Abstract
Having been to a number of very diverse cities in various parts of the world and having lived in the Netherlands, the United States, and currently in Australia, I consider myself no stranger to the population density and religio-cultural diversity that contemporary migration has brought globally. When people move, they bring not only a literally visible backpack or suitcase but an invisible one as well. This invisible “baggage” is their culture, which consists of, among others, their language, cuisine, music, and intertwined with these, their faith. As Will Herberg points out
in the case of the early US immigrant, it was expected that sooner or later, either in his own person or through his children, he will give up virtually everything he had brought with him and the “old country”—his language, his nationality, his manner of life—and will adopt the ways of his new home. Within broad limits, however, his becoming an American did not involve his abandoning the old religion in favor of some native American substitute. Quite the contrary, not only was he expected to retain his old religion, as he was not expected to retain his old language or nationality, but such was the shape of America that it was largely in and through his religion that he, or rather his children and grandchildren, found an identifiable place in American life.1
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Notes
See Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960), as quoted in Ebaugh and Chafetz, “Introduction” in Religion and the New Immigrants, 17–18.
See Diana Eck, A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously-Diverse Nation (Harper One: San Francisco, 2002).
William Portier, Tradition and Incarnation (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1993), 9.
The growing literature on the intersection of religion and migration is proof of this. Aside from the texts that are directly used in this book, particularly in this chapter, see Paul Johnson, Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007);
Jacob Olupona and Regina Gemignani, African Immigrant Religions in America (New York: New York University Press, 2007);
Jenna Weissman Joselit, A Parade of Faiths: Immigration and American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007);
Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltman Chafetz, Religion Across Borders: Transnational Religious Networks (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2002);
Thomas Tweed and Stephen Prothero, Asian Religions in America: A Documentary History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998);
Steven Vertovec and Ceri Peach, ed. Islam in Europe: The Politics of Religion and Community (London: Palgrave, 1997);
Susan Wiley Hardwick, Russian Refuge: Religion, Migration and Settlement on the North American Pacific Rim (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); and
Frank van Tubergen, “Religious Affiliation and Attendance Among Immigrants in Eight Western Countries: Individual and Contextual Effects,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Vol. 45, No. 1 (2006): 1–22.
Jacqueline Maria Hagan, Migration Miracle: Faith, Hope and Meaning on the Undocumented Journey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 2. Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini of Guatemala, for example, has not only opened a hospitality center for immigrants deported from Mexico and the United States. He also developed a sister relationship with the Diocese of Wilmington in Delaware, where many of his parishioners—displaced by the coffee crisis—ended up laboring in poultry packing plants.
Jerry H. Gill, Borderland Theology (Washington, DC: EPICA, 2003), 111.
See Jacqueline Maria Hagan, “The Church vs. the State: Borders, Migrants, and Human Rights,” 96–101, and Cecilia Menjivar, “Serving Christ in the Borderlands: Faith Workers Respond to Border Violence,” 110–115 in Religion and Social Justice for Immigrants, ed. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007).
Not surprisingly, the increasing mobility worldwide has also made more possible the migration of religious groups and organizations themselves. See Donald M. Lewis, ed. Christianity Reborn: The Global Expansion of Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2004).
Some like Border Angels go beyond providing water but food and clothing as well. Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo, God’s Heart Has No Borders: How Religious Activists Are Working for Immigrant Rights (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008), 141–143.
A concise treatment of this role based on the experience of the Catholic Church could be found in Kevin Appleby, “The Role of the Catholic Church in Immigrant Integration,” The Review of Faith and International Affairs Vol. 9, No. 1 (Spring 2011): 69.
On a more general Christian perspective, see Jenny Yang, “A Christian Perspective on Immigrant Integration,” The Review of Faith and International Affairs Vol. 9, No. 1 (Spring 2011): 80–83.
For example, altar boys and girls who never learned the language memorize Ukrainian liturgy. Janet Mancini Billson, Keepers of the Culture: The Power of Tradition in Women’s Lives (New York: Lexington Books, 1995), 345, 368.
Kathleen Sullivan, “St. Mary’s Catholic Church: Celebrating Domestic Religion,” in Religion and the New Immigrants, 130. See also Nancy J. Wellmeier, “Santa Eulalia’s People in Exile: Maya Religion, Culture and Identity in Los Angeles,” in Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration, ed. R. Stephen Warner and Judith Wittner (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998): 97–122.
