Hopeful Depths

A Call to Think: Why are Many Churches Silent Regarding Immigration Injustices

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by Marie Scott

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Over the past year, I’ve been focused on political research, which led me to revamp this blog. My diet of information includes investigative articles, books, and blogs from both conservative and liberal/progressive perspectives. A key question for me is: How has America become so inhospitable to immigrants? And why has the evangelical church done so little to speak out against unjust and inhumane policies? I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts to avoid being influenced by the propaganda circulating on those platforms. I have also taken stock of my Christian journey, considering both its joys and its challenges.

It Has to be Said

Through all my reading, I’ve gained a great deal of knowledge. I enjoy reading and learning, so taking time to gather information hasn’t been a chore. I won’t claim perfect understanding, but one thing I feel strongly about is how our government is treating immigrants. To be fair, the immigration system has been broken for a long time. Rules can change for immigrants seeking asylum or citizenship. And it’s been broken under both Democratic and Republican administrations. But a new era of being cruel to immigrants is upon us.

Actually, many aspects of the current governmental administration are being taken to an extreme. But what is now happening to many immigrant communities is categorically immoral and inhumane.

And to my frustration, my fellow Christian circles have been largely silent on this. The idea that ICE agents can wear masks to avoid recognition is unjustified. ICE agents can also detain anyone who looks like an immigrant – racial profiling is now legally permitted. Most detainees aren’t given a chance to call their loved ones. And then they could be deported. Some have been deported to a third country rather than to their country of origin. As of July 2025, the USA was sending more deportees to third countries other than their home nation.1 The agents do not always reveal themselves as ICE agents. People, American Citizens, have died while acting within their rights. Even when an immigrant has committed violent crimes, our nation should be able to address that situation without being inhumane.

For years, the Johnson Amendment has prohibited pastors of churches from endorsing any political candidate.2 And I can be sympathetic that some pastors may not want to discuss politically charged issues. Having worked in Christian non-profits, I was trained not to discuss politics. Theologically speaking, God and the Bible have a lot to say about politics. I’m thinking beyond right or left, Republican or Democratic; I’m thinking of politics as how society is organized. I think the church needs leaders who are wise and capable of discerning the times. Such leaders then can help their congregations process what is happening. But even here, the church in the USA isn’t united. If more pastors were to speak up on political matters, what would be the majority opinion?

The Bible makes it clear that those who worship the God of the Bible are to show care. This is especially true when it comes to immigrants. It is also true for the poor, orphaned, widowed, or any vulnerable person. Consider these examples:

  • Israel fled to Egypt due to a famine. Many immigrants today flee their countries due to a lack of food. The lack of food may have also be caused by war. Christians are to show care.
  • Once Israel left Egypt because they were treated poorly, they adopted new laws. They understood these laws as God’s will. The laws included being kind to immigrants.
  • Mary, Joseph, and Jesus fled due to an unjust ruler. Again, many immigrants today want to be ruled justly.

I simply do not understand why there isn’t a greater outcry from churches. What is being done to immigrants today is not just. The reason given that these tactics are necessary is that immigrants are hardened criminals. Or that ICE is only going after the hardened criminals. Still, denying loved ones the right to know the location of detainees is cruel. Additionally, sending detainees to a third country is unnecessary. And I must say that the majority of immigrants who have been detained are not hardened criminals.

A Year Ago

On February 2, 2025 it was reported3 that Elon Musk and the DOGE team gained access to the US Treasury. I went to business graduate school and studied accounting. I have an MBA. My skepticism went into overdrive, how is Elon Musk having access to the US Treasury good for America? There is sensitive information contained in the US Treasury, so why does Elon need to be there?

On February 2, 2025, the USAID website was taken down. Previously, President Trump issued an executive order to freeze all foreign funding. This act jeopardized USAID’s employees and programs. Following extensive reviews and court challenges, 83% of USAID programs were discontinued, with the rest integrated into a reorganization of the US Department of State4. I’ve worked with nonprofit organizations and interacted with several USAID grants and subgrants. I know some of the good work the funds were used for, and I know the scrutiny these USAID-supported projects received. It was heartbreaking to watch USAID be dismantled.

Elon Musk in the US Treasury and the dismantling of USAID were the impetuses in causing me to spend some time engaging in political research. How did we, as a nation, end up here? I confess I took democracy for granted, but today I see how fragile it really is.

Some Resources

Below are some of the resources that I’ve engaged with over the last year that I would recommend to others.

On Church and State: I’ve learned that there are several views within Christendom on Church and State. I found the guide to political theology by Jake Meador on logos.com5 to be very helpful.

