April 1, 2025 • 40 mins
- Bri Stensrud’s Start With Welcome
- Women of Welcome, www.womenofwelcome.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Le Notes.
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It's French.
Le Notes.
Okay, the French just cried.
Yeah.
The French just were like, Le-NO.
Welcome to TikTok Theology, a podcast that tackles the major trending topics on social
media that concern the Christian faith.
I'm Meagan.
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And I'm Steven.
We know you can't form a theology in three minutes or less, but those videos can identify
current issues.
TikTok will give us the prompt, and then we'll do a deep dive.
Thanks for joining us in this exploration.
Hello, friends.
Welcome back to TikTok Theology.
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We've got some really important conversations going on over the course of this entire season.
But I think especially this one.
Obviously we've seen transitions in government recently, especially in the U.S. with our most
recent election.
And when there's political such happening, there are TikToks about it.
There's social media about it, right?
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And so I'm sure none of us can go on any of our feeds and not see conversations about
politics right now.
It is a major issue, too.
Huge major giant issue.
And so obviously this conversation is not new.
It's been a conversation forever, but it's come up a lot with people having conversations
about immigration and the refugee crisis.
This is also global, too.
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I mean, European countries have similar issues.
Oh, for sure.
So this is, of course, not especially an American issue.
Most things are not just an American issue, of course, but we see a lot of this, especially
with our most recent transition in politics and the government and the administration.
So obviously everyone cares about this.
Young, old, documented, undocumented.
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Everyone cares about how this is playing out, no matter where you find yourself on the political
spectrum.
So we're going to have hopefully a really wholesome conversation today that's going to
make us reflect and think of the refugee crisis from a biblical perspective.
We're not coming at it from a left perspective or a right perspective.
We're really seeking to come at it from a biblical perspective and address this how we
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believe that Jesus would address this.
And we have such a bomb guest.
Oh, yeah.
First choice, my first choice.
Like, I was like, let's ask this person.
I'm going to give it away in a second.
Just keep it as a bomb.
Probably in the title.
So that doesn't actually help.
That's whatever.
Does anyone read the titles in the same time?
I don't know.
Well, I'll introduce Bree in a minute, but I couldn't think of anyone better.
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Like I read her book and it was just so phenomenal.
And she speaks about it in such a loving, gracious, working across the aisle way because
of her conservative upbringing.
But talking about something and I think it's just so good.
Yeah, I would agree.
Man, I'm really excited about that conversation for people to hear.
Before we get into it, though, I think we should probably have a few definitions set
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into place.
So we have drastic changes on immigration with this new administration.
It's a global issue.
Every administration has views on these because we are, we're a sovereign nation and it's
always a balance of how do we care for the domestic issues that we have and how do we
help others and immigrants and refugees and whatnot as they're trying to also be part
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of our community.
Yeah.
So that's the issue.
So there's a couple of things that recently happened.
One, there was this mass deportation initiative.
And this was something that was really, really like harped on with the Trump administration
during his campaigning that say he was going to do it and then started right away.
We pretty much knew this was coming for a while.
Yeah.
So, and he started right away.
These were plans for a large scale deportation of approximately 11 million undocumented
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immigrants.
Now it's going to take a while to do that.
There was going to be a process and the American Immigration Council estimates that it's going
to cost nearly $1 trillion and it's going to take over a decade to deport all the undocumented
immigrants.
But they've done efforts towards it right away, right from the top.
First week in office, it was a bunch of executive orders and different things that were signed
that made that stuff happen.
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One thing that was also crucial, there was a suspension of refugee admissions.
So we have refugee resettlement programs and they've been paused.
And this is halting the admission of new refugees into the US.
Some people are really troubled by that because some people were waiting for years and doing
it totally the right way.
And then it was...
I've been vetted and gone through a process.
Yeah.
Vetted and now it's just totally halted.
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And then finally, we've been seeing a whole bunch of sanctions on non-coroperative countries.
So if we sent a plane of refugees home, like for example, Colombia, we did that.
That happened in the first week of the Trump administration.
Colombia didn't want to accept them.
And then we set sanctions imposed onto that country.
And then they were like, oh, never mind, we'll take them.
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And then it was all good.
Then they took them.
And so that happened there.
Social media has absolutely been blowing this up.
Oh yeah.
So Christians calling out a bunch of passages and seeing these policies as hypocritical.
And there's other Christians that are defending deportations and America First policy.
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And so it's a tough issue.
Listen, me and Megan, we love our Republican friends.
We love our Democrat friends.
I in particular have no party affiliation.
I'm just going to put that out there.
I'm not going to even ask what you are.
But I have no party affiliation.
I really, really, really hate the labels.
And I really want this to not come across as political because it's a biblical issue.
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And that I think is so absolutely crucial.
There is a administration that is looking at it a certain way.
But the last administration, and Brie even talks about this, did plenty of things that
were not biblical, even as it pertains to immigration.
And so I think we've so weirdly associated that one party has a biblical stance towards
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the other that it's hard for us to create a distance and actually read the Bible for
what it says and then actually compare political leanings against the Bible.
So I'm going to read some of the passages and some of the things that are talked about
that are really pertinent.
And I mean, this bothers me because when I see these things, I'm like, if there's one
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thing that's super duper consistent throughout the whole Bible is how we treat refugees
and immigrants.
That's such a common theme.
And it's unfortunately displaying how little people read the Bible.
You know, like this is something that's near and dear to Jesus' heart.
I made this post and it said this, and I just want to like talk about basically what was
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on the post.
It said this, one of the old covenant laws says not to oppress the stranger and reminds
the Israelites that they were one strangers in Egypt.
Okay.
And this is all from my book, The Problem Problems, Freedom, that just came out.
And as exit is 2221 and then also Leviticus 1934, that's where it says it straight up.
You once were strangers yourselves, so don't you need to welcome strangers in.
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The word stranger in these passages is sometimes translated as a resident alien or foreigner.
Like you can't translate it any other way.
They're talking about people from other nations.
They're literally talking about foreigners.
And it always refers to outsiders who are in need of a community.
The Israelites are instructed to treat them as natives, as insiders or kin.
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So in the new covenant, this is New Testament, Jesus, what he establishes, he uses the same
language to talk about the dispossessed when he talks about who will enter the kingdom
of God.
He says this, Come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food.
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
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I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you gave me clothing.
I was sick and you take care of me.
I was in prison and you visited me.
Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters
of mine, you did it to me.
And I'm going to read to you 25, 34, 36 and then 40.
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Jesus aligns the old covenant commitment for us to care for strangers.
And what's crazy, Jesus calls the strangers his own family.
He says, you're not doing this for a stranger.
You're doing it for my brothers and sisters.
And when you do it for them, you do it for me.
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In the old covenant, rejecting a stranger was rejecting God.
So in the new covenant, turning away a stranger is rejecting Christ.
It's as simple as that.
I had somebody comment on it, a friend of mine.
He was like, I agree with what you're saying, but this is still like, we have to ask how
many strangers are we going to let into our own houses?
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You know, like eventually they're going to crowd out even our own houses and stuff.
70 times seven kind of energy.
How many times am I supposed to forgive you?
And my response to him was, was like, that's exactly the question you should be asking.
To what extent can I help and then do it?
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That's how we're called to do it.
You know, which is a completely different way of thinking about stuff.
It's a little bit of a sobering topic and because so many people are being displaced,
families being broken up at borders and there's measures to like help them not be broken up
in a border, but like it still is happening.
So just getting into that, I really want to get into our conversation because I think
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Bree has such a nuanced and important view that's so good.
So let me just introduce who she is.
This is Bree Stensrud.
She's a human dignity advocate and the director of the women of welcome.
I really love this ministry that she has.
It's a community dedicated to diving into the whole of scripture to understand God's
heart for the immigrant and refugee.
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She lives in Colorado with her husband and two children.
I came to know who she was.
I read her book, Start with Welcome, which came out last year.
