A Christian Vision for Immigrant Justice with Isaac Villegas

What does it mean to follow a "Migrant God"? In this episode, Pastor Josh Burtram and political host Will Wright sit down with Isaac Samuel Villegas, an ordained Mennonite minister and advocate for immigrant justice. His new book, Migrant God: A Christian Vision for Immigrant Justice, offers a deeply theological and politically urgent perspective on faith and migration.

Isaac shares his personal story of growing up in Los Angeles and Tucson as the son of immigrants, his journey into ministry, and his activism in immigrant justice. The conversation explores biblical themes of migration, the role of the church in advocacy, and the moral contradictions in how many Christians approach immigration policy. Isaac also recounts powerful personal stories—from organizing Holy Thursday vigils at ICE detention centers to witnessing communities offering sanctuary to migrants.

Why do so many American churches struggle to engage in immigration justice? How do biblical teachings challenge modern political perspectives on migration? And how can pastors preach on this issue without alienating their congregations? Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that bridges theology, policy, and lived experience.

Guest Bio:

Isaac Samuel Villegas is an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church USA and a passionate advocate for immigrant justice. He writes for The Christian Century and Anabaptist World, and his latest book, Migrant God, explores the intersection of faith, justice, and migration. Through his work in community organizing and activism, he challenges Christians to embrace a theology rooted in solidarity with migrants.

Resources & Links:

📖 Migrant God: A Christian Vision for Immigrant Justice – https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802884435/migrant-god/

🌎 Follow Isaac Villegas on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/isaac.villegas.581

Transcript

0:17

Hi there, faithful politics listeners, if you're joining us on our podcast feed, rather, and viewers, if you're joining us on YouTube, guys, thanks so much for being here. We're so excited to bring you another great show of faithful politics. I'm Pastor Josh Bertram. I am your faithful host. And as always, I'm joined by our political host, Hi, Will, it's good to see you. Yeah, it's good to see me too. Thanks, Josh. absolutely and we are very excited well before I jump into that though make sure that you like subscribe hit all the notification bells hack the algorithm for YouTube so that we can start showing up and more people's feeds and grow this channel so we can continue to bring you the excellent content that we try and we really try it is a thought-provoking show we really appreciate your support so you do that to support us, it be awesome. And today is going to be no different. We have with us Isaac Samuel Villegas. He is an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church USA and a dedicated advocate for immigrant justice. Through his work in community organizing, activism, and writing for the Christian century and Anabaptist world, he challenges Christians to embrace a faith deeply rooted in solidarity with migrants. His latest book, Migrant God, takes readers beyond abstract debates and into the lived experiences of those at the forefront of immigrant justice, offering a theologically rich and politically urgent vision of the beloved community. Isaac, thank you so much for joining us on the program today. We can't wait to dig into the ideas in your book and see where the conversation goes. Thanks again for being here. Yeah, thank you, Josh. Thank you, Will. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So give us a little bit of a sense of who is Isaac Samuel of Yegas and how did you get to the place in life where you're writing the book Migrant God? Can it kind of help us fill in the blank? Yeah, I grew up in Los Angeles, California, and then Tucson, Arizona. My parents are immigrants. My dad came from Columbia, my mom from Costa Rica. And immigrant stories kind of has been my life, formational in my life. I grew up in the borderlands. You just really can't get away from thinking about immigration when you grew up in that area. And then I moved out here to North Carolina, so another kind of... migration and served as a pastor for a while here in North Carolina. But yeah, no, this book came from all those stories, you know, trying to basically understand what all of these migrations have to do with God. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, I'm a Christian. I'm always trying to understand God. It feels like that's the calling in life. and trying to figure out what God has to do with my life, my family, my parents, my friends, my neighbors, what God has to do with all of them, with all of us, and those immigration stories. So that's kind of where the book came from, very much personal life, and then the lives of my neighbors as they affect my life. You said you were born in Los Angeles? That's great. Lomita, just like south of downtown. Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. So I'm originally from California myself, Southern California. I was born in LA too, right? In a Kaiser Permanente hospital. And then we moved to the high desert, a place called Asperia. I'm sure you're familiar with it. And yeah, it's weird. think growing up in that part of the country all my life, I've just, I've... just had this like really positive relationship with immigrants or migrants, I should say. We learned from Ernesto that it's migrants. So, you know, I think that really kind of shaped a lot of my thoughts and opinions about, you know, the people struggle and why they want to come here and America's great. And then like, I wasn't a Christian then. I came to the faith much later in life in 2008. And then when I came to the faith, Like what believers were saying about migrants seemed to really contradict the things that I thought were like they would have been like, yeah, they're humans. We should treat them as such, you know, like, you know, just be sort of a new it's an easy win, you know, lohing and fruit and and that really was in my experience and and I'd love to kind of maybe get your take on what's what's been your experience in the evangelical community, you know to to migrants and and and maybe a follow-up question and Is there a difference between the evangelical response to migrants from California to where you live now in North Carolina? Mm, well, yeah. Well, I mean, I should say that I'm an ecclesial mutt. So I grew up Catholic. mean, yes, evangelicalism has been familiar to me, part of the story. But yeah, I grew up Catholic. We were in a Latino parish in LA and then got caught up in the Charismatic Renewal Movement in Catholicism, of became Charismatic Pentecostals, Vineyard sorts of people. And then moving to Tucson, that was kind of the same thing. We