The President’s executive orders and far-reaching initiatives this past week or so have created lots of political debate and protest; I could go on with my own observations, but you read BookNotes mostly for this bookseller’s reading recommendations. And, boy, do we have some for you this time. I want to focus on books about one topic — international migration, which includes both refugees and immigrants.
Some may know that years ago I had been somewhat involved in efforts to understand the reasons many Central American people came the US, sometimes illegally, sometimes hoping for political asylum, in the 1980s and 90s. President Reagan’s deeply immoral (and, with Ollie North et al, illegal) efforts to fund far, far-right military juntas and brutally repressive regimes fueled the revolutionary fires already burning in Guatemala, El Salvador, Niagara and the like. US support of grotesque regimes farther South, in Argentina, say, made things horrible for many there, in those years. Friends at Sojourner’s networked those providing help to migrants with religious activists who created a sanctuary movement, sort of an illegal underground railroad offering safe harbor to those fleeing egregious human rights violations in Latin America.
My very Republican parents happened to be out West in the mid-1980s and during a trip where they met James Dobson in Colorado Springs they also worshiped at a Presbyterian church pastored by James Fife, who famously sheltered refugees and asylum seekers and whose Bible studies had been infiltrated by FBI spies pretending to be spiritual seekers. Meeting Fife was important for my mom and dad as they heard first hand stories of (to use the language of Jesus’s first sermon in Luke 4) those working to proclaim “liberty to the captives” and setting the oppressed free. That their life-long political party was sneaking into Bible studies to expose poor families who had been run off their lands, and seen their own children tortured, was too much.
Years later, here in York County, we helped start a five-year-long campaign to help Chinese immigrants gain asylum in the US. In those years when Clinton was the anti-immigrant President, those fleeing the draconian one-child-only policy (enforced with forced abortions, even late-term caesareans — I’ve seen crumpled photos) were not granted asylum. Hundreds of Chinese immigrants whose ship, the Golden Venture, ran aground near the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, were detained in York County Prison awaiting return to a terrible end in China. Our weekly protests and large entourage of pro bono lawyers fought in what became the largest pro-bono case in American history, to change the laws and save the lives of our detained friends. Left, right, and center, Christian and other, we all had a variety of motivations but our gang allowed me to preach — year after year — in our weekly vigils at the prison. Guns were aimed at us but we kept at it; soon enough we were nearly heros in the eyes of some human rights groups and a lot of ordinary folks. It’s a long story (and there is more than one documentary made on the situation) it showed me that the Bible is (as my friend Pastor Joan would say) the world’s best immigration handbook.
(For those who are interested, in the next “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast, dropping soon, I talk briefly about this situation with the Chinese immigrants detained in York County Prison and our advocacy for them and suggest the award-winning book by Patrick Radden Keefe called The Snakehead, which I describe below.)
Decades later, it seems many in the US now know that there are Bible verses instructing God’s people to show hospitality to those from other countries. Call them aliens, sojourners, immigrants, foreigners, all are essentially fellow humans, often vulnerable and needy, carrying dignity as those made in the image of God. We also learned from our Chinese friends that these were, in some cases, some of the bravest and most noble humans we ever met. President Trump has used foul language (and dishonest stats) against many people but he seems to have a special animus for those who are poor and certainly for those who are from other countries. He doesn’t know or care what the Bible says about such things.
Do we?
From my earliest memories of my mom helping with a resettled Vietnamese refugee family to my own understanding of how our Central American foreign policy helped stimulate the immigration to el Norte, to our deep experience with asylum law and the Chinese detainees here, we have come to realize that even with the Bible’s general ethic of generous hospitality to immigrants, policy formation in a fallen world is complicated. Good people can disagree about nuances of what should be done. John Paul II, just for instance, spoke out passionately against xenophobia and racism but advised (European countries, in that context, I gather) caution in not causing unintended damage to local economies and the common good with too simplistic border policies. So it is tricky. Many of the books I’ll mention are very aware of that.