The journey toward a confident and compassionate immigration conversation.
It came out with Zonderman last year and it's really, really powerful.
She grew up evangelical.
She comes from that whole, that space.
She speaks the language and she basically makes the big argument.
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This shouldn't be a political thing.
This should be a Jesus thing.
And I really think that conversation is so great.
So let's turn to that now.
All right, so I am very excited.
We are here with Bree.
How are you doing, Bree?
I'm all right.
So this topic, Megan and I have been wanting to do for months.
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We have plans for it for months and we were hoping to get a guest like you and it just
got crazy relevant, like really, really, really relevant.
And so this is going to, I'm really excited about this conversation.
So grateful that you're joining us.
It's great to be here.
Thank you so much.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Okay.
So let's just jump right in.
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So I will say you wrote a fantastic book.
That's how I came to know about your ministry and about who you are and stuff like that.
I read Start With Welcome and in it, you make this really awesome correlation that I think
is so helpful for people who are generally on the conservative side of theology, which
we are as well.
And we're like, you know, sometimes it gets so murky on how things get politicized.
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I think you make a really strong statement of just kind of showing a correlation.
And basically you say, if you hold to a pro-life stance, which you said you do and we do, then
we really need to think about how this would go all the way through.
And when we talk about an ethics of life and human flourishing, it goes beyond just a matter
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of birth and it actually goes to human life in general.
And you actually made that point where your immigration policy, if it is actually funded
by this idea of pro-life and human flourishing, that that's actually going to make us think
about the value of human life very differently even as we think about immigrants.
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So I would ask, can you expound on that a little bit and how did you come to that point,
like to that crucial point that I think?
Well, I mean, I grew up in a Christian home, an evangelical Christian home.
I was a preacher's kid my whole life.
And of course, you're just like, if you're a Christian, you love Jesus, you're pro-life
and you care about life from conception to natural death.
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And yet so much of evangelical subculture is about focusing on and prioritizing the
pre-born life.
And so you just kind of grow up thinking about that.
You go on to the fundraisers, you go to the fun runs, you go to the walks, all those things,
you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, so you're like, I'm totally pro-life, you know?
But then when you like get older and you start to realize the complexity of human life and
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you really start to think about what does it take for a life to flourish outside of the
womb?
It's not this kind of like linear line.
It's actually like a web of human dignity issues that are vastly important to God.
And so we think about, I really just kind of grew out of this traditional pro-life world
view to a holistic, I call it a whole life pro-life world view.
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Because as Christians operate as pro-lifers from a dictionary definition, it actually
falls really flat and is really narrow in the fact that a dictionary definition says
that being pro-life is just being against abortion.
But the biblical, like we're pro-lifers because we care about what the Bible says about what
God thinks about life.
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And so we care about the dignity and sanctity of every human life.
And so when we look throughout scripture, we see not only that God intends life and
that he fashions life and that he purposes life and he brings life and death to who he
wishes and he draws men from the East to the West to accomplish his missions.
And you see what God's heart is for the flourishing of life.
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You develop this world view about the dignity and sanctity of every human life.
So if I care about the heartbeat of the child in the womb, why is it that I don't care
about the heartbeat of the child at the border?
Why is it that I don't care about the heartbeat of the child that is starving in Sudan or
who is dying from preventable diseases in some kind of developing nation?
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You have to think about the dignity and sanctity of every human life because there is nowhere
in scripture that we are told to prioritize one vulnerable population over another.
You can't find it.
You have looked.
And when you think about, okay, I'm coming to this human dignity space, whatever it is,
it could be poverty, it could be racial reconciliation, it could be immigration, pro-life issues,
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whatever adoption, whatever it is, you're coming to that with a framework from a biblical
conviction about the dignity and sanctity of every human life, about what God says
about life and how precious it is and how he desires for his people to create systems
and protections to create flourishing for people.
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Then you just start saying, all right, what does that mean for me when I'm looking across
the spectrum of life and you're not capable of entering into every human dignity space
along that spectrum?
That's what the body of Christ is for.
But you do start to see, man, there is a whole lot more to caring about the dignity and sanctity
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of every human life.
There's so much more to being pro-life than just caring if a baby isn't exposed to or
dies from the violent practice of abortion.
Yeah.
That's good.
Now, I think when you look at scripture, and unfortunately, I think in our culture, there
seems to be a lot of like, you think somebody says something and sounds biblical, but it
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just isn't.
If you read scripture, man, oh man, what is pure religion according to James?
You read Isaiah, you read Matthew, Luke, the Sermon on the Mount.
There's so much of a call for us to care for the most vulnerable in our society.
That might shift around depending on the society who's the most vulnerable, but I think the
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principle, the idea that it is the people who are the most vulnerable that we are to
care for, I think that's so crucial.
That's the argument, right?
People want to say who is the most vulnerable and who doesn't have a voice.
Some people will argue, well, the child in the womb certainly doesn't have a voice, so
it makes them the most vulnerable.
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But if you're an immigrant who's here in this country, do you really have a voice?
Do you have a voice, especially if you're here undocumented?
Do you have a voice in this culture, in this society?
No, you don't.
If you're a young child growing up in an underserved community and you're not getting fed and you're
getting abused at home and no one's noticing, do you have a voice?
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I mean, there's this argument that Christians seem to like, or at least a lot of podcasters
who have a platform, they like to cause arguments around and defend a certain population that
is something that they're passionate about, or is that it's kind of easy to defend or
to get funding for.
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Some human dignity spaces, they definitely can get more funding easily.
And so it becomes this scarcity mindset of, I've got to pit this vulnerable population
over this one, and one for this to really get taken care of.
And it's like, man, that's so misguided, because as the body, we're all supposed to be functioning
and reaching out in different ways.
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I think in so many evangelical subculture spaces, there is a push to put, to pit one
vulnerable population over another, and that this population really needs your voice.
And this one is actually just more political, or this one is actually just, you know, there's
a lot of people over there.
But actually, if you're functioning as the body, we're not all called to the same space.
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So in scripture, we're told that the body has to function as one.
And if the hand is getting funding over here, but there's a pain point and the ankle or
something over here, it's like the body needs to be in touch.
You need to know what is going on in other parts of the body so that you can lend resources.
You can speak on the same with one voice about the flourishing all of these people that are
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in the mix of all these things.
So I don't think it makes sense.
And I think it really breaks up the unity that the body of Christ could have at addressing
all these issues.
And you know, some people will say, well, this one's definitely more political.
So we are not really going to touch that one.
But you know, it's like the church doesn't have a problem talking about abortion.
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And that is like the most political thing you could talk about.
So why don't we talk about immigration?
Not about US immigration policy, but about immigrants and refugees.
It's I mean, we can't talk about racial reconciliation because that's a real political thing.
We don't want to talk about how Black lives really do matter because we want to say that
all lives matter.
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It's like, guys, we're missing the point.
It's about the dignity and sanctity of every human life and that each and every person
that you see is made in the image and likeness of God, which means that they have a unique
reflection of who God is in this world that's worth preserving for the flourishing of everybody.
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So good.
That's so good.
Even I feel like such a great point that you're making is this conversation around politicization,
right?
And I feel like Alexi would totally grieve the heart of God to see how we view certain
vulnerable populations in almost a hierarchy because he doesn't.
He sure does not.
So when we're talking about how do like politicization of everything, how would you say that the
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church should depoliticize immigration?
We're very comfortable talking about abortion and these other topics, political topics we've
deemed acceptable.
So how can we depoliticize and make immigration conversations in the church acceptable and
not just acceptable but important and something we should be engaging in?
You have to read your Bible.
You have to pick up the Bible and you have to be as simple as this guys.
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I mean, the Bible has nothing to say about US immigration policy.
I'll give you that has nothing to say about it.
Just like it doesn't be anything to say about the policies that Europe has or that Canada
has or that Mexico has.