moved to Tucson because the factory moved from L.A. to, Carson, since you L.A., from Carson to Tucson. And yeah, so mean, I, you know, like I actually don't even know what evangelical means anymore, to be completely honest. The last P-R-R-I. response, by the way, Isaac. We hear that a lot. I mean, when the study, the last PRI study this last year, they did their political values survey and all of a sudden there are Muslims who are identifying as evangelical. It's just kind of, I just don't quite understand what the word means. Yeah, so I mean, growing up among charismatic evangelicals in like Latino communities, I mean, it was... we were children and we were migrants and we were charismatic. I mean, so there was no problem there. So yeah, so I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about evangelicalism to be. I just saw another stat. I wrote this piece for faith and leadership about Trump's call to change the birthright, citizenship stuff and his continual. campaign slogan about, you know, calling migrants, likening them to criminals and then to poisoning the bloodline of America. And there's this PRI study that same one. It asks this question. says, are immigrants poisoning the blood of the United States, the bloodline of the United States? And the only religious group where the majority of them said yes. were evangelicals, I should say white Protestant evangelicals, so not Muslim evangelicals or whatever. So that's disturbing. I don't know who those people are. I have friends in evangelical churches around here and pastors of evangelical congregations and that's not who they are. So I'm bewildered, to be completely honest. I mean, I'm bewildered too. heart breaks about even that kind of language and those kinds of ideas like bloodline. What are we even talking about? American bloodline. mean, that's very much a mysterious thing and amorphous, but I guess that's the whole point. It's just kind of supposed to appeal to the people that it would appeal to and think, yeah, that's me, that is. It's ruining my culture, my country. and all this stuff and I think there's displays of lot of ignorance in that and it makes me you know think about your work and And I would love to get a sense of the personal experiences or moments that you had, if there's any that really stood out to you, where it was like, I need to be focusing on immigrant justice. I mean, I understand that you had a whole, you know, that your parents were migrants, that you grew up in this culture, but were there any very significant moments or even, you know, seasons maybe that where you knew this was what you needed to focus on and wanted to spend your time on. Yeah, no, that's a good question. I mean, I would say I'm most formed in terms of, you know, organizing Christians in terms of our political engagement by being a pastor. So I would say what has been most formative and got me involved is pastoral life, like being in a congregation, being the pastor, and then stuff happens in the neighborhood, in the city, in the state, and... we have to respond. We have to care about our neighbors. So I would say probably like most explicitly getting involved in immigrant justice work was during the Obama administration when we started holding vigils and protests at ICE detention center. you know, it's important to remember, you know, currently we have a Republican in the presidency and in control of Congress and very much anti-immigrant. But it's kind of a bipartisan position. If you look back over history, I we called Obama the deporter in chief at the time because he basically created a system of cooperation that stretched from the federal government all the way down to counties and municipalities and became a well-oiled machine that President Trump has taken advantage of, even if Obama didn't. think deported, was it like seven million people in his eight years or something like that? I don't know, yeah, mean, it was a lot. I believe you. But anyhow, so one of the things that he started doing was he started setting up field offices for ice detention centers in just like random suburban strip malls. And they were unmarked and we discovered one. through this journalist was doing investigative reporting, we discovered one in a nearby community. And during Holy Week, for Mennonites foot washing on Holy Thursday is a very important church service ritual that we do. And so we organize our community and some other groups to go and go to that detention center that we discovered and request to wash the feet of the detainees there in the facility. We let the press know and all those folks and yeah, kind of took over the parking lot and we returned to do that, you every year trying to get the government to let us wash the feats of our detained brothers and sisters and they never would let us. So I would say that was kind of the first, I write about this in the book, that was the first kind of like public witness that I got involved in. and organizing communities around us to say like, hey, look, this is something we want to bring attention to and this is how our faith calls us to respond. You know, we have a lot of different people that listen to this or watch our show and they're gonna hear the term wash feet and not have a clue on why or what the significance of this is. So maybe just for the benefit of those that, you know, our listeners will be like, okay, things have gotten weird here, you know? So like, explain the washing of the feet. Yeah, no, weird. We're Mennonites. We love to keep things weird. We do Christianity weird style. So if anybody out there thinks it's weird, I know. I'm weird. I am a weirdo. But yeah, so for Holy Week, it's the time leading up to Easter. And you kind of ritualize through church worship services, kind of those last days of Jesus's life on Earth. and it starts with a monday thursday or holy thursday the thursday before easter monday means commandment in latin and it's this command that jesus says is to love one another as i have loved you and when he tells his disciples this at their last meal together he says let me wash your feet to show you what love looks like and you know peter is there he says no no no don't wash my feet you're you're my You're my rabbi, you're in charge here, like I should be washing your feet. And she says, no, this is how this is what service, this is what leadership looks like. We wash, I wash your feet, and you should do likewise. So that's what we do on Holy Thursday in the evening there we in church services, we gather, and we have a basin, and a towel and a pitcher of water. And we take turns washing each other's feet in this kind of sign that we love each other. and we with that water flows the love of God. So yeah that's what a that's what a holy Thursday worship service looks like and then we just decided that you know this is not just for us in this community but this ties us into God's community everywhere and so we just took that ritual