The Christian idea of “sanctuary” could be traced to the Hebrew concept of sanctuary, which is rooted in the tradition of the cities of refuge (Exod. 21:13; Num. 35: 9–11). These “cities” were holy or sanctified places, often a temple, where God and the people of Israel protected those who sought refuge (Deut. 19:7–10). The provision was usually intended to protect those who were guilty of involuntary murder and extended not only to the Israelites but also to any “resident or transient alien among them” (Num. 35:15). Letty Russell, Just Hospitality: God’s Welcome in a World of Difference (Louisville, KY: WJK Press, 2009), 86–87.
For a similar movement in Canada, see Mary Jo Leddy, “When the Stranger Summons: Spiritual and Theological Considerations for Ministry,” New Theology Review Vol. 20, No. 3 (August 2007): 10–12.
Renny Golden and Michael McConnell, Sanctuary: The New Underground Railroad (New York: Orbis, 1986), 46, as quoted in Hondagneu-Sotelo, God’s Heart Has No Borders, 145.
Julia Preston, “Obama to Push Immigration Bill as One Priority,” <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/us/politics/09immig.html> accessed August 26, 2012.
Fenggang Yang and Helen Rose Ebaugh, “Religion and Ethnicity Among New Immigrants: The Impact of Majority/Minority Status in Home and Host Countries,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Vol. 40, No. 3 (2001): 374.
See The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Public Remains Conflicted Over Islam,” <http://www.pewforum.org/Muslim/Public-Remains-Conflicted-Over-Islam.aspx> accessed August 14, 2012.
After the death of Osama bin Laden, for instance, a mosque in Maine was vandalized while the doors of a Louisiana mosque was smeared with pork. See Liz Goodwin, “Muslim Americans Still Find Acceptance Elusive in the Wake of bin Laden’s Death,” <http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110511/us_yblog_thelookout/muslim-americans-still-find-acceptance-elusive-in-the-wake-of-bin-ladens-death> accessed August 12, 2012.
Sullivan, “St. Mary’s Catholic Church,” 126. For concrete struggles involved in forging multiethnic churches, see Warren St. John, “The World Comes to Georgia, and an Old Church Adapts,” <http://www.nytimes.com> accessed August 3, 2012.
This is based on a study of 13 immigrant religious congregations in Houston, Texas. See Fenggang Yang and Helen Rose Ebaugh, “Transformations in New Immigrant Religions and Their Global Implications,” American Sociological Review Vol. 66, No. 2 (April 2001): 269–288.
See Thomas J. Douglas, “Changing Religious Practices Among Cambodian Immigrants in Long Beach and Seattle,” in Immigrant Faiths: Transforming Religious Life in America, ed. Karen Leonard et al. (Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2005), 134–137.
Islam Sithi Hawwa, “Religious Conversion of Filipina Domestic Helpers in Hong Kong,” ISIM Newsletter Vol. 4 (1999): 10.
Jehu Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration and the Transformation of the West (New York: Orbis, 2008), 277–278.
“Filipino Migrant Workers in Hong Kong,” Asian Migrant Vol. 7, No. 1 (January–March 1994): 6–7. Such missionary effect is often felt more strongly in receiving countries where churches are experiencing significant losses in membership as well as decline in religious practice, making migrants important in the survival or flourishing of the Christian faith. As Philip Jenkins contends, southern-derived immigrant communities play a critical role in the future face of Christianity, especially in Western countries. See Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Gerrie ter Haar, Halfway to Paradise: African Christians in Europe (Cardiff: Cardiff Academic Press, 1998), 92.
Jehu J. Hanciles, “Migration and Mission: Some Implications for the Twenty-first Century Church,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research Vol. 27, No. 4 (October 2003): 150; 152.
Avery Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1985) as quoted in
Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity: Theology Between the Global and the Local (New York: Orbis Books, 1997), 128.
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), 51.