It doesn't have anything, but it says a lot about God's heart for the immigrant and the
sojourner.
And so you have to make it a biblical issue.
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And you know, there's a life way survey that world relief did last year and it was basically
like, okay, have you ever, it was out to pastors, even to passers.
So how many of you have preached on a sermon about immigrants or refugees?
It was like 20%.
And then they asked congregants, how many of you would appreciate hearing a sermon about
how to apply biblical principles to present day immigration conversations?
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75% of congregants said they wanted that sermon.
If you are unsure about how to talk about it, that means that someone else is talking about
it to your people.
The lack of discipleship on the immigration issue is appalling in the church.
The fact that we can't, our own shepherds can't separate the politics from the biblical
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conviction and what our calling is as Christians is really disheartening in this moment.
We need more collective courage from our pastors to stand up from the pulpit.
And if you're not comfortable at the pulpit talking about this, maybe it's that you're
going to offer a class during a weeknight.
Maybe it isn't always the most appropriate place to talk about really politicized issues,
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but it is the place of discipleship and it is a place to lead people into deeper discipleship
in a class or some other kind of orientation that you've got some kind of ministry that
you have.
But you have to dig in the Bible and see what God says in the Old Testament about how God's
people are to preserve, protect, and create pathways for sojourners because they were
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once sojourners in Egypt.
Even so far as saying that you're supposed to treat the native, the sojourner as if they
were native born.
I mean, that's a principle that we should be applying in American politics.
It's not what it's about, it's about what God's heart is for the preservation and the
protection of very vulnerable people who are traveling throughout your country and have
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no land, no rights, no investment, but they are trying to survive.
And then you go to the New Testament and you learn about how God says you're supposed
to love your neighbor, you're supposed to love God with all your heart, soul, mind,
and then love your neighbor.
And then some young lawyer is like, yeah, God, but who actually is my neighbor?
As if there are some non-neighbors out there.
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I'm sure he's got some kind of acceptable list of surely God doesn't want, he's not
talking about this guy.
And God tells the story of the good Samaritan and basically telling all of these other people,
hey Samaritans, the people that you hate that you like and don't like, that's the hero of
the story.
Take a note from that guy.
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And then Jesus goes off and has dinner with a bunch of task collectors or Roman soldiers
and all these things and people are like, what is happening?
Well, that's what Jesus is telling us to do.
He said, go and do likewise.
So what does that mean?
And I think that one of the most challenging questions we have to ask ourselves is, if
Christ's welcome towards us, his bringing us into the fold and into the family, if that
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welcome cost him his life, why do we not think that our welcome towards others wouldn't cost
us the same?
If we're supposed to be like Christ, what are we dying to here?
What are we dying for here?
What are we extending ourselves, ringing ourselves out for in this world?
Is it for comfort?
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Because comfort is actually crippling the church.
And if we can't get into uncomfortable spaces, someone else is going to disciple your people
and they already are.
And there's a reason why you haven't talked about it.
And that should be an indicator to you that you're far from what the heart of God is on
this issue.
You're afraid of the earthly retribution.
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You're afraid of some of these things.
I get it.
It's really intimidating.
There's really big costs to talking about Jesus things.
But the church needs discipleship and it has to come.
It has to come from the pulpit at some level to say, guys, this is a political issue.
It's also deeply, deeply biblical.
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Yeah.
I cannot agree with that more.
I mean, that's so powerfully stated.
We have that responsibility to guide people.
And so it's like we had this episode last season is like how political should pastors
get from the pulpit?
And in one answer, it's like not at all.
And the other answer, it's like totally like it's like totally in the sense of like the
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people are the polis and you are helping to guide people through difficult times, through
difficult issues and decisions, but not in the sense of like, oh, you're going to like
tell you to vote for this person or blah, blah, blah.
And that's such a tough like because you have some churches that are like super duper politicizing
to do rallies for folks in junk.
And then other ones that like totally want to avoid it and finding that median place,
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finding that space where you're like, you're offering the guidance that your people do
so desperately need.
We need biblical application like scripture and tell them how to apply it.
And if you're uncertain of it, start digging in.
You know, I say this to our women of welcome audience all the time.
I say, I actually don't care about how you vote.
Voting is very important.
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It's extremely important.
It affects policies that are made in people's lives, but I actually don't care about how
you vote.
What I care about is your voice.
Yeah.
How are you going to use your voice?
So let's say we had this conversation, our women of welcome community.
We'll like, let's say you voted for Trump.
Okay.
You voted for Trump.
All of these policies, just because you vote for Trump doesn't mean you're in love with
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everything that is happening in the country right now.
I'm holding space for that.
Maybe you do.
I don't know, but I am holding space for all those folks who say I voted for him for a
variety of reasons, but I don't love this approach on immigration.
Okay.
Guess what?
Your voice in these years in between these big four seer swings is so important.
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Actually more powerful than just about anybody else out there because you voted for him.
So if you call your elected official and you say, Hey, I don't like family separation.
I don't like that mixed status families are going to be separated.
I don't like all of this militarization of this whole system.
And the border always says, you can say, I voted for you.
And I'd actually like to see this happen as opposed to someone who may be voted for Kamala.
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Okay.
If you voted for Kamala, you probably voted for Kamala because you didn't like all of
this rhetoric and you didn't like all this stuff and you couldn't get over that.
Okay.
Fine.
You voted for Kamala, whatever you did.
And say, Hey, you know what?
I'm fine.
The good, right?
Be like, I know that you care about preserving the safety and the citizenship of us citizens.
Right?
What I would love for you to do is have safe and secure borders, thorough vetting and
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just as important humane treatment of people who I believe made in the image and likeness
of God.
I'm a Christian and I would love for you to hold the tension of these two things, these
three things altogether because they can coexist.
So to me, if a pastor is nervous about this, just be like, all right, I'm just going to
get everybody's heart rate up by bringing up immigration.
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But then I'm going to just like, let us all breathe for a second.
Say, I don't actually care how you voted.
What I care about is our collective Christian witness about how people in the country, regardless
of citizenship are treated because we know that our earthly citizenship is nothing compared
to the weight and eternity of our kingdom citizenship.
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Amen.
Amen.
Yeah.
Very well stated.
That's so good.
I, you know, I think you're saying things that practical wisdom, you know, do a Wednesday
service, create spaces to talk about it.
That's so crucial.
And this is why I think you're such an important voice here.
This is the same stuff that we talk about all the time of just like, regardless of how
you vote, you should be able to have a critical voice regardless who's the president.
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And you know, like that's, that's just recognizing that the kingdom of God is one thing that
we're citizens of.
And then there's the kingdom of the world, which revelation calls Babylon and all the
every nation, every nation is part of this.
And so you don't have to like blindly follow somebody that's ruling in some little sector
of Babylon, even if it's a good sector or bad sector, whatever it is.
And so I really appreciate everything you just said.
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Could you actually, because I'm not sure if we've defined this, but could you tell us
what your main ministry is in women of welcome and in what you guys do?
Could you explain that a little bit?
Sure.
So women of welcome is a community of Christian women who want to engage this issue of immigrants
or refugees from a biblical perspective.
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So we are completely nonpartisan and what we're really kind of like an advocacy and
education community.
So we have about 150,000 women who are in the women of welcome community who want to
understand from Genesis to revelation, what is God's heart?
What am I supposed to do with this compassion that I have towards this immigrant and refugee
(29:38):
space?
It's so politicized.
I don't understand UM's immigration policy.
I don't know what I can do.
I don't like what I see.
And I have an angst.
I have compassion in this space, but I don't have a lot of confidence to speak up and use
my voice like I know I'm supposed.
And so many, you know, conservative to moderate theologically and politically minded women
(30:02):
are feeling this tension of, okay, I'm in lots of spaces that are applauding some things
that just don't feel right from a Christian perspective that don't feel right from a human
perspective.
What do I do with that?
And there was just this big gap of discipleship of the Christian community in general.
