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Migration, Displacement, and the Kingdom of God

People have always migrated from one place to another for good and bad reasons. Think of the wise men coming from the east to see the King of Kings as a baby in his manger. On the other hand, think of Cain, forced to move after killing his brother, Abel. Throughout the Bible we read stories of people on the move. Abraham started a long journey out of Ur; Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt; the disciples scattered around the Roman Empire; Paul took off on various missionary journeys; and the Bible ends with a book by John while he was living in exile.

The story of God’s people is definitely one of movement. And perhaps the most famous refugee of them all was Jesus. In what is frequently a forgotten side note in his story, Jesus and his family were forced to flee to Egypt to avoid the infant massacres of King Herod.

While some people willfully choose to move to follow God, many others move involuntarily as a result of war, famine, or some other massive or inescapable problem in their home country. As one who has moved willfully, I, Mark, can testify that there are still significant challenges related to cultural adaptation and separation from extended family. However, forced moves produce even more difficulties as refugees tend to be subject to stereotyping, prejudices, de-individualization, inadequate living conditions, and a lack of dignified employment.

We are experiencing migration never before equaled in the history of the world. Relatively inexpensive transportation has meant that people are frequently displaced quite far from their homeland. For example, my hometown of Boise, Idaho, USA, has seen an influx of refugees from far-flung countries such as Eritrea, Iraq, and Burma.

In Ted Lewellen’s work, The Anthropology of Globalization,¹ he points out that migrating people often develop a new identity—or at the least have their previous identity significantly altered. Moreover, the current trends of migration have largely eliminated the historical dichotomies (such as rural/urban) and have produced the need to look at things in a more fluid way. Social networks can be borderless due to increases in efficiency and decreases in the cost of transportation and communication technologies. The world is changing and so is the face of migration.

Rising to the Challenge
As ministers of the gospel, we have to think about these complex issues and develop appropriate responses. Samuel Escobar² says migration produces four primary challenges for the Church:

1. How to be compassionate Christians and have loving attitudes that are frequently contrary to popular culture.
   
   
2. How to educate inside the churches that ensures that people are informed of the issues and have their negative (sinful) attitudes challenged and corrected.
   
   
3. How to have a prophetic ministry to the society at large. Christians should be speaking up for those who are suffering and seeking to create solutions and to combat political ideologies that sometimes seek to make the strong stronger at the expense of the weak.
   
4. How to make migration an avenue for the evangelistic mission.

Escobar balances a difficult issue quite well. Instead of focusing fully on the injustices of migration, he also optimistically sees the possibilities of how Christians can use massive migration as an avenue for evangelism. However, he also doesn’t casually dismiss the social component and argues for its inclusion in Christian considerations of the topic.