From History: Throughout my life, I’ve been drawn to nonfiction or historical fiction. The last big war in which the draft was enacted in the USA was World War II (WWII). It’s a war that both of my grandfathers served in. One title about WWII caught my attention: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-1945, by Milton Mayer. Mayer was from a Jewish-American family. Mayer’s father was born in Germany.6 Once the war was over, Mayer who worked for the Associated Press, wanted to understand how Germany became a nation-state that treated the Jews so cruelly. He did a stint at a University in Germany and befriended men trying to understand how things unfolded. It’s a fascinating book, and the title speaks volumes. Mayer concluded that many in Nazi Germany, though living under a dictatorship, felt free.

A Christian Political Thinker – I came across the author Rod Dreher. I read three of his books. I don’t agree with everything he concludes, but he does make interesting points. It is worth noting that one of his good friends is JD Vance. He lives in Hungary and seems to support Viktor Orbán’s policies. The first book I read, Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, highlights what he terms as soft totalitarianism coming from the left. The book also highlights stories of Christians from nations where Christians were harshly persecuted. But I appreciate him for admitting that the current administration misses the mark on certain things. So even if I don’t conclude the same thing he does – I respect his good faith and measure of integrity to call out some of the excesses.

Another Christian Thinker – I also read Dr. Preston Sprinkle’s Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire. This book helped me see how much the Bible actually speaks about politics. Also, Sprinkle likens the USA to an Empire. I didn’t grow up thinking of America as an empire, but we currently have roughly 3 times as many bases throughout the world than all other countries combined.7 Sprinkle makes the argument that we are to live like exiles. We are to remember that our true citizenship is in Heaven.

A Podcast Series – I did listen to Rachel Maddow’s Burn Order. This podcast delves into the history of how the executive order to round up Japanese Americans and put them in internment camps came about. She goes to the direct sources, people who were directly affected by this American WWII Policy for the contiguous United States.

A Podcast – I frequently listen to the podcast Thinking Biblically, hosted by Scott Rae and Sean McDowell from Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology. Sean McDowell is the son of Josh McDowell. Christians who are older and have followed Christ for a while may remember Josh McDowell’s book Evidence that Demands a Verdict, published on January 1, 1972. This podcast addresses current issues in our world and discusses them from a Biblical worldview. For example, I enjoyed listening to the podcast about what it is like to serve God under siege in Ukraine.8

What about the Church?

Church is hard. I used to be someone who didn’t want politics to be discussed at church. But I don’t believe we are living in normal times, or that politics is simply partisan as usual. I think real abuses are happening to our legal immigrants and even to those who have become citizens. Having worked closely with immigrants in the past by serving international students – I knew that it was hard for these international students to make American friends. I knew that it was rarer for international students to be invited into an American home. I used to challenge people in various congregations to be a volunteer with international students. I thought the challenge existed because most people don’t need to interact with people from other cultures. So, they didn’t. But I didn’t think there were strong amounts of actual racism or fear toward immigrants in the church. I don’t think many would admit it, but I have seen evidence of it in conversations with people.

I have also been an immigrant. I have lived for a time in a foreign country. I was blessed by the experience. I was supported financially by protestant, evangelical churches.

I remember a scene from Hotel Rwanda, a movie that depicts some actual events when Rwanda fell into a genocide in 1994. Hutu militias killed over 800,000 Tutsis within a span of 100 days. In the scene, Jack Daglish and Paul Rusesabagina have a conversation after Jack, an American reporter, captures some film of horrific killing after sneaking out of the hotel where people were sheltering. Paul was happy to see the footage because he thought it meant help would finally come from the West. Jack’s reply has stuck with me for many years since I first saw the movie in 2004 or 2005. Jack said, “I think if people see this footage, they’ll say, ‘Oh my God, that’s horrible,’ and then go on eating their dinners.”9 I thought at the time that this was a condemnation of attitudes in America. I still think this. History has documented that during the Rwandan genocide, “The most powerful nations in the world actively resisted allowing the United Nations to take more aggressive action.”10

I go into detail about Hotel Rwanda because I wonder how many Christians in American really don’t want to be troubled about the problems of others. Are we okay with letting what is happening in Minnesota continue? Are we, as a society, too lazy to fight propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation? Do we not want to hold our government to the standard of acting with integrity? And so much of the church is silent? I really don’t understand why.