(30:26):
But for me, just looking at kind of women's ministry, I was like, wow, women have a heart
for the sojourner and no one is discipling them about how to engage in this space well
from the lens of their faith.
So taking all the politics out of it and saying, okay, let's just meet people where they're
at and let's walk them through the Bible.
(30:46):
We're not doing a reinterpretation of scripture.
We're revisiting scripture.
So passages that you have heard and known maybe your entire life.
You've probably never thought about the implications of what it means to be Ruth and Naomi to,
you know, this is the great, we've always been told Ruth and Naomi, like it's, it's
the Boaz story.
(31:07):
It's like the greatest love story that's ever been told in the Bible.
And yet do you know that that story, like it's about two immigrant widowed women who
find provision in a land not their own because of the laws and the protection that God mandated
his people create and facilitate and implement for sojourners in their land.
(31:27):
It's like you just, if you're revisiting stories, you're revisiting Moses in the basket and
you're revisiting like these midwives who, who knew what the law was, but also knew that
a human life was the moral law and God's law was more important than killing children
or causing trauma to families.
You know, so it's not about not following the law.
(31:50):
It's not about reinterpreting scripture.
It's about looking at scripture and saying, man, a lot of these favorite biblical characters
and heroes found themselves in some really messy social situations.
And yet they chose and were chosen to be in scripture by the way that they held the tension
well in these really hard spaces of God's law and moral law versus earthly law and all
(32:15):
these things.
So you realize that biblical characters are vastly more complicated and handled things
in ways that God said, Hey, look at this story.
This is what it is.
So we talk a lot about policy because we know that public policy influences the flourishing
of people, but there's a very big difference between politics and public policy.
So we talk a lot about public policy, but we are not interested in partisan politics.
(32:38):
We're not interested in disparaging political candidates or people who are in office.
That's not, that's not even Christ's like what we're going to do.
Say this current administration is, is implementing these things or is proposing these things.
What does that do to human life?
What does that do to the sojourner and what is my role as a Christ follower first and foremost
(33:00):
in how I live out my life toward and around my neighbor.
So we're equal opportunity critics.
Just like you said, Stephen, it's like during the Biden administration, equal opportunity
critics on that.
I've got a whole slew of things that I was extremely mad, like frustrated and it was
maddening during that administration.
There's some things right now in just several weeks into this administration.
(33:23):
It's like, gotta keep your ears perked up and you gotta use your voice because people,
people are being impacted by the policies of different candidates.
So equal opportunity critic there.
So that's what women of welcome does.
We just disciple you into a better conversation about immigration through the lens of your
faith first and foremost.
(33:44):
So good.
We love to, as we kind of come to a close here at the end of most of our episodes, we
do, we try and make things as practical as possible.
Because I think that can sometimes be the enemy is when everything feels too theological
and cerebral and there's no practical, what do I do now kind of things.
And I think that especially when it comes to immigration, we have to have a, what do
(34:04):
we do now?
And so what can the church do or Christians do to partner with organizations like yours
to help make an impactful, to help make an impact on immigrants today?
The number one question we get at women of welcome all the time is what can I do?
What can I do?
What can I do?
And it really comes down to what are you willing to do?
(34:27):
Because you can ask that and I can give you an entire menu of options of dozens and dozens
that you could get involved in or that you could do.
But the question is what are you willing to do?
And a lot of what you're willing to do is based off of your proximity to people in this
community.
And also proximity to scripture.
(34:47):
Like how close do you want to be aligned with Christ in this?
And how closely do you want to know your neighbor?
Because if you have proximity to immigrants and refugees, it's going to feel more personal
to you.
And if you don't, you're going to understand what you're not going to understand what all
the fuss is about.
So part of it is what are you willing to do?
And it could be that you are going to be a prayer warrior about it.
(35:10):
Because you don't know much.
You're like, I don't know where to start and I'm not in close proximity with people.
What do I do?
You can pray.
You can be paying attention to the headlines and saying and remembering that there are individual
image bearers behind every headline.
And you're praying for the wisdom and discernment of our leadership and also just the protection
(35:31):
and the peace that is needed in the immigrant community.
You can also be supportive in your finances and the fact that World Relief, who is a founding
partner of Women of Welcome, they are one of the nine refugee resettlement agencies
in the country.
And they were just told by this administration that they had to stop all services and ministry
(35:56):
towards refugees that have just recently arrived in the U.S.
Now these are people who have been thoroughly vetted for two years overseas before being
invited to come to the U.S. and then told to pay back their ticket price.
So these are families that are, this is the main legal immigration pathway that makes
sense and yet it was just shut down in ministries like World Relief, who is the official humanitarian
(36:21):
arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, was just told to stop ministry work and they
would be bill funding.
So supporting organizations like World Relief and saying, I believe in your work towards
a sojourner is so important and it's critical right now in the fact that they've just lost
all federal funding to minister to the sojourner.
I think the other really important thing is to use your voice.
(36:44):
You've got to learn how to use your voice for the vulnerable beyond the pre-born space.
You have to because the world is watching Evangelicals say how much we care about pre-born children
meanwhile they're watching the rest of that whole spectrum of life fall apart and they're
wondering where we are.
(37:04):
So we'll gladly use our voice against abortion but will we use it for the flourishing of
other people and they see the inconsistency of our ethic and they're falling away for
that very reason and they're calling us hypocrites for that very reason.
So I would say use your voice.
How do you use your voice?
Women walk with all kinds of resources on how to use your voice.
(37:26):
You can go to womenofwelcome.com or follow us on social media and find those guides there
but one of the main ways you can use your voice that feels very antiquated but is incredibly
important is to call your elected officials and tell them that you would like three things.
I want safe and secure borders.
I want thorough vetting and I also want the humane treatment of vulnerable people at the
(37:51):
border and across the world.
That would be immigrants and refugees, humane treatment of people in all of the ways in
which we create safety and security for US citizens.
That right there is a testament to our elected officials who also need collective courage
but know that really evangelicals are a strong voting block, right?
(38:11):
If you call them and you say I'm an evangelical Christian, I want us to see solutions to create
these three things.
That goes a really long way to boost the inspiration and the courage of elected officials to do
the right thing when they're legislating for the flourishing of all people.
That's good.
So good.
(38:31):
Thank you so much.
This has been very illuminating, hopeful even.
In these times, I think just hearing you talking about all this stuff and what you guys are
doing, it's bringing some hope to me and I hope our listeners will also feel a sense
of hope and responsibility and just the ability of what we should be doing to help others.
(38:54):
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much.
Wow.
That was really powerful.
Really good.
Really, really good.
I always love the gift of these conversations that we get to have, Stephen and I, on this
side of things where I feel like we get ministered to through the wisdom of our guests.
And we hope that that ministers to you as well, that wherever you're listening to this, it
(39:16):
gives you a heart that aches for people who are displaced or the stranger for the foreigner
for all these things because we were all once those things as well.
This has been something that the Lord has cared about consistently throughout Scripture
and I think that it would grieve him greatly if it's not something that we cared about
now and not just cared about but did something about in a way that would make him proud.
(39:41):
And so I hope that what Bre brought was something that really settles within your heart and
makes us all take a second look at how we think and address and how we frame the conversations
that we have surrounding refugees and the immigration crisis that we see.
Well stated, my friend.
Well stated.
All right.
Well, this episode was brought to you by the School of Theology and Ministry at Life
(40:03):
Pacific University.
We'll see you next time.
See ya.
Le Notes.
(00:01):
It's French.
Le Notes.
Okay, the French just cried.
Yeah.
The French just were like, Le-NO.
Welcome to TikTok Theology, a podcast that tackles the major trending topics on social
media that concern the Christian faith.
I'm Meagan.
(00:22):
And I'm Steven.
We know you can't form a theology in three minutes or less, but those videos can identify
current issues.
TikTok will give us the prompt, and then we'll do a deep dive.
