what Kyle Meyaard-Schaap offers is an account of Christian climate action that is nothing more nor less than faithful Christian discipleship, following Jesus.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Necessary Christianity

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Necessary Christianity, Claude R. Alexander, Jr. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: In a culture of options, focuses on the necessities of the Christian life by looking at the “must” statements in the gospel associated with Jesus.

Bishop Claude R. Alexander, Jr. makes a trenchant contrast between our culture and a vibrant Christianity. We like to think about our options, our possibilities. Alexander contends that the mature follower of Jesus is shaped by the necessities of undivided loyalty to Jesus. Alexander organizes his book around the “must” passages associated with Jesus, six in number that lead to six “musts” for the maturing disciple of Jesus:

1. I Must Focus. (Luke 2:40-52) “I must be about my Father’s business.” Jesus was intentionally focused on his mission and his relationship with his father from the age of twelve. He pursued his calling as one who would teach about the Father’s way even as a young man, declaring implicitly that carpentry would not be his life.

2. I Must Progress. (Luke 4:38-44) “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also…” Life with Christ is dynamic. It is life lived on assignment, no matter the context.

3. I Must Be Directed. (John 4:1-30) “He needed to go through Samaria.” Jews ordinarily avoided Samaria. Jesus needed to go through Samaria because God directed him to do so to encounter the Samaritan woman, and through her to see a town believe. We learn that we may be directed to those others shun and called into things others don’t understand.

4. I Must Be Clear. (Matthew 16:13-27) “…Jesus began to show to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.” The maturing disciple is clear that following Christ may entail suffering and that God’s purposes may be unpopular and will face opposition. The disciple also embraces the whole plan and purpose of God, not only suffering and death but also resurrection and glory and is not deceived by the enemy.

5. I Must Be Diligent. (John 9:1-5) “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day.” Jesus discerns the moment and meaning of his encounter with the man born blind. He acts with urgency, realizing it will not always be day, maximizing every moment. He challenges us to live in this way. Even on the cross, Jesus forgives and promises paradise to the thief, arranges for the care of his mother, quenches his own thirst with God’s word, takes on himself the judgement of God against sin, and accomplishes our redemption, and can declare “It is finished.”

6. I Must Yield. (Matthew 26:46-54) “Don’t you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly? But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?” Jesus refuses to avoid God’s purpose for his life, even when able, he has exercised patience from age 12 to his death, knowing all that time this was God’s purpose. Jesus took God’s way as his and accepted that only he could walk it–others would flee. The assurance is that God will stand by us. He raises the Son and he will raise us up as well.

Alexander has this way of writing in simple declarative sentences that convey the sense that “this is just the way it is for those who set themselves to follow Jesus.” There is neither bombast nor subtle nuancing. It’s simply, “this is what Jesus knew were the “musts” in his life, and so they are for us. We often “complexify” our lives and use that to evade the call of Jesus. This book strips discipleship down to the necessities. And therein is life.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Immigration and the Way of the Heart

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Ellis Island Immigrants, Public Domain

Ellis Island Immigrants, Public Domain via Wikimedia

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. –Ephesians 2:11-13, NIV

“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’” Zechariah 7:9-10

When you saw the word “immigration,” did your blood pressure go up? This is one of those issues it is not polite to discuss during social occasions at the risk of tempers flaring. In what follows I don’t want to get into policy or current controversies, and I hope you won’t try to debate them here. Likewise, I should warn that this is a bit of “inside baseball” primarily written for those who share my Christian commitments. I hope others will read to see how at least one Christian might think through such things.

The impetus for this post has been reflection over the last couple weeks on a sermon preached by one of our pastors on Zechariah 7, which includes the second biblical quote above. It made me think particularly about what our heart attitudes are toward the immigrant, and others on the margins of our society. These often are most vulnerable to oppression. They can be exploited, abused, feared, hated, excluded. Instead God commands justice, mercy, and compassion.

My thoughts went to the first passage and others like it, that give a very simple reason why. If in no other way, spiritually, we were once in the same place–strangers and aliens, fatherless, and hopeless; and through the cross of Christ, we have been adopted as God’s children, welcomed into God’s family, and included in God’s people–citizens of the kingdom rather than aliens.

It is hard for me to fathom as I reflect on God’s unfathomable love how our hearts can be gladdened and warmed and filled with joy because of the reality of God’s extravagant welcome; and hardened toward the immigrant and the refugee. It seems to me akin to being extravagantly forgiven and unwilling to forgive. Someone has observed about Jesus teaching about forgiveness that we need to choose which universe we will live in–a forgiveness universe or a judgment universe. I would suggest that likewise, we cannot live in a universe of extravagant welcome and simultaneously a universe of fear, resentment, hate, and exclusion. Choosing the latter in each case robs us of the joy and freedom of being God’s forgiven and included children.

None of this is to say what our immigration policies should be. Clearly they need to change, which is perhaps the only thing both political parties agree upon. What I want to raise is what orientation of the heart, what habits of the heart shape how we approach these discussions. Do we begin with fear or suspicion or even hatred of the other? Or do we begin with compassion, with welcome, and with justice. Many refugees are actually desperate. A number are actually fellow believers. In many cases they would face prison or death in returning to their country. Most people don’t leave home without good reason.

Many would say there are good reasons to be fearful or suspicious because some immigrants, documented or not, have committed crimes in our country.  Sure, but if we were to exclude every class of people in which some member has committed a crime, who of us would be left? Certainly prudence is called for by those who guard our borders. But this doesn’t need to conflict with a generous, welcoming spirit on the part of our people. The real question is what will be our fundamental posture, at least among those of us who say we follow Christ, toward the immigrant and the refugee? Will it be fear and suspicion, or will it be one of generous welcome that flows from how Christ has welcomed us? Might we experience in new ways the joy of welcoming Jesus in welcoming these people, the Jesus who began his earthly life as a refugee, along with Joseph and Mary?