Maybe Evangelicalism is on the cusp of schism? There is a group that calls itself The New Evangelicals, founded by Tim Whitaker. They are labeled by some as Progressive. I’ve read some of Tim Whitaker’s Substack posts1112, and I find myself asking some of the same questions. I don’t understand how we Evangelicals can watch the same events unfolding and have wildly different interpretations or responses while professing to believe the same things about Jesus, God, and the Bible.

Finding Hope

Where do I find hope? I don’t feel hopeful by any refusal to engage with such hard issues. Only through conversation with one another can we hope to begin to understand each other. I heard it said that you can’t really agree to disagree without really understanding what the other party thinks or believes. That is one reason why I seek out sources of information from various viewpoints. I have tried to have some discussions with other Christian friends but some simply don’t care to discuss it or believe things are not that bad.

Sin isn’t pretty, and part of what we are witnessing is a lot of sin. But I have to believe that following Christ means speaking the truth with love. I am the judge of no one, but I am called to be discerning. I am now more appreciative of the fact that Jesus came to earth during the Roman Empire. The Romans weren’t all that friendly to the Jews. It was so bad that the disciples of Jesus really thought Jesus planned to politically overthrow the Roman Empire and then establish a Jewish nation. That isn’t what happened. But Jesus lived and breathed during tyrannical rule. And during tyrannical rule – God sent angels to shepherds to announce the birth of Christ. The angels still sang. Praise God that a tyrannical empire didn’t stop that from happening.

Why Write Now?

I have been working on this post for a while, wondering if it was even wise to publish it. I don’t have a particularly large following. I am not under any illusion that my writing will change the opinion of anyone. But as a follower of Christ, feeling such strong conviction, I felt as if failing to write out my thoughts on these times and happening was doing spiritual harm. It was time to speak out. It was time to identify myself as not one of those Evangelicals who are standing behind the current administration failing to acknowledge the evil age of cruelty that is at our doorstep.

Footnotes below. The picture shows a simplified flow chart of the immigration process that was shown at a Faith and Immigration workshop I attended.

  1. (2025, July 16). Map Shows Third Countries Where Migrants Are Being Deported. Newsweek.com. Retrieved August 3, 2025, from https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-third-country-removals-immigrants-map-2099910?social_type=MSQA ↩︎
  2. The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (2025, July 10). Explainer: The Johnson Amendment and the IRS’s action preserving free speech for churches. Retrieved August 3, 2025, from https://erlc.com/resource/explainer-the-johnson-amendment-and-the-irss-action-preserving-free-speech-for-churches/ ↩︎
  3. Hussein, F. (2025, February 2). Elon Musk’s Task Force has gained access to sensitive treasury payment systems, sources say. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/elon-musks-task-force-has-gained-access-to-sensitive-treasury-payment-systems-sources-say
    ↩︎
  4. U.S. foreign aid freeze & DISSOLUTION OF USAID: Timeline of events. KFF. (2025, July 9). https://www.kff.org/u-s-foreign-aid-freeze-dissolution-of-usaid-timeline-of-events/ ↩︎
  5. Meador, J. (2024 November 5). A Guide to Political Theology: Key Concepts and Perspectives. https://www.logos.com/grow/political-theology-guide/ ↩︎
  6. Ingle, H.L. Milton Mayer, Quaker Hedgehog. Quaker Theology. Retrieved February 8, 2026 from https://quakertheology.org/milton-mayer-quaker-hedgehog-2/. ↩︎
  7. Blesdoe, E. (2025 January 24). The Soldiers Project. How Many US Military Bases Are There In The World. https://www.thesoldiersproject.org/how-many-us-military-bases-are-there-in-the-world/. ↩︎
  8. McDowell, S. and Rae, S. (2026 January 27). Biola University. Serving God Under Siege. https://www.biola.edu/blogs/think-biblically/2026/serving-god-under-siege. ↩︎
  9. I am glad you have shot this footage and the world will see it. Clip Cafe. Retrieved February 8, 2026 from https://clip.cafe/hotel-rwanda-2004/i-am-glad-you-have-shot-footage-and-the-world-will-see-it/ ↩︎
  10. Haack, D. (2007 June 6) Ransom Fellowship. Hotel Rwanda (Terry George 2004). https://ransomfellowship.org/article/hotel-rwanda-terry-george-2004/ ↩︎
  11. Whitaker, T. (2025 November 7). Substack. Dear Evangelicals, What Happened to You? https://timwhitakerspeaks.substack.com/p/dear-evangelicals-what-happened-to ↩︎
  12. Whitaker, T. (2026 January 27). Substack. My Final Plea to White Evangelicals. https://open.substack.com/pub/timwhitakerspeaks/p/my-final-plea-to-white-evangelicals? ↩︎

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