Do you want to figure some stuff out, dive a bit deeper, forming a Christian mind on one of the most talked-about topics of the year? Here are an array of books pulled from our shelves here at the shop. One, about Syrian refugees, which looks so good, is listed as a pre-order. You know the drill.
ALL ARE 20% OFF.
Read through to the end where you’ll see the tab to order. Using that works best — you can safely enter cc digits at our secure order form page (or, there, it invites you to tell us to just send a bill if you’d rather, so you can pay by check later.) Be sure to tell us your shipping preferences, if any.
A FEW BOOKS THAT ARE MOSTLY STORIES
The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream Patrick Radden Keefe $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40
Keefe is one of the great investigative journalists and authors of our time and it was an honor to discover he was doing the premier work on the whole big picture of the passengers on the ship called the Golden Venture. It powerfully chronicles their dangerous journey out of China, across the seas (including a wreck in Africa) and then their arrests and imprisonment in the land-locked, central Pennsylvania town of York. We later found out from getting documents through the Freedom of Information Act that Clinton and Gore wanted the Chinese out of the county (to hell with due process or proper translators, let alone legal asylum hearings) and that York was chosen in part because there were no immigration lawyers here.
Keefe’s book studies the underground Chinese mafia in New York, the rich “snakeheads” (something like what they call in central America, coyotes) who arranged the voyage. This is the most revisiting part of the book and will keep you up at night — believe me.
That our diverse advocacy group, led mostly by Christians who were given room to preach and pray, is in the book at all is stunning. That the story of the Golden Venture immigrants’s imprisonment in York and the effort to get them justice is nearly the last third of this great read is a blast. Who knew that my friends would show up in such a major, New York Times best-seller?
That the book remains in print is, I think, indicative of two things, maybe three: first, it is very well-researched and excellently written, so it is a great read by a respected writer. Great creative nonfiction stays in print.
Secondly, the immigration issue remains hot — hotter now than it was then — and The Snakehead gives a front-row seat to the larger complexity of it all (the good, the bad, and the ugly, as they say.) This makes it an important read now as our current President is rolling back policies and (I might suggest) making matters worse overnight.
Thirdly, I’d like to think that the drama of a handful of small town followers of Jesus who gathered friends of various motivations to form a strong coalition to support human rights and advocate for freedom for our detained Chinese friends is also part of the appeal. Regardless of your views on politics of immigration you’ll be cheering us on by the final chapters. There are not that many public affairs books that have as a central part a politically, culturally, and religiously diverse group who defied polarization and ideological differences, to make common cause, save some lives, and reform the immigration system, going toe-to-toe with ICE, Janet Reno, and right to the Oval Office itself. This extraordinary book is still in print for good reasons. We commend it to you.
Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother Sonia Nazario (random House) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40
I have led book discussion on this unforgettable story and I’ve reviewed it years ago here at BookNotes. The prestigious journalist (who has won the Pulitzer Prize) tells in magnificent, vivid prose, her accompanying one of many young boys who climb on top of the infamously dangerous trains running from Central America to Texas, postmodern hoboes, catching a ride that — if they are not captured by traffickers or pirates and if they do not fall and get hurt or killed or abused by corrupt cops — might lead them to a new life in the US. Nazario is brave and at times desperate as she makes this incredible journey with young Enrique who wants to find his mother in the United States. (He finds later she is working in a place called Miami, in a province called Florida.)
This is a boy’s journey and pain and hopes and dreams, told with great care. As one reviewer wrote:
“Enrique’s Journey is a book about love. It’s about family. It’s about home.”
Solito: A Memoir Javier Zamora (Hogarth Press) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40
This was a much-acclaimed and widely-read book a few years ago. (It was a “Read with Jenna” pick.) I list it after Enrique’s Journey as it has very similar resonances.