Thanks for joining us in this exploration.
Hello, friends.
Welcome back to TikTok Theology.
(00:42):
We've got some really important conversations going on over the course of this entire season.
But I think especially this one.
Obviously we've seen transitions in government recently, especially in the U.S. with our most
recent election.
And when there's political such happening, there are TikToks about it.
There's social media about it, right?
(01:03):
And so I'm sure none of us can go on any of our feeds and not see conversations about
politics right now.
It is a major issue, too.
Huge major giant issue.
And so obviously this conversation is not new.
It's been a conversation forever, but it's come up a lot with people having conversations
about immigration and the refugee crisis.
This is also global, too.
(01:24):
I mean, European countries have similar issues.
Oh, for sure.
So this is, of course, not especially an American issue.
Most things are not just an American issue, of course, but we see a lot of this, especially
with our most recent transition in politics and the government and the administration.
So obviously everyone cares about this.
Young, old, documented, undocumented.
(01:46):
Everyone cares about how this is playing out, no matter where you find yourself on the political
spectrum.
So we're going to have hopefully a really wholesome conversation today that's going to
make us reflect and think of the refugee crisis from a biblical perspective.
We're not coming at it from a left perspective or a right perspective.
We're really seeking to come at it from a biblical perspective and address this how we
(02:06):
believe that Jesus would address this.
And we have such a bomb guest.
Oh, yeah.
First choice, my first choice.
Like, I was like, let's ask this person.
I'm going to give it away in a second.
Just keep it as a bomb.
Probably in the title.
So that doesn't actually help.
That's whatever.
Does anyone read the titles in the same time?
I don't know.
Well, I'll introduce Bree in a minute, but I couldn't think of anyone better.
(02:27):
Like I read her book and it was just so phenomenal.
And she speaks about it in such a loving, gracious, working across the aisle way because
of her conservative upbringing.
But talking about something and I think it's just so good.
Yeah, I would agree.
Man, I'm really excited about that conversation for people to hear.
Before we get into it, though, I think we should probably have a few definitions set
(02:49):
into place.
So we have drastic changes on immigration with this new administration.
It's a global issue.
Every administration has views on these because we are, we're a sovereign nation and it's
always a balance of how do we care for the domestic issues that we have and how do we
help others and immigrants and refugees and whatnot as they're trying to also be part
(03:12):
of our community.
Yeah.
So that's the issue.
So there's a couple of things that recently happened.
One, there was this mass deportation initiative.
And this was something that was really, really like harped on with the Trump administration
during his campaigning that say he was going to do it and then started right away.
We pretty much knew this was coming for a while.
Yeah.
So, and he started right away.
These were plans for a large scale deportation of approximately 11 million undocumented
(03:36):
immigrants.
Now it's going to take a while to do that.
There was going to be a process and the American Immigration Council estimates that it's going
to cost nearly $1 trillion and it's going to take over a decade to deport all the undocumented
immigrants.
But they've done efforts towards it right away, right from the top.
First week in office, it was a bunch of executive orders and different things that were signed
that made that stuff happen.
(03:58):
One thing that was also crucial, there was a suspension of refugee admissions.
So we have refugee resettlement programs and they've been paused.
And this is halting the admission of new refugees into the US.
Some people are really troubled by that because some people were waiting for years and doing
it totally the right way.
And then it was...
I've been vetted and gone through a process.
Yeah.
Vetted and now it's just totally halted.
(04:19):
And then finally, we've been seeing a whole bunch of sanctions on non-coroperative countries.
So if we sent a plane of refugees home, like for example, Colombia, we did that.
That happened in the first week of the Trump administration.
Colombia didn't want to accept them.
And then we set sanctions imposed onto that country.
And then they were like, oh, never mind, we'll take them.
(04:39):
And then it was all good.
Then they took them.
And so that happened there.
Social media has absolutely been blowing this up.
Oh yeah.
So Christians calling out a bunch of passages and seeing these policies as hypocritical.
And there's other Christians that are defending deportations and America First policy.
(05:00):
And so it's a tough issue.
Listen, me and Megan, we love our Republican friends.
We love our Democrat friends.
I in particular have no party affiliation.
I'm just going to put that out there.
I'm not going to even ask what you are.
But I have no party affiliation.
I really, really, really hate the labels.
And I really want this to not come across as political because it's a biblical issue.
(05:26):
And that I think is so absolutely crucial.
There is a administration that is looking at it a certain way.
But the last administration, and Brie even talks about this, did plenty of things that
were not biblical, even as it pertains to immigration.
And so I think we've so weirdly associated that one party has a biblical stance towards
(05:50):
the other that it's hard for us to create a distance and actually read the Bible for
what it says and then actually compare political leanings against the Bible.
So I'm going to read some of the passages and some of the things that are talked about
that are really pertinent.
And I mean, this bothers me because when I see these things, I'm like, if there's one
(06:11):
thing that's super duper consistent throughout the whole Bible is how we treat refugees
and immigrants.
That's such a common theme.
And it's unfortunately displaying how little people read the Bible.
You know, like this is something that's near and dear to Jesus' heart.
I made this post and it said this, and I just want to like talk about basically what was
(06:34):
on the post.
It said this, one of the old covenant laws says not to oppress the stranger and reminds
the Israelites that they were one strangers in Egypt.
Okay.
And this is all from my book, The Problem Problems, Freedom, that just came out.
And as exit is 2221 and then also Leviticus 1934, that's where it says it straight up.
You once were strangers yourselves, so don't you need to welcome strangers in.
(06:58):
The word stranger in these passages is sometimes translated as a resident alien or foreigner.
Like you can't translate it any other way.
They're talking about people from other nations.
They're literally talking about foreigners.
And it always refers to outsiders who are in need of a community.
The Israelites are instructed to treat them as natives, as insiders or kin.
(07:21):
So in the new covenant, this is New Testament, Jesus, what he establishes, he uses the same
language to talk about the dispossessed when he talks about who will enter the kingdom
of God.
He says this, Come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food.
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
(07:43):
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you gave me clothing.
I was sick and you take care of me.
I was in prison and you visited me.
Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters
of mine, you did it to me.
And I'm going to read to you 25, 34, 36 and then 40.
(08:06):
Jesus aligns the old covenant commitment for us to care for strangers.
And what's crazy, Jesus calls the strangers his own family.
He says, you're not doing this for a stranger.
You're doing it for my brothers and sisters.
And when you do it for them, you do it for me.
(08:27):
In the old covenant, rejecting a stranger was rejecting God.
So in the new covenant, turning away a stranger is rejecting Christ.
It's as simple as that.
I had somebody comment on it, a friend of mine.
He was like, I agree with what you're saying, but this is still like, we have to ask how
many strangers are we going to let into our own houses?
(08:49):
You know, like eventually they're going to crowd out even our own houses and stuff.
70 times seven kind of energy.
How many times am I supposed to forgive you?
And my response to him was, was like, that's exactly the question you should be asking.
To what extent can I help and then do it?
(09:10):
That's how we're called to do it.
You know, which is a completely different way of thinking about stuff.
It's a little bit of a sobering topic and because so many people are being displaced,
families being broken up at borders and there's measures to like help them not be broken up
in a border, but like it still is happening.
So just getting into that, I really want to get into our conversation because I think
(09:31):
Bree has such a nuanced and important view that's so good.
So let me just introduce who she is.
This is Bree Stensrud.
She's a human dignity advocate and the director of the women of welcome.
I really love this ministry that she has.
It's a community dedicated to diving into the whole of scripture to understand God's
heart for the immigrant and refugee.
(09:52):
She lives in Colorado with her husband and two children.
I came to know who she was.
I read her book, Start with Welcome, which came out last year.
The journey toward a confident and compassionate immigration conversation.
It came out with Zonderman last year and it's really, really powerful.
She grew up evangelical.
She comes from that whole, that space.
She speaks the language and she basically makes the big argument.