that Christian practice outside the church walls and to the detention center and said hey look these are brothers and sisters, part of our faith, part of our community, part of the church, the body of Christ that you have taken from us. And we want to watch their feet, because this is what we do as Christians on Holy Thursday. They would lock the door. As soon as this would happen, you would see them. We would deliver a little letter under. They would lock the doors, close the screens. The first time we did it, we almost got arrested, but they decided that was a bad idea. Bad idea for them, because it looks bad when you start arresting. I mean, at least at that time, it looked bad, but who knows what's happening now. Yeah, no kidding. You know, with much in politics and especially politics and religion, I always find a little bit of humor in the irony because especially around the immigration debate, I have a lot of atheist friends that would post stuff kind of like using Bible verses to remind Christians how they should treat... immigrant. it's just sort of like, it's always been ironic, because most Christians would be like, hey, an atheist is reading the Bible, you know, or something like that. But it's like, but they're using a verse I don't like. So you know what, I'm just going to just ignore that witness opportunity right there, you know, and go about my racist beliefs or whatever. So I'd really love for you to kind of dig into a little bit of the I don't know if it's hermeneutics or theology of how the Bible instructs us to view folks that are trying to come into this country. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, in my book, I kind of say upfront that I don't really do the Bible study approach too much. Because I feel like those books are out there and there's like you're saying even atheists know the Bible. This is what the Bible is about. I But yeah, instead in my book, I kind of just tell the stories of what it looks like to embody that faith and that biblical vision in like what people are doing. And that's where I find hope because I'm just like, hey, look, this is pretty bad out here. I'm trying to keep the faith and I need all the help I can get. Here's some people who are doing some things that are really powerful, meaningful, who give me hope. I mean, but one passage that comes to my mind, I don't even know if I mentioned this in the book, but so in Luke 24, when Jesus is resurrected and the disciples don't know what's going on, you know, they just know that he was dead and the tomb is empty. And then he appears to some women and the women tell him what's going on. And then there's these two disciples who are on the road to Emmaus. That's what the story is called, on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24. And they're just talking to each other about like these bewildering things that are going on. And then this person comes up next to him and says, what are you all talking about? And they say to him, are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who has not heard the news? And so the word stranger there, so and this is Jesus incognito. This is the resurrected Jesus. They don't recognize him. He comes to them as a stranger. The word there in Greek for stranger, it gets translated in English as stranger. It's parakeo. And that word means, it means foreigner, someone who's foreign. So it's always just striking to me in that story that when the resurrected Jesus, when he comes, the disciples aren't able to say like, my God, it's you. my God, it's you. They said they're like, who are you? You're a foreigner. You must be a foreigner. And then as the story goes, they tell him all these stories and then he... Then this person, this foreigner explains to them the whole Bible and says, this is what this Bible has been about, this resurrection story. And then they receive him into their home. So the two disciples, they say, hey, look, it's getting too late at night. You can't walk these streets back home. It's too dangerous. Why don't you just come in, stay the night, we'll make you some food. He says, thank you so much. And then when they break bread together, all of a sudden their eyes are illumined and they see that this foreigner is Jesus Christ. I feel like that's just a powerful story that Jesus comes, the resurrected Jesus shows up as a foreigner that they can't recognize. And then once they extend hospitality to this foreigner, once they invite this person into their house and they share this goods, these goods with them, the bread, the food at that moment when they're extending hospitality to the foreigner that they recognize him as the resurrected Christ. I would say that's the most powerful story for me when I think about. migration. I mean, there's other like, you know, very good proof text you can cite in Leviticus about extending, you know, care for the foreigner in your midst or Hebrews 13, where it says, beware to entertain as foreigners. There it's not parochia, it's a philozenos, philozenos. So, zenos being foreigner. So, love of foreigner literally is what the word means. because you might be entertaining angels unaware and it's a reference back to the Old Testament where Abraham and Sarai are entertaining these foreigners, these strangers who turn out to be these three persons. They extend hospitality to them and that turns out to be God, the Trinity in their midst. So there's a lot, I mean this is the story of the Bible and Will, like you're saying, it's clear for anyone who reads it. I don't understand why it's not clear to some people. The best I can do is share stories of people who have taken the Bible seriously and say this is going to shape our lives and this is an attractive way to live because this is what God wants from us. Yeah, I really, really love that the power of story is profound and it affects all of us when we can see it lived out, we can see it in fleshed, we can see it in example put before us. I think that's the amazing thing about what Jesus did in the incarnation, right? As he came here and he was like us, we could see the model, we could see how we reacted to situations. through the Gospels. know, obviously I know that none of us alive are with him in person, right? It's thousands of years, but that the idea that his scriptures speak to him, that the Holy Spirit still helps those who love God to open our eyes and experience the attitude and the care and the love of Christ, not only for ourselves, but an expression to others. And I love the idea of bringing real stories and helping them frame theological reflection. And I would love for you to kind of give like, what is, and we've been working through it, we know the book is about a migrant god, there's theological reflection in there, but what is the main thrust of your book and why were you choosing to bring stories in along with theological reflection? Why was that so important? Yeah, that's great. Yeah, just to pick up