Theology in Motion: Migration, History, and Responsibility

Christian responses to global migration are as loud as they are numerous. With voices evoking either the injunction to love the stranger or a commitment to the rule of law, this polarized cacophony has become yet another theater in the culture war. But migration is not an idea. It is not an abstraction. Migration is about people, present in our midst or encountered at our edges. Their presence at our borders forces us to consider the core values we want most to uphold, and the stories that taught us those values in the first place.

In the United States, our most popular origin stories tell of a nation that fought off tyranny and committed itself to liberty, democracy, and the dream of an unencumbered pursuit of happiness, of a life lived on one's own terms. But is this the whole story? Whose perspectives have shaped the stories we tell, and which perspectives have been ignored? Theology in Motion tracks the story of the United States--how it formed and how it came to dominate the land that now rests between its borders--to consider more fully what type of nation the US has been and the type of global neighbor it has chosen to be. From a Christian moral perspective, this history helps us look to the future by analyzing how our past choices have left us with present responsibilities. Taking these responsibilities seriously and pursuing more just global relationships provides a way forward in which all people might participate and to which Christians are called.