CBF Advocacy provides online biblical resources for immigration

What does the Bible say about immigration? And what resources are available to study immigration from a biblical perspective? 

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Advocacy Team for Immigrants and Refugees has curated an array of resources to illustrate what the Bible says about immigration. The team compiled “Biblical Resources on Immigration” to help people of faith think and act biblically. 

The resources reflect a thought-to-action-process, explained Elket Rodríguez, immigrant and refugee specialist for CBF and Fellowship Southwest. Users can benefit by understanding both the Bible’s teachings and how to apply those lessons to daily living.   

“From Genesis to the apocalypse, the Bible presents immigration as a vital theme in God’s narrative,” Rodríguez said. “Abraham’s pilgrimage, Israel’s journey, Jesus’ refugee birth and the early church’s multiracial expansion all are central to God’s saving and renewing plan with his people—who likewise are called to be sojourners and foreigners on this Earth.”    

“Biblical Resources on Immigration” contains Bible studies, guides, manuals, toolkits, books, articles, hymns, prayers, poems and documentaries to help frame a Christian perspective on immigration, Rodríguez said. 

“The purpose of the list is not to convince anyone to adopt a specific political ideology,” he added. “The objective is to allow the Bible to be profitable by teaching, correcting, instructing, reproofing and nurturing the way Christians think and act on immigration.” 

The Bible’s repeated inclusion of stories about migrants and exiles is not random, but a message in itself, he said. 

“God identifies with the sojourner. He commands Christians to protect them, to welcome them and to love them, because they are strangers,” Rodriguez stressed.  “The Bible’s stories of refugees, migrants, exiles and strangers should mirror and inform every Christian’s approach toward immigration, as well as the policies they support for their nation’s immigration system.”  

Church leaders also can use the list to explain God’s grace to their immigrant neighbors. The resources represent Christian traditions, denominations and organizations with which CBF Advocacy partners nationally to promote fairer immigration policies. 

To access “Biblical Resources on Immigration,” click here.

Join “CBF Conversations” for two upcoming episodes on immigration:

• Oct. 21, 1 p.m. Central Time—Listen to the stories of Itzayana and Jemima, Baptist DACA recipients, as they share the uncertainties they experience every day due to a broken immigration system. 

• Oct. 27, 1 p.m. Central Time—CBF field personnel Greg Smith of Virginia and Marc Wyatt of North Carolina and Ruth Project founder Anyra Cano of Texas will talk about how to think and act biblically on immigration.