on what you just mentioned there little earlier, Josh, about the incarnation. I mean, that's that is the faith, that is the gospel. And the incarnation is a migration story. mean, it is, you know, God coming to Earth. Can you imagine that kind of migration story? Yeah, right. And it but it says there in John's gospel at the very beginning, you know, Jesus comes to, you the earth, which belongs to God, and we reject him. I mean, so the rejection of migration is there as part of the story as well. I mean, this is what we do with Jesus, we, we deny him. We deny him. So so yeah, so mean, in terms of the story, why I tell stories is like, I believe like you, Josh, like you, I believe that what makes our faith compelling is living it out. To put flesh on it, put our own flesh on it. That we believe with our lives, with what we do. And I have just been so affected over the years by people who are doing just amazing things. And I just felt like I needed to share them with other people. I don't know about you all, but like sometimes something happens, like there's just a beautiful thing in the world. and it gets stuck in your head. You know what I mean? And like the images there or the faces there, like you see someone just do something, you're just astonished. So that's, yeah. that's the reason I proposed my wife, but go on. There we go. There we go. You know what I'm talking about. But yeah, that kind of love. mean, seriously, you know, God's love stretches all kinds of throughs, all kinds of loves. And I don't know, I just maybe one way to put it is like, just fell in love with this people who've fallen in with God's world. And I just have to write out those images, those faces, those stories that have been stuck in my head and share them with others. So yeah, so I write because I've been astonished and I hope people are also astonished by these stories. I mean, I tell stories in the book about spending some time in a migrant shelter in Tijuana operated, run by the Scalabrini priests in order of Roman Catholic Church. And I mean, they just organize their lives around care for migrants as they come up through South America. I mean, from, you know, I people from Syria, from Somalia. So it's not from Ukraine. I mean, it's not just people in, you know, South Central America, but they all gather in this migrant shelter. And, you know, these priests have figured out ways and volunteers have figured out ways to sustain life there as people try to cross again and again and again. And yeah, it's just amazing to me. That's just one story. Yeah, I'd actually be interested in hearing more those stories and given that you've heard so many and you've told so many like what this is probably gonna put you in a very awkward position but like what's the most compelling story you think you could you could tell from from one of the interactions you've had? I mean, the story that I find, the story that has moved me the most, I would say, I mean, I end the book with it, but I mean, yeah, it's there in that migrant shelter. But there was I was there when I was there, there was a woman. I can't remember right now. She was Mayan, maybe she was from Guatemala. She's from a Mayan community and she was she was very pregnant. And just the idea of her crossing the border through the desert, trying to being very pregnant. was just like, yeah, I just can't imagine the life she left behind in order for, you know, for this journey, which is totally uncomfortable and no one would ever want to do unless you just have to leave to survive. But anyhow, they're in the, the migrant, I was on the what's called a Ropa duty. So Ropa's clothes. So was in the, I was operating, there's like a clothing donation closet full of clothes. And when you show up, if you need something, you just show up and you get, you get stuff for the, for the person. And it was amazing. She, she needed shoes, you know, like you need good shoes. And so I was taking her in to look at all the shoes. And she just started dying laughing. at these shoes that she thought were so strange and this whole mound of them in the corner of the closet. And I had explained they were all high heels, like stiletto shoes. She was like, what in the world? do you cross, through the desert with that? And then I just had to explain to her like the cultural phenomenon called Southern California. Like these donations come from very well-meaning, sweet people who are like emptying their closets and just don't need their platform shoes. send them down to Mexico, I guess. And yeah, so we found like some very reasonable Nikes instead of those stiletto shoes. But yeah, and then we decided to throw, I mean, not I did, but the other volunteers there at the migrant shelter decided to throw like a baby shower for her. And it was just like the sweetest thing in the world. I'm just like, here are all these people who don't know her. You know, they just met her like that week. And all a sudden care about her life and the life of her child. You know, this is a pro-life action here to care about the life of this unborn person. Very different kind of pro-life politics that organize in this country. And they, you know, buy cupcakes and hot chocolate and like streamers and just celebrate life. And so for me, that's the most powerful story in the world where Here these people who've been rejected by the American empire and the rejection looks like dying in the desert, in the wilderness. And they all huddled together and they say, you know what? We're gonna celebrate life. In the shadow of this, in the shadow of that wall, we are gonna celebrate life. I mean, that's just powerful. Anyhow, stories like that, just stick with me. man, that's so powerful. Just the idea of it brings tears to my eyes and thinking of someone who has gone through so much heartache and so much struggle and to be cared for in a way like that and the contrast. between this sense of being cared for on the one hand and then being despised on the other for no reason except where they were born or the language they speak or the situation that essentially they found themselves in. And I think it's so important to humanize these stories. You know, we were having a conversation with Ernesto Castaneda. We had kind of mentioned him and... we were talking about how, you know, not really that that countries typically write that it's not good policy necessarily to have open borders, right? And not even just necessarily. It's just it's probably not good policy that we we need to get, you know, a way to let people find a path forward and to to work these policy issues. Right. So you have the policy issues which are super important, but then you have the personal part of this where these are real people to never forget that they're real people and to humanize it and I love that and it makes me just wonder in my own life, you know how easy it is to separate myself from the plight of people that I don't know of foreigners. not only just, you know, literally in terms of our country, but even metaphorically in terms of myself and my culture, you know, something that's foreign. Like it's easy to try to push that away from my site. Other things come in. Why do you think it's so easy to do that? And even thinking about the church in America, why do Christian communities struggle? to engage in immigration or migrant justice. Why do you think churches, what prevents them from committing to the work? Is it ignorance? Is it fear? Mixture? Just complacency? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I hear two questions in there first about, you know, like how we divide ourselves, you know, from these things that we do care about. And we don't act like we care about them. And that feels like a huge issue. I don't I mean, I can I'm yeah, that's me too. I mean, I I do not. I do not love like I should the neighbors that I have. yeah, I think one of the most important things that we can do as Christians, like our posture in the world, I'm becoming more more convinced of this, that the posture that we start from should be one of repentance, one of penance, one of asking for mercy as. that we have sinned. We have sinned against God and our neighbors by things we've done and left undone. I'm so shaped by that, that like I need grace. Yeah, to live in a world that I believe we should have. So maybe just to start there, like that's, I think I got problems too. And I need transformation. In terms of church life, yeah, that's a good, in terms of the... churches in the United States, like, you know, again, I just want to say what I highlight in the book are churches where immigration is not an issue. It's just what we do. Like, we care about our neighbors. We don't ask them their documentation status first. When Jesus says, love your neighbor, he doesn't add, you know, if there's not like some footnote that says, in other manuscripts, Jesus adds, check documentation status. When that parable of the Samaritan on the. You know, funny you should say that because in my Trump Bible it does. I didn't mention that. That's awesome. Some ancient manuscripts. I mean, maybe it is. You know, remember how we held the Bible just so awkward in front of that church. It was just the weirdest thing. It's like he's never touched the Bible before. But yeah, so I guess I'm more. This is what it is. I, Josh, to get to your question, and I'm not I'm not trying to dodge it like press me to try to get at it more, but. Like I am just so disheartened most of the time and people around me are and like it's just hopeless and we try so hard and things fall apart and we want to make a better world. And when I get in those cycles, don't, I go in bad places in my mind. And I imagine other people are like that too. And so what I try to do in this book is like contemplate me. It's like a contemplative. I'm trying to be like contemplative about meditate on these stories that I've witnessed and been a part of and be like, look, this is good. These are people who are embodying the goodness of God, the reign of God doing what they can to extend grace, to extend mercy, to love their neighbors. And it's beautiful. And I want you to be compelled by this beauty, too. So yeah, so the book is not a helpful, a hopeful book. I don't think like in the sense of, I talk about how policies, detention through, what's it called? The prevention through deterrence policy, which started during the Clinton administration, where the idea was to weaponize the border with Mexico so that you funnel migrants into more dangerous places in the desert so that they die. Like that is the US policy. Detention through 1994, Doris Messner's border patrol policy. That's still the case. And so, you know, I talk about people who go out in the desert and try to find locations where people have died and who set up crosses and who remember their names and say, like, look, these are people that our country has denied who have died here in the desert to... I talk about Alvaro Enciso, who lives in Arizona, in Tucson. He's a Colombian immigrant. And he came here, he says, to chase the American dream. And he's now documenting how that American dream has turned into a nightmare. And so he goes out into the desert. It's his, I think it's Tuesdays, every Tuesday, the coroner's office in Pima County. has a GPS database so that whenever there's remains, migrant remains found in the desert, they put it on this map and you can get the GPS coordinates and go visit that location. So he does that. This is his ritual every Tuesday and he goes out and he's an artist and he designs these crosses with found art. So things that he has found in the desert that people have left behind while crossing and he makes these beautiful crosses. And he puts them there exactly in that he's a he's he's kind of obsessive about this, but the exact location where the person breathed their last breath where their remains are found. And he puts across there with their name on it or some people are unidentified and then he writes unidentified on there. So mean, the book has those stories to you know, it's not an uplifting book in that sense. But what I try to lean into because I need all the help I can get our people who are doing just amazing things out there. And as a call for all of us to follow their example, basically. my gosh, like when you're saying that story, I was getting, I was almost getting a little teary-eyed. I mean, it's sad as all get up and I'm just like, man, what are we even doing here, people? And as you're telling that, you know, I mean, this is just sort of the world that you live and breathe. But like, how do you hold on to your faith? I mean, like we've spoken to folks about deconstruction or, you know, other sort of similar. ex-vangelicals and what have you, they all kind of have a story that sort of substantiates, you know, how they reach kind of this place of non-belief or, you know, change belief. And all of it seems to kind of stem from, I was raised in this environment, I was always told to wear dresses, you know, or I was raised in this environment and we always voted Republican. And then a lot of people are just like, well, wait a minute, that faith that I thought I had isn't necessarily comporting with what I'm seeing in politics or what have you. So how do you reconcile your faith to the faith of others that are kind of making it an Olympic sport to dehumanize migrants? Yeah. Wow, yeah, no, that's good. Yeah, mean, there's like Christians, know, myself included. I mean, we, the church, we've given people a lot of very good reasons to not believe in God. Like, we have failed in so many ways in our witness. And yeah, that's, yeah, that breaks my heart. I mean, that's, it's horrible. Like it's, it's not, there's this old, old song, We Shall Show We Are Christians By Our Love, you know? Like that's what it's about for me. And I mean, I would say that like my faith, I believe faith