Preaching in/and the Borderlands

J. Dwayne Howell, Charles L. Aaron, J. Dwayne Howell, Charles L. Aaron

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781532664656, 9781532664663
• eBook ISBN: 9781532664670
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

What is to be the church's response to the immigrant? Most immigrants in American society are seeking a better life. They are among the most vulnerable, possessing little and at the mercy of those they work for in the communities where they live. The essays in this book address issues for churches to consider as they seek to better understand how to respond to immigration. The book examines biblical, ethical, theological, and homiletical areas of the topic and includes contributions from experienced pastors, theologians, legal experts, and activists.With contributions from:Sarah Ellen Eads AdkinsClaudio CarvalhaesJason W. CrosbyMiguel A. De La TorreRebecca HensleyRobert HochMelanie A. HowardMaha KolkoGerald C. LiuJoy MooreHeidi NeumarkOwen K. RossLis ValleMichael Waters

1

This Is Just the End

On How not to Go Mad These Days1

—Cláudio Carvalhaes

You see all these buildings, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down . . . Beware that no one leads you astray . . . And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed . . . all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. ‘Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death. Many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But anyone who endures to the end will be saved. we raise our voices together and hold each other hands2

I have been telling my family and my friends that it is good to be here with my Latinxs community as we see and hear about all of the disasters and horrors done to our people at the borders. Better to be together, to cry together, to go mad together, to sing and pray together, to draw near each other in some form of warmth and solidarity! The brutal immigration policy separating children from their parents and then putting them up for adoption showed us again what this country is made of. Something that the indigenous and the black people of this country already knew way too well. With this uproar against immigrants and especially the Latinxs people, it seems that it is becoming clearer for other people that:

1.We, minority people, live in a viciously angry, merciless and racist country.

2.That the State rules with clear necro-politics of ethnic cleansing.

3.That our identity is that of a foreigner, socially placed at the borderlands, politically placed in the hatred of Republicans and awkwardness of Democrats, religiously placed in old forms of Catholicism, Pentecostal naiveté, and folk mythic beliefs, and psychologically located at the borderline of feelings between madness and lunacy.

4.That the nationalist rhetoric in the United States pivots away from brownness to construct a reality of pan-criminalization for all racialized brown bodied people. Today in the US, to be brown bodied is to be a Muslim-Hindu-Christian-immigrant-mexican-central-american-terriorist-rapist-low-skilled-poor-drug-dealer-illegal-dependent-animal.

5.Our people, immigrants, undocumented, have become the fake news of the content of the president “emergency declaration”!

We see churches and Christian institutions trying hard to learn how to deal with us but at the end, we are always at the tail end of respect, processes of decision, abilities, gifts to offer. The amount of solidarity offered, with important exceptions, is proportional to its expendable resources, guilt and not knowing.

The people at the border are for many, an unfortunate calamity. The distancing from these immigrants at the borders reflects the ongoing distance between white churches and the Latinxs communities. For many institutions, this immigrant disaster is mostly an occasion for a robust declaration against its situation and nothing else. What is always at stake is fear, self-protection, and self-interest. This situation is derivative of the discourse around blacks and whites in this country where other minorities have a hard time pinching in in some more fundamental ways. White supremacy continues to hold on to power, hide its brutalities in administrative legalities, business proper, law and order, state theology and political paraphernalia. All of this done in the name of Jesus!

The hidden perversity of the pleasure of seeing the pain of the children behind cages ripped away from their parents is beyond words. The system of immigration is indeed broken in its fullness when the government does not know how to get the kids back to their parents, when little children have to go to court to respond to judges about the conditions of their immigration status when all that they want is to play with toys and call for their mamas y papas.

Maddening! Whoever is not getting mad with these series of dreadful events are not paying attention, are not seriously taking the position of those parents living in unspeakable pain. We must take their side for their children are our children! So, we must return them to their parents and not to put them up for adoption! It is as if my precious children were in jail and I am rendered completely powerless to do anything. It is as if my kids have been taken away from me and I do not even know where to start to get them back. The situation of loss is such that at a certain point one might even start to imagine that their kids would be better off dead or with somebody else who will take care of them. If our hearts don’t drop to the floor when we see a child estranged from her mama because she hasn’t seen her for months and then seeing pure panic in the face of this mother, we are definitely not paying attention. Our hearts have already been covered by numbness, by privilege, the Spirit of God has left us and the gospel lost its place in our life. “Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it.” (Micah 2:1). Moreover, I think we Latinxs need a new translation for the Psalm 139. One that goes this way:

1 O God, you have searched us and known us well.

2 You know when we cross the desert and when we swim through the Rio Grande;

you discern our fears from far away.

3 You search out the path of our people, the immigrants,

in the desert, you find all of the shoes, toothbrushes, underwear, crucifixes,

and the blood of our people.

in prisons, you find our children alone, completely lost, and parents with a hole so

great in their hearts that they are swallowed by grief.

You are acquainted with all our desperation.

4 Even before a word is on our tongue, or a tear is shed

O God, you know us so completely. You know we are lost for words here.

5 like the heat of the desert and the cold water of Rio Grande you surround us.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for us;

we believe in you so much, you wouldn’t believe it.

7 Where can we go to find your Spirit?

we go to El Norte fleeing from hunger, violence and devastations,

where can we find the security of your presence?

8 If we knock at the doors of churches, we never know if we will be welcomed or they

will call La Migra;

if we try to go to Christian seminaries you will not be there.

For they are afraid of their statues and only concerned with their deep thoughts and research.

9 If we take the wings of the morning,

and go fight on the streets for our people,

they will come with the police and their laws and put us in jail

10 We wished your hand could lead us,

protect us, and hold us fast. But we have nothing.

11 For if we say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light around us become night’,

12 Darkness we are;

We are the night that shines as the day,

We are darkness to the world

and to You too.”

Our time can be defined as a time of white supremacy dominion, millionaires and billionaires as political representatives, global regulation by hydro/agri-business, and brutal state control grounded on an endless...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Contributors
• Poem: They Cross the Border
• Chapter 1: This Is Just the End
• Chapter 2: Why I’m Here
• Chapter 3: “Being White These Days”29
• Chapter 4: Making U.S. Protestant Disciples of All Nations
• Chapter 5: An Overview of the Current Landscape of Immigration Law
• Chapter 6: Immigration and the Biblical Migrant Narratives
• Chapter 7: Turning Cheeks at Checkpoints
• Chapter 8: Moving from Caution to Faithful Proclamation
• Chapter 9: Toward a Border-Crossing Homiletic
• Chapter 10: Comrades of the Kin-dom212
• Chapter 11: God’s Kingdom at the Border
• Chapter 12: Wounded Enough for Someone to Believe
• Chapter 13: Immigrant Ministry through Relationships
• Chapter 14: By God’s Grace
• Bibliography