(10:13):
This shouldn't be a political thing.
This should be a Jesus thing.
And I really think that conversation is so great.
So let's turn to that now.
All right, so I am very excited.
We are here with Bree.
How are you doing, Bree?
I'm all right.
So this topic, Megan and I have been wanting to do for months.
(10:33):
We have plans for it for months and we were hoping to get a guest like you and it just
got crazy relevant, like really, really, really relevant.
And so this is going to, I'm really excited about this conversation.
So grateful that you're joining us.
It's great to be here.
Thank you so much.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Okay.
So let's just jump right in.
(10:53):
So I will say you wrote a fantastic book.
That's how I came to know about your ministry and about who you are and stuff like that.
I read Start With Welcome and in it, you make this really awesome correlation that I think
is so helpful for people who are generally on the conservative side of theology, which
we are as well.
And we're like, you know, sometimes it gets so murky on how things get politicized.
(11:21):
I think you make a really strong statement of just kind of showing a correlation.
And basically you say, if you hold to a pro-life stance, which you said you do and we do, then
we really need to think about how this would go all the way through.
And when we talk about an ethics of life and human flourishing, it goes beyond just a matter
(11:44):
of birth and it actually goes to human life in general.
And you actually made that point where your immigration policy, if it is actually funded
by this idea of pro-life and human flourishing, that that's actually going to make us think
about the value of human life very differently even as we think about immigrants.
(12:06):
So I would ask, can you expound on that a little bit and how did you come to that point,
like to that crucial point that I think?
Well, I mean, I grew up in a Christian home, an evangelical Christian home.
I was a preacher's kid my whole life.
And of course, you're just like, if you're a Christian, you love Jesus, you're pro-life
and you care about life from conception to natural death.
(12:27):
And yet so much of evangelical subculture is about focusing on and prioritizing the
pre-born life.
And so you just kind of grow up thinking about that.
You go on to the fundraisers, you go to the fun runs, you go to the walks, all those things,
you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, so you're like, I'm totally pro-life, you know?
But then when you like get older and you start to realize the complexity of human life and
(12:49):
you really start to think about what does it take for a life to flourish outside of the
womb?
It's not this kind of like linear line.
It's actually like a web of human dignity issues that are vastly important to God.
And so we think about, I really just kind of grew out of this traditional pro-life world
view to a holistic, I call it a whole life pro-life world view.
(13:12):
Because as Christians operate as pro-lifers from a dictionary definition, it actually
falls really flat and is really narrow in the fact that a dictionary definition says
that being pro-life is just being against abortion.
But the biblical, like we're pro-lifers because we care about what the Bible says about what
God thinks about life.
(13:34):
And so we care about the dignity and sanctity of every human life.
And so when we look throughout scripture, we see not only that God intends life and
that he fashions life and that he purposes life and he brings life and death to who he
wishes and he draws men from the East to the West to accomplish his missions.
And you see what God's heart is for the flourishing of life.
(13:57):
You develop this world view about the dignity and sanctity of every human life.
So if I care about the heartbeat of the child in the womb, why is it that I don't care
about the heartbeat of the child at the border?
Why is it that I don't care about the heartbeat of the child that is starving in Sudan or
who is dying from preventable diseases in some kind of developing nation?
(14:21):
You have to think about the dignity and sanctity of every human life because there is nowhere
in scripture that we are told to prioritize one vulnerable population over another.
You can't find it.
You have looked.
And when you think about, okay, I'm coming to this human dignity space, whatever it is,
it could be poverty, it could be racial reconciliation, it could be immigration, pro-life issues,
(14:43):
whatever adoption, whatever it is, you're coming to that with a framework from a biblical
conviction about the dignity and sanctity of every human life, about what God says
about life and how precious it is and how he desires for his people to create systems
and protections to create flourishing for people.
(15:05):
Then you just start saying, all right, what does that mean for me when I'm looking across
the spectrum of life and you're not capable of entering into every human dignity space
along that spectrum?
That's what the body of Christ is for.
But you do start to see, man, there is a whole lot more to caring about the dignity and sanctity
(15:27):
of every human life.
There's so much more to being pro-life than just caring if a baby isn't exposed to or
dies from the violent practice of abortion.
Yeah.
That's good.
Now, I think when you look at scripture, and unfortunately, I think in our culture, there
seems to be a lot of like, you think somebody says something and sounds biblical, but it
(15:50):
just isn't.
If you read scripture, man, oh man, what is pure religion according to James?
You read Isaiah, you read Matthew, Luke, the Sermon on the Mount.
There's so much of a call for us to care for the most vulnerable in our society.
That might shift around depending on the society who's the most vulnerable, but I think the
(16:12):
principle, the idea that it is the people who are the most vulnerable that we are to
care for, I think that's so crucial.
That's the argument, right?
People want to say who is the most vulnerable and who doesn't have a voice.
Some people will argue, well, the child in the womb certainly doesn't have a voice, so
it makes them the most vulnerable.
(16:33):
But if you're an immigrant who's here in this country, do you really have a voice?
Do you have a voice, especially if you're here undocumented?
Do you have a voice in this culture, in this society?
No, you don't.
If you're a young child growing up in an underserved community and you're not getting fed and you're
getting abused at home and no one's noticing, do you have a voice?
(16:56):
I mean, there's this argument that Christians seem to like, or at least a lot of podcasters
who have a platform, they like to cause arguments around and defend a certain population that
is something that they're passionate about, or is that it's kind of easy to defend or
to get funding for.
(17:19):
Some human dignity spaces, they definitely can get more funding easily.
And so it becomes this scarcity mindset of, I've got to pit this vulnerable population
over this one, and one for this to really get taken care of.
And it's like, man, that's so misguided, because as the body, we're all supposed to be functioning
and reaching out in different ways.
(17:40):
I think in so many evangelical subculture spaces, there is a push to put, to pit one
vulnerable population over another, and that this population really needs your voice.
And this one is actually just more political, or this one is actually just, you know, there's
a lot of people over there.
But actually, if you're functioning as the body, we're not all called to the same space.
(18:04):
So in scripture, we're told that the body has to function as one.
And if the hand is getting funding over here, but there's a pain point and the ankle or
something over here, it's like the body needs to be in touch.
You need to know what is going on in other parts of the body so that you can lend resources.
You can speak on the same with one voice about the flourishing all of these people that are
(18:25):
in the mix of all these things.
So I don't think it makes sense.
And I think it really breaks up the unity that the body of Christ could have at addressing
all these issues.
And you know, some people will say, well, this one's definitely more political.
So we are not really going to touch that one.
But you know, it's like the church doesn't have a problem talking about abortion.
(18:46):
And that is like the most political thing you could talk about.
So why don't we talk about immigration?
Not about US immigration policy, but about immigrants and refugees.
It's I mean, we can't talk about racial reconciliation because that's a real political thing.
We don't want to talk about how Black lives really do matter because we want to say that
all lives matter.
(19:06):
It's like, guys, we're missing the point.
It's about the dignity and sanctity of every human life and that each and every person
that you see is made in the image and likeness of God, which means that they have a unique
reflection of who God is in this world that's worth preserving for the flourishing of everybody.
(19:27):
So good.
That's so good.
Even I feel like such a great point that you're making is this conversation around politicization,
right?
And I feel like Alexi would totally grieve the heart of God to see how we view certain
vulnerable populations in almost a hierarchy because he doesn't.
He sure does not.
So when we're talking about how do like politicization of everything, how would you say that the
(19:51):
church should depoliticize immigration?
We're very comfortable talking about abortion and these other topics, political topics we've
deemed acceptable.
So how can we depoliticize and make immigration conversations in the church acceptable and
not just acceptable but important and something we should be engaging in?
You have to read your Bible.
You have to pick up the Bible and you have to be as simple as this guys.
(20:15):
I mean, the Bible has nothing to say about US immigration policy.
I'll give you that has nothing to say about it.