is a gift from God. Because there's plenty of reasons not to believe that the only reason why it happens in me and others is because the Holy Spirit moves. And I'm grateful to be part of a congregation where that happens, where God happens, we wait for God's Spirit to move and change our lives. So I would say that that's what gives me hope is, you know, finding a group of people, a small little flock that is able to sustain our faith and bear witness to God's love and care for each other's lives and be there when things are bad. Um, one of the, I would say another story I tell, uh, I can't remember what chapter it is, um, in the book, but I tell the story of how our church during the first Trump administration, we extended sanctuary. So protective church sanctuary to an undocumented, uh, resident here in our community, in our neighborhood. She wasn't part of the church, but extended community who was flagged for deportation during Trump's first administration. And she had a a case in court that was being processed before in the Obama administration. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE would not interfere with somebody if they had a case before court. would not target them. That changed when Trump became to office. He started targeting everybody and interrupting judicial proceedings, all of that. Anyhow, so she was slacked for deportation, but she wanted to Give it a shot. She had kids here in the United States, US citizens. And so she lived on church and we had church property and we committed that we would keep her safe, that we would guard her with our lives. And what I remember about that time, her name is Rosa, Rosa del Carmen. What I remember about that time is so like every day she woke up and she decided to stay on church property. because that was a place that would keep her safe from ice. But it's hard. Can you imagine living on a, we converted a office space into her room and a utility closet that had plumbing already into a shower. We had a contractor who built a shower. Therefore, we shaped our lives around her, but she trusted us. She trusted this little church. It was a church partnership. At the end of the day, we had 11 churches who all partnered together to provide sanctuary for her to bring her food, to go shopping, to do her laundry. You don't have laundry services on the property. But her witness to say like, you know what, I believe in you. That when you say, when your church says, you'll keep me safe, that you'll do that. And so that was wild to me. Like to believe, to watch her have more faith. in a little church than sometimes maybe I did. Yeah, so people like that give me face. Man, I'm just so touched by the stories that you're telling. And I would love to dig into, what did Jesus do? You gave the example on the road to Emmaus, which I think that's profound, Jesus appeared to them as a... as a foreigner, you could just sit there with that and think about that and mold that over in your heart that God in his resurrected state, Jesus in his glorified state, could have chose any number of things, presumably. and ways to appear and he chooses to appear as a foreigner, which at least should give us pause and make us think, we, you know, yeah, are we looking at foreigners and seeing Jesus or seeing something else and, or seeing Satan essentially, right? There's a lot of that right now. And, you know, I'd love for you to kind of... work through a little bit, theologically speaking, how do you see this migrant and migration concept reflected in the life and teachings of Jesus? How can we go to the gospels and what do they tell us about a migrant God? Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, maybe one way I mean, I want to say that this is like the whole biblical story to maybe and stuff like it's a plot line that runs through the whole Bible, not just the gospel. So I would, you know, would want to start there at the beginning with Adam and Eve in the garden. They're the first migrants, right? Like they leave, they have to leave. It's kind of a forced migration. They're expelled from the garden. And yet God still offers them grace. You know, they're left because, you know, they're they're sinful, but You know, they make they make a bad choice, but we all make bad choices. That doesn't mean God rejects them. It's just a different way of life that they'll have to deal with. A hard life there in the wilderness outside of Eden. There's Cain who wanders with God's protection. There's given he's given a mark so that on his face, so that when people see him, they don't kill him because he's been chosen by God, even though he killed his brother Abel. There's Moses, there's Abraham. My favorite story maybe is Hagar in the Wilderness. There's a powerful book in the 1990s, kind of an early, what's called Womanist Theology book by this theologian, biblical scholar named Dolores Williams. Her book's called Sisters in the Wilderness. And one of the things she points out is, She's like, look, know, so she's an African-American woman. She points out like, hey, look, I'm so grateful for, you know, this black liberationist tradition that has, you know, it's been so important for James Cone, for all these figures who are talking about, for Martin Luther King Jr., who saying, hey, look, you know, this is a great Exodus. I've been to the, you know, I see the promised land. We're coming, you know, it's on the way. God has saved us from Egypt and now we're entering the promised land. And what Dolores Williams does, her intervention, and she's like, no, we're Hagar in the wilderness. Hagar is the woman who's rejected. She's rejected and she's thrown out of the household and she's there in the wilderness, rejected by God's people, by what she feels like is God, and she has a child. And... The story is she puts this child as far away from her as possible because she has nothing to give. She has no water. She and the child are dying and she just can't bear it. And then God shows up. God shows up and tells her where there's water and survives. And then she says, you know, I've seen God face to face. She's seen God. I mean, this is something that you can't do. You die if you see God. But God shows up to her in the wilderness, offers her this grace of survival. And so what Dolores Williams argues is that that's the image that she experiences as a black woman in this womanist tradition of being rejected by people, yet given all she needs to survive by God. So what's a survivalist ethic there in the wilderness? Anyhow, so I mean, I'm starting in the old, I could go on forever with, but yes, it's there in the Old Testament. I love those stories the most. because they're so vivid, they're so full of life. Yeah, do you me go to Jesus too? mean, Jesus feels like a fulfillment of all of that. He just kind of takes it all up into himself and says, how do we live in the midst of this occupation, this Roman occupation as Jewish people trying to survive? And