I take “kindom” from Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, who uses it instead of the usual word “kingdom” for two reasons: First, she argues “kingdom” is a sexist word. Second, she reckons that, today, the concept of kingdom—as is the word “reign”—is both hierarchical and elitist. Kindom, on the other hand, makes it clear that when the fullness of God becomes a day-to-day reality in the world at large, we will be sisters and brothers—kin to each other—and will, indeed, be the family of God. See endnote no. 8 in Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, “Solidarity: Love of Neighbor in the 21st Century,” in Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside, ed. Susan Brooks Thislethwaite and Mary Potter Engel (New York: Orbis Books, 2004): 36.
Christine Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 61–62.
Kristin Heyer tackles this perspective using the category of social sin in Kristin Heyer, “Social Sin and Immigration: Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors,” Theological Studies Vol. 71, No. 2 (June 2010): 410–436.
For more substantive treatment on hospitality or welcome to the stranger from a biblical perspective, see Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang, Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion and Truth in the Immigration Debate (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2009): 82–92.
Parker Palmer, The Company of Strangers: Christians and the Renewal of America’s Public Life (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 70, quoted in
John Koenig, New Testament Hospitality: Partnership with Strangers as Promise and Mission (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 145.
The Orthodox icon of the Trinity even identifies the divine communion between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit with the communion of three strangers who were received and fed by Abraham in the spirit of genuine hospitality (Gen. 18 and Hebrews 13:2). World Council of Churches, A Moment to Choose: Risking to Be With Uprooted People (Geneva: WCC, 1996), 15.
Linh Hoang, “Crossing and Dwelling: Hospitality in a Theology of Migration,” Asian Christian Review Vol. 4, No. 2 (Winter 2010): 88.
Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza speaks of the ekklesia as the assembly/movement of free citizens who determine their own and their children’s communal, political, and spiritual well-being. See Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, Discipleship of Equals: A Critical Feminist Ekklesia-Logy of Liberation (New York: Crossroad, 1993), for an elaboration on this.
Linbert Spencer, Building a Multi-ethnic Church (London: SPCK, 2007), 20–32, chronicles how this plays out in the case of the United Kingdom.
Felix Wilfred, “Towards a Better Understanding of Asian Theology,” Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection Vol. 62, No. 12 (1998): 890–915.
Peter Phan, “Where We Come From, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going: Asian and Pacific Catholics in the United States,” American Catholic Studies Vol. 118, No. 3 (2007): 22.
Michael Amaladoss, “The Church and Pluralism in the Asia of the 1990s,” in FABC Papers No. 57e (Hong Kong: FABC, 1990), 12.
Peter Phan, “Multiple Religious Belonging: Opportunities and Challenges for Theology and Church,” Theological Studies Vol. 64, No. 3 (September 2003): 504.
John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (London: Macmillan Press, 1973), 120–132.
Jeanine Hill Fletcher, Monopoly on Salvation?: A Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism (New York: Continuum, 2005), 57, cites, as an example, the passage in 1 Timothy 2:4–5: “[God our Savior] desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth. For there is one God, there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus.”
Eck, A New Religious America, 309. See also Jacques Dupuis, S.J., Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue (New York: Orbis, 2001), 117, 119, which give examples of quotes on God by Christian personalities like Blaise Pascal and Walbert Bühlmann that, Dupuis says, actually has Christian underpinnings.
Fletcher submits that while we may not have the same religious affiliation with our neighbor, we might share other features that could serve as points of connection for conversation. The conversation partners could either be of the same gender, race, ethnicity, or political ideology or simply share a passion for justice. Fletcher says that in the process of finding and engaging these commonalities, we might have the opportunity to glimpse the incomprehensible mystery as it is seen through the others’ eyes. Fletcher, Monopoly on Salvation?, 134. See also Jeanine Hill Fletcher, “Religious Pluralism in an Era of Globalization: The Making of Modern Religious Identity,” Theological Studies Vol. 69, No. 8 (June 2008): 394–411, for more on Hill Fletcher’s thesis on hybridity as a heuristic lens for theologically making sense of religious plurality.
Afe Adogame, “Contesting the Ambivalences of Modernity in a Global Context: The Redeemed Christian Church of God, North America,” Studies in World Christianity Vol. 10, No. 1 (2005): 29, as quoted in Hanciles, Beyond Christendom, 300.
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© 2014 Gemma Tulud Cruz
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Cruz, G.T. (2014). Journeying (Together) in Faith: Migration, Religion, and Mission. In: Toward a Theology of Migration. Content and Context in Theological Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137375513_5
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