Just like it doesn't be anything to say about the policies that Europe has or that Canada
has or that Mexico has.
It doesn't have anything, but it says a lot about God's heart for the immigrant and the
sojourner.
And so you have to make it a biblical issue.
(20:37):
And you know, there's a life way survey that world relief did last year and it was basically
like, okay, have you ever, it was out to pastors, even to passers.
So how many of you have preached on a sermon about immigrants or refugees?
It was like 20%.
And then they asked congregants, how many of you would appreciate hearing a sermon about
how to apply biblical principles to present day immigration conversations?
(21:02):
75% of congregants said they wanted that sermon.
If you are unsure about how to talk about it, that means that someone else is talking about
it to your people.
The lack of discipleship on the immigration issue is appalling in the church.
The fact that we can't, our own shepherds can't separate the politics from the biblical
(21:27):
conviction and what our calling is as Christians is really disheartening in this moment.
We need more collective courage from our pastors to stand up from the pulpit.
And if you're not comfortable at the pulpit talking about this, maybe it's that you're
going to offer a class during a weeknight.
Maybe it isn't always the most appropriate place to talk about really politicized issues,
(21:51):
but it is the place of discipleship and it is a place to lead people into deeper discipleship
in a class or some other kind of orientation that you've got some kind of ministry that
you have.
But you have to dig in the Bible and see what God says in the Old Testament about how God's
people are to preserve, protect, and create pathways for sojourners because they were
(22:13):
once sojourners in Egypt.
Even so far as saying that you're supposed to treat the native, the sojourner as if they
were native born.
I mean, that's a principle that we should be applying in American politics.
It's not what it's about, it's about what God's heart is for the preservation and the
protection of very vulnerable people who are traveling throughout your country and have
(22:36):
no land, no rights, no investment, but they are trying to survive.
And then you go to the New Testament and you learn about how God says you're supposed
to love your neighbor, you're supposed to love God with all your heart, soul, mind,
and then love your neighbor.
And then some young lawyer is like, yeah, God, but who actually is my neighbor?
As if there are some non-neighbors out there.
(22:56):
I'm sure he's got some kind of acceptable list of surely God doesn't want, he's not
talking about this guy.
And God tells the story of the good Samaritan and basically telling all of these other people,
hey Samaritans, the people that you hate that you like and don't like, that's the hero of
the story.
Take a note from that guy.
(23:17):
And then Jesus goes off and has dinner with a bunch of task collectors or Roman soldiers
and all these things and people are like, what is happening?
Well, that's what Jesus is telling us to do.
He said, go and do likewise.
So what does that mean?
And I think that one of the most challenging questions we have to ask ourselves is, if
Christ's welcome towards us, his bringing us into the fold and into the family, if that
(23:44):
welcome cost him his life, why do we not think that our welcome towards others wouldn't cost
us the same?
If we're supposed to be like Christ, what are we dying to here?
What are we dying for here?
What are we extending ourselves, ringing ourselves out for in this world?
Is it for comfort?
(24:06):
Because comfort is actually crippling the church.
And if we can't get into uncomfortable spaces, someone else is going to disciple your people
and they already are.
And there's a reason why you haven't talked about it.
And that should be an indicator to you that you're far from what the heart of God is on
this issue.
You're afraid of the earthly retribution.
(24:28):
You're afraid of some of these things.
I get it.
It's really intimidating.
There's really big costs to talking about Jesus things.
But the church needs discipleship and it has to come.
It has to come from the pulpit at some level to say, guys, this is a political issue.
It's also deeply, deeply biblical.
(24:50):
Yeah.
I cannot agree with that more.
I mean, that's so powerfully stated.
We have that responsibility to guide people.
And so it's like we had this episode last season is like how political should pastors
get from the pulpit?
And in one answer, it's like not at all.
And the other answer, it's like totally like it's like totally in the sense of like the
(25:11):
people are the polis and you are helping to guide people through difficult times, through
difficult issues and decisions, but not in the sense of like, oh, you're going to like
tell you to vote for this person or blah, blah, blah.
And that's such a tough like because you have some churches that are like super duper politicizing
to do rallies for folks in junk.
And then other ones that like totally want to avoid it and finding that median place,
(25:33):
finding that space where you're like, you're offering the guidance that your people do
so desperately need.
We need biblical application like scripture and tell them how to apply it.
And if you're uncertain of it, start digging in.
You know, I say this to our women of welcome audience all the time.
I say, I actually don't care about how you vote.
Voting is very important.
(25:54):
It's extremely important.
It affects policies that are made in people's lives, but I actually don't care about how
you vote.
What I care about is your voice.
Yeah.
How are you going to use your voice?
So let's say we had this conversation, our women of welcome community.
We'll like, let's say you voted for Trump.
Okay.
You voted for Trump.
All of these policies, just because you vote for Trump doesn't mean you're in love with
(26:14):
everything that is happening in the country right now.
I'm holding space for that.
Maybe you do.
I don't know, but I am holding space for all those folks who say I voted for him for a
variety of reasons, but I don't love this approach on immigration.
Okay.
Guess what?
Your voice in these years in between these big four seer swings is so important.
(26:36):
Actually more powerful than just about anybody else out there because you voted for him.
So if you call your elected official and you say, Hey, I don't like family separation.
I don't like that mixed status families are going to be separated.
I don't like all of this militarization of this whole system.
And the border always says, you can say, I voted for you.
And I'd actually like to see this happen as opposed to someone who may be voted for Kamala.
(27:00):
Okay.
If you voted for Kamala, you probably voted for Kamala because you didn't like all of
this rhetoric and you didn't like all this stuff and you couldn't get over that.
Okay.
Fine.
You voted for Kamala, whatever you did.
And say, Hey, you know what?
I'm fine.
The good, right?
Be like, I know that you care about preserving the safety and the citizenship of us citizens.
Right?
What I would love for you to do is have safe and secure borders, thorough vetting and
(27:24):
just as important humane treatment of people who I believe made in the image and likeness
of God.
I'm a Christian and I would love for you to hold the tension of these two things, these
three things altogether because they can coexist.
So to me, if a pastor is nervous about this, just be like, all right, I'm just going to
get everybody's heart rate up by bringing up immigration.
(27:45):
But then I'm going to just like, let us all breathe for a second.
Say, I don't actually care how you voted.
What I care about is our collective Christian witness about how people in the country, regardless
of citizenship are treated because we know that our earthly citizenship is nothing compared
to the weight and eternity of our kingdom citizenship.
(28:07):
Amen.
Amen.
Yeah.
Very well stated.
That's so good.
I, you know, I think you're saying things that practical wisdom, you know, do a Wednesday
service, create spaces to talk about it.
That's so crucial.
And this is why I think you're such an important voice here.
This is the same stuff that we talk about all the time of just like, regardless of how
you vote, you should be able to have a critical voice regardless who's the president.
(28:33):
And you know, like that's, that's just recognizing that the kingdom of God is one thing that
we're citizens of.
And then there's the kingdom of the world, which revelation calls Babylon and all the
every nation, every nation is part of this.
And so you don't have to like blindly follow somebody that's ruling in some little sector
of Babylon, even if it's a good sector or bad sector, whatever it is.
And so I really appreciate everything you just said.
(28:55):
Could you actually, because I'm not sure if we've defined this, but could you tell us
what your main ministry is in women of welcome and in what you guys do?
Could you explain that a little bit?
Sure.
So women of welcome is a community of Christian women who want to engage this issue of immigrants
or refugees from a biblical perspective.
(29:16):
So we are completely nonpartisan and what we're really kind of like an advocacy and
education community.
So we have about 150,000 women who are in the women of welcome community who want to
understand from Genesis to revelation, what is God's heart?
What am I supposed to do with this compassion that I have towards this immigrant and refugee
(29:38):
space?
It's so politicized.
I don't understand UM's immigration policy.
I don't know what I can do.