he builds this community around him that says, hey, look, we might not be able to grasp and wield power of the Roman Empire, but you know, we got this crew together and you could offer these bread. this bread and these fish, these loaves of fish, and God multiplies them to feed us when we can't find food anywhere else. I don't know, I feel like Jesus kind of performs that survivalist ethic that Dolores Williams talks about with a growing wider circle of disciples and followers and community. You know, I'm curious on your suggestions, recommendations for pastors. that want to preach a message about immigration but not get canceled, you know, I mean, as we saw with the bishop, Bishop, I think Mary Ann up there in DC. Because I'd imagine a lot of pastors are looking at that and be like, I better not preach on, you know, treating migrants like good, heaven forbid. So, like, what advice would you have, you know, for those pastors that really do kind of have a heart for God, they want to preach a Bible, but they also recognize that if they say the wrong thing, half their congregation is going to leave. Yeah, right. No, that's real. I mean, that is I mean, I should say that during my time that I've been a pastor, I served in one congregation for 16 years, and I was just blessed by a community that what they wanted from their pastor is to preach the Bible, preach, you know, from the Bible, the stories of the Bible. And you just can't help but develop this ethic that's pro immigrant as you do. I mean, I just I don't know how to read the Bible against that. I don't know. And the community liked that. I mean, it was important to them. I mean, I will say that some people didn't stay. They left. And that makes me sad. I don't wear that like as a badge, but I feel for them, and I wanted them to stay, be a part of the congregation. But yeah, I don't know. mean, I just. I'm very Mennonite and it's part of the Anabaptist tradition. We just believe in like good biblical preaching. The task of the preacher is to immerse yourself in the text, open yourself to Holy Spirit and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the congregation. And yeah, that might get you in trouble. But you know, the one thing we should be about as preachers is to proclaim the truth. And if we're not sure it's true, we need to dedicate ourselves to figuring out what's true. mean, this is, we get judged for this stuff. You know what mean? If we're not proclaiming the truth, our salvation's at stake. Our souls are on the line. This is a people who trust us. So yeah, I mean, I'm very impressed with Bishop Buddy, think is how you say her last name, and her sermon, which. You know, it's just a call for mercy saying, look, like we need mercy out here. I mean, this is what the Christian calling is about. And I mean, if that's offensive now, I don't understand. I just don't understand this world. But yeah, in terms of, you know, churches shrinking because preachers are getting up there and, you know, preaching what the Bible says, that's hard. And it's hard to maybe lose a job. I've had friends, pastors who've lost jobs because of what they preach. And yeah, I feel for you, I feel for them. And I do feel like churches are shrinking because it's harder and harder to follow this gospel. It makes you perhaps unpopular among some of your neighbors. But I do think that part of what happens here in terms of the church is like sometimes we get smaller and that's okay. I mean, you know, what we're promised in the gospel is not, you know, prosperity in terms of dominating the world and people in the pews and building bigger buildings. I mean, we take up our cross, you know, it's, Jesus gets killed. He calls his disciples to make sacrifices. Like that's what is involved sometimes with loving the world with God's love, loving our neighbor with the love of Jesus. My professor in seminary, Professor Stanley Harawas, he would always say, sometimes the church just has to get leaner and meaner. I think there's something to that. He didn't mean it that way, he didn't mean it that way. You know, it's, yeah, I thinking about this idea that, you know, what people were so upset about what Buddy's, Reverend Buddy, like you said, what she said and. how she had this call for mercy and then it becomes so politicized, you know, because it's like, well, she didn't really call for mercy. This was some kind of progressive, you know, woke, basically attempt to like almost virtue signal and put this up like, hey, raise the flag, we're progressive, this is progressive. And then people start to look at that and then they They completely discredit it in their minds. And it's this commitment of a fallacy, you know, where... where even regardless of the actual truth or falsity of any number of things they might claim about this minister, whether she's progressive or she's taught, you know, pro-LGBTQ things from the Bible, and people have debates on that, obviously, and I've been following some drama online between, you know, some really, you know, interesting... very, very smart people that understand the Bible and well, and they're, you know, one of them is calling this clearly evil. And, and then the other side is, you know, basically distancing themselves from this person. And that creates this drama. The only reason I'm bringing that up is, is the inflammatory remarks can become very easy to throw out there and then they create this sense that well there's this evil agenda that is taking people captive. And that, you know, calling out that evil agenda and in this case, pro LGBTQ, pro abortion, those were two main things within the argument, main issues. But essentially like this is evil. so because it's so evil that it doesn't matter how we treat them, how we treat people, how we talk to people, it doesn't matter how we approach the other because It's the it's an ends justifies the means it seems to me kind of kind of theology and kind of kind of ideology and way of thinking and I'm all about trying to figure out the arguments. I'm all about trying to understand what is really being said. What is the evidence? What can we look at how what our presuppositions are? Can we look at how we're interpreting? Are we interpreting the scripture according to you know, well understood? and well-tested methods of gaining meaning from ancient languages. I mean, I'm all about that. But I think the thing that shocks me more than anything is this complete unwillingness to even listen at all in any way to the actual content of what was said. a call for mercy, and then everything is about what was intended under the surface, right? Or what was, and maybe that's true, maybe that's not true, and I'm not even saying that's not worthy of discussing and looking at, but can we look at the surface of what's being said and say, yes, Jesus would want us to have mercy on migrants, he would want us to have mercy on... our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community