Bible and Theology at the Border: Migration, Hermeneutics, and Christian Response

Catalog description

This course investigates how the Bible and Christian theology shape, and are reshaped by, contemporary U.S. debates over immigration enforcement, border policy, and the church’s public witness. In the first half of the semester, students will engage with various views of migration theology and the emerging theological motifs that will help students create their own theological voice within the immigration debate. In the second half, students examine the full biblical canon as a contested moral library: Torah teachings on the sojourner and land, prophetic critiques of exploitation, gospel portrayals of displacement and belonging, Acts and the formation of multiethnic communities, and Pauline ethical formation for life together amid political power. The course highlights how Christians appeal to Scripture in sharply different ways, and asks what responsible interpretation requires when the stakes include fear, detention, deportation, family separation, and the vulnerability of mixed-status congregations.