Here is how the publisher describes it:
When Javier Zamora was nine, he traveled unaccompanied by bus, boat, and foot from El Salvador to the United States to reunite with his parents. This is his memoir of that dangerous journey, a nine-week odyssey that nearly ended in calamity on multiple occasions. It’s a miracle that Javier survived the crossing and a miracle that he has the talent to now tell his story so masterfully. While Solito is Javier’s story, it’s also the story of millions of others who have risked so much to come to this country. A memoir that reads like a novel, rooted in precise and authentic detail, Solito is destined to be a classic of the immigration experience.
This has been called everything from a “beautifully-wrought work” to “monumental” to a “new landmark” to “a stone-cold masterpiece.”
I have written before about What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance, the extraordinary and unforgettable book by poet Carolyn Forche about her year in El Salvador. She knows a thing or two and says here Solito: A Memoir is written in “luminous prose.” She says, firmly,
“I cannot recommend this book enough, nor overstate its accomplishment.” — Carolyn Forche
The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You Dina Nayeri (Catapult) $17.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.36
Although I am not listing fictional books here, if I were, I’d include the beloved, fantastic, YA novel by Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad is Untrue (A True Story), about the experiences of a refugee son and his mother and sister, Christians from Iran, resettling in Oklahoma. In a genre-busting display of vivid storytelling, Daniel speaks a bit of his sister Dina.
This, The Ungrateful Refugee, is Dina’s fully nonfiction memoir of her years, escaping from Iran (their mother was a leader of the underground Christian church in Iran and needed to escape) and into Europe — Greece first, then the Netherlands, and I think France — and eventually finding refugee status and landing in small town, rural Oklahoma.
Ms. Nayeri, like her upbeat, gregarious brother, is a Persian storyteller (she has two well-received novels) but her memoir is more sober, more complex, more raw, even as it is at times quite tender. It focuses on the experience — including the interior lives of — those who are in exile. She tells the stories of other immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers and what it feels like to leave everything and have to preform in certain ways to be able to find safety. In 2022 Beth declared it one of the best books she read that year.
As Jessica Gouda wrote in Guernica:
“The Ungrateful Refugee is the work of an author at the top of her game.”
What We Remember Will Be Saved: A Story of Refugees and the Things They Carry Stephanie Saldana (Broadleaf) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19
I have not started this one yet although it looks very compelling. I respect the editors at Broadleaf and treasure many of their thoughtful books. This one brings a granular, poignant look at the lives of men, women, and children seeking refuge around the globe; in this case, from Iraq and Syria. Father James Martin calls it “gorgeous” and Ruben Degollado, author of The Family Izquierdo, notes that Saldana bears witness to beauty amid the ashes of war and unimaginable loss, saying “this indelible work should be read widely and deeply.”
On the back cover it nicely says that “there are always historians among the survivors of war — people who carry stories not in books but in small things. A woman sews her city into a dress.
This compassionate, fiercely humane collection of stories is exquisitely composed, an act of deepest grace. It is a compendium of precious preservation. –Naomi Shihab Nye, poet and the Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate of the United States, 2019-2021
Beautiful, heartbreaking, and full of lush detail of creation and recreation. A profound journey of listening, of honest witness. — Sandy Tolan, author of the international bestseller The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
A Journey Called Hope: Today’s Immigrant Stories and the American Dream Rick Rouse (Chalice Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99
This is a great, inspiring paperback (with a cool forward by global travel expert and anti-hunger advocate Rick Steves.) After several thoughtful chapters exploring the history of the immigration debate (and some good conversation on the American Dream) the heart of the book tells, in each chapter, the story of an immigrant or refugee — from Afghanistan, Africa, Ukraine, Central America, the Middle East, and more. As a Lutheran pastor, Rouse has helped with resettlement of refuge families so he knows a bit. But more, here, he allows each person or couple to tell their own stories. This is a great resource.
Rick Rouse has done an extraordinary job succinctly tracing the history of how American has extended welcome to newcomers and doesn’t shy away from the challenges. — Linda Harte, Past President, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services
It’s tragic, isn’t it, that our current President would interfere with Christian ministries trying to offer legitimate care to people like you’ll find in this lovely, provocative book.
All Saints: The