that feel rejected by the church. I don't know how all that works out to be honest with you. It is not this clean thing in my mind that's easy to do. Or even those who are pro, and I'm speaking from a conservative viewpoint here, but pro-abortion. We just look at that so God wouldn't want us to have mercy. Well, who's having mercy on the babies? I get that. I understand that and we can talk about that. But but this call to mercy and there's just this fallacy that's deeply embedded that if it's the source fallacy, I'm not saying it right. But because this person said it, it's therefore false. No matter what, no matter what is being said, it's because of the origin of it. It's there for false. And we know with just a little bit of thinking that can't be true. That can't be true that just because this person said it, if it's a true statement and they got to it by true reasons, and we understand that, then we can say, then that isn't, then this is something I should take seriously. All of that to say, we live in this culture and it's why we started this podcast of such deep division and deep... misunderstanding, not even just misunderstanding, a complete lack of any willingness at all to even consider that someone beside that thinks differently of could be rational or could we maybe could understand how they got to where to where they are. And I just I would love for you to kind of and this is going to be my last question, but I'd love for you to kind of help us understand. What are some of the fallacies that we are, that you see just being consumed and adapted and adopted hook line and sinker? You can go both sides. You can not do any side. Like you can think liberal Democrat or liberal conservative. You can think in those terms. You can just think overall. What are some of the fallacies about migrants, about what God wants us to do, his church, that we have in America, we've just taken it and we've embraced it uncritically. Yeah, right. No, that's a great. I guess one thing that where my mind goes, I mean, there's lots so many fallacies. I just like how do you begin? But maybe that what strikes me about what you were saying is just like, you know, trying to understand like why why this call for mercy is woke or why it why it's antithetical for some people to the gospel, you why do they think it's wrong? I mean, I wonder if what we're getting at here, what we're seeing is maybe a kind of spiritual poverty among us that we just maybe we are convinced here in this country that we've we have the lives that we have because we've achieved them like that we have made ourselves that we somehow decided to be born here, to have the parents that we have, that we've just earned all the goodness in our lives. So the sense of like that we are self-made, because if you believe, if I believe that I am self-made, what that means is, I shouldn't expect mercy. I've never received mercy. I've never received grace. Why should you deserve that? No, you got to work hard. You got to make your life for yourself. So I think maybe it's just this, the sin of our society that we think we don't live by grace, that we don't live by mercy, that we are all dependent on other people's mercy. I mean, that's... I feel like that is at the heart of the condition. There's this disease, a spiritual disease that we refuse to recognize that we are here only by the grace of God, that we live only by the grace of God, extended through our neighbors. Thinking about those passages in the Bible and the Levitical law where God is giving the people, you you got to you got to care for your care for your immigrant neighbors. You gotta care for the foreigners in your midst. And the reason why, when God gives that command to God's people, is remember, your father was a wandering airman. You know, it's saying, hey look, you didn't achieve this on your own. Your story is a migrant story. God sustained Abraham and his family in the desert, in the wilderness. You are only here by the grace of God. So don't be greedy about that grace. Don't think you've done it on your own. You pass it along. or in Paul's letters in Romans 5, think it is, where he says, look, we were all once enemies of God. We were enemies of God, and we didn't achieve the status with God on our own. It's only by the gift of grace. So maybe the task for us, obviously, I I'm interested in concrete ways we can organize our communities around caring for immigrant neighbors, undocumented residents, and our myths that make our lives abundant, that make us the people that we are. Like, I just can't imagine my life without my neighbors. Yes, I'm all about that. Also, maybe something we need to do in our communities to cultivate is this understanding of ourselves as... recipients of grace, that we only live by grace, that our lives are gifts from God, not to be held onto with a clenched fist, greedy, but something to pass along. We receive grace so that we can extend it to others. Well, that's really powerful. I just want to thank you for coming by. I love your heart. I want to give you an opportunity to let people know how to reach you, your social media. But I do want to point out one thing. So your book releases on March 13th. And there's two really unique things about that day. Number one is apparently it's a blood moon or a lunar eclipse on that day, but probably more relevant Josh will get a kick out of this, is it releases on a Thursday? Like most of the authors we've read on the show, like their books release on Tuesdays. This is like really insider baseball. But it was just odd because as we were scheduling this interview and I'm looking at the calendar and I'm like, oh, when does this book release? And I'm like, Thursday, that can't be right, you know? Because every other publisher out there, I release their books on Tuesday. So with that being said, like how could people get ahold of you? Yeah, I mean, I'm on Facebook. I'm not on X anymore or was on Twitter, not on X, because that place is not good for my soul. So I've gotten out of there. I mean, I don't know, like, buy the book or find... My email's out there, I imagine, if just Google my name. But yeah, I mean, I'm... Yeah, more than anything, like, I'm interested in stories of people who are... Like living out this gospel and I would love to hear your stories if people are out there, want to find me on Facebook or whatever, share those stories. Yeah, and I mean, if you want to buy the book and talk to me about it, that'd be awesome too. Awesome. Well, we will make sure that we put the links to your book, your socials, and yeah, to our audience, go out, buy Migrant God, a Christian vision for immigrant justice. This is Isaac Samuel Villegas. And we just thank you for stopping by. And to our audience, hey, thanks again for stopping by again. Like and subscribe, do all that stuff. Yeah, remember, keep your conversations not right or left, but up, and we'll see you next time. Take care. Bye.