I don't like what I see.
And I have an angst.
I have compassion in this space, but I don't have a lot of confidence to speak up and use
my voice like I know I'm supposed.
And so many, you know, conservative to moderate theologically and politically minded women
(30:02):
are feeling this tension of, okay, I'm in lots of spaces that are applauding some things
that just don't feel right from a Christian perspective that don't feel right from a human
perspective.
What do I do with that?
And there was just this big gap of discipleship of the Christian community in general.
(30:26):
But for me, just looking at kind of women's ministry, I was like, wow, women have a heart
for the sojourner and no one is discipling them about how to engage in this space well
from the lens of their faith.
So taking all the politics out of it and saying, okay, let's just meet people where they're
at and let's walk them through the Bible.
(30:46):
We're not doing a reinterpretation of scripture.
We're revisiting scripture.
So passages that you have heard and known maybe your entire life.
You've probably never thought about the implications of what it means to be Ruth and Naomi to,
you know, this is the great, we've always been told Ruth and Naomi, like it's, it's
the Boaz story.
(31:07):
It's like the greatest love story that's ever been told in the Bible.
And yet do you know that that story, like it's about two immigrant widowed women who
find provision in a land not their own because of the laws and the protection that God mandated
his people create and facilitate and implement for sojourners in their land.
(31:27):
It's like you just, if you're revisiting stories, you're revisiting Moses in the basket and
you're revisiting like these midwives who, who knew what the law was, but also knew that
a human life was the moral law and God's law was more important than killing children
or causing trauma to families.
You know, so it's not about not following the law.
(31:50):
It's not about reinterpreting scripture.
It's about looking at scripture and saying, man, a lot of these favorite biblical characters
and heroes found themselves in some really messy social situations.
And yet they chose and were chosen to be in scripture by the way that they held the tension
well in these really hard spaces of God's law and moral law versus earthly law and all
(32:15):
these things.
So you realize that biblical characters are vastly more complicated and handled things
in ways that God said, Hey, look at this story.
This is what it is.
So we talk a lot about policy because we know that public policy influences the flourishing
of people, but there's a very big difference between politics and public policy.
So we talk a lot about public policy, but we are not interested in partisan politics.
(32:38):
We're not interested in disparaging political candidates or people who are in office.
That's not, that's not even Christ's like what we're going to do.
Say this current administration is, is implementing these things or is proposing these things.
What does that do to human life?
What does that do to the sojourner and what is my role as a Christ follower first and foremost
(33:00):
in how I live out my life toward and around my neighbor.
So we're equal opportunity critics.
Just like you said, Stephen, it's like during the Biden administration, equal opportunity
critics on that.
I've got a whole slew of things that I was extremely mad, like frustrated and it was
maddening during that administration.
There's some things right now in just several weeks into this administration.
(33:23):
It's like, gotta keep your ears perked up and you gotta use your voice because people,
people are being impacted by the policies of different candidates.
So equal opportunity critic there.
So that's what women of welcome does.
We just disciple you into a better conversation about immigration through the lens of your
faith first and foremost.
(33:44):
So good.
We love to, as we kind of come to a close here at the end of most of our episodes, we
do, we try and make things as practical as possible.
Because I think that can sometimes be the enemy is when everything feels too theological
and cerebral and there's no practical, what do I do now kind of things.
And I think that especially when it comes to immigration, we have to have a, what do
(34:04):
we do now?
And so what can the church do or Christians do to partner with organizations like yours
to help make an impactful, to help make an impact on immigrants today?
The number one question we get at women of welcome all the time is what can I do?
What can I do?
What can I do?
And it really comes down to what are you willing to do?
(34:27):
Because you can ask that and I can give you an entire menu of options of dozens and dozens
that you could get involved in or that you could do.
But the question is what are you willing to do?
And a lot of what you're willing to do is based off of your proximity to people in this
community.
And also proximity to scripture.
(34:47):
Like how close do you want to be aligned with Christ in this?
And how closely do you want to know your neighbor?
Because if you have proximity to immigrants and refugees, it's going to feel more personal
to you.
And if you don't, you're going to understand what you're not going to understand what all
the fuss is about.
So part of it is what are you willing to do?
And it could be that you are going to be a prayer warrior about it.
(35:10):
Because you don't know much.
You're like, I don't know where to start and I'm not in close proximity with people.
What do I do?
You can pray.
You can be paying attention to the headlines and saying and remembering that there are individual
image bearers behind every headline.
And you're praying for the wisdom and discernment of our leadership and also just the protection
(35:31):
and the peace that is needed in the immigrant community.
You can also be supportive in your finances and the fact that World Relief, who is a founding
partner of Women of Welcome, they are one of the nine refugee resettlement agencies
in the country.
And they were just told by this administration that they had to stop all services and ministry
(35:56):
towards refugees that have just recently arrived in the U.S.
Now these are people who have been thoroughly vetted for two years overseas before being
invited to come to the U.S. and then told to pay back their ticket price.
So these are families that are, this is the main legal immigration pathway that makes
sense and yet it was just shut down in ministries like World Relief, who is the official humanitarian
(36:21):
arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, was just told to stop ministry work and they
would be bill funding.
So supporting organizations like World Relief and saying, I believe in your work towards
a sojourner is so important and it's critical right now in the fact that they've just lost
all federal funding to minister to the sojourner.
I think the other really important thing is to use your voice.
(36:44):
You've got to learn how to use your voice for the vulnerable beyond the pre-born space.
You have to because the world is watching Evangelicals say how much we care about pre-born children
meanwhile they're watching the rest of that whole spectrum of life fall apart and they're
wondering where we are.
(37:04):
So we'll gladly use our voice against abortion but will we use it for the flourishing of
other people and they see the inconsistency of our ethic and they're falling away for
that very reason and they're calling us hypocrites for that very reason.
So I would say use your voice.
How do you use your voice?
Women walk with all kinds of resources on how to use your voice.
(37:26):
You can go to womenofwelcome.com or follow us on social media and find those guides there
but one of the main ways you can use your voice that feels very antiquated but is incredibly
important is to call your elected officials and tell them that you would like three things.
I want safe and secure borders.
I want thorough vetting and I also want the humane treatment of vulnerable people at the
(37:51):
border and across the world.
That would be immigrants and refugees, humane treatment of people in all of the ways in
which we create safety and security for US citizens.
That right there is a testament to our elected officials who also need collective courage
but know that really evangelicals are a strong voting block, right?
(38:11):
If you call them and you say I'm an evangelical Christian, I want us to see solutions to create
these three things.
That goes a really long way to boost the inspiration and the courage of elected officials to do
the right thing when they're legislating for the flourishing of all people.
That's good.
So good.
(38:31):
Thank you so much.
This has been very illuminating, hopeful even.
In these times, I think just hearing you talking about all this stuff and what you guys are
doing, it's bringing some hope to me and I hope our listeners will also feel a sense
of hope and responsibility and just the ability of what we should be doing to help others.
(38:54):
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much.
Wow.
That was really powerful.
Really good.
Really, really good.
I always love the gift of these conversations that we get to have, Stephen and I, on this
side of things where I feel like we get ministered to through the wisdom of our guests.
And we hope that that ministers to you as well, that wherever you're listening to this, it
(39:16):
gives you a heart that aches for people who are displaced or the stranger for the foreigner
for all these things because we were all once those things as well.
This has been something that the Lord has cared about consistently throughout Scripture
and I think that it would grieve him greatly if it's not something that we cared about
now and not just cared about but did something about in a way that would make him proud.
(39:41):
And so I hope that what Bre brought was something that really settles within your heart and
makes us all take a second look at how we think and address and how we frame the conversations
that we have surrounding refugees and the immigration crisis that we see.
Well stated, my friend.
Well stated.
All right.
Well, this episode was brought to you by the School of Theology and Ministry at Life
(40:03):
Pacific University.
We'll see you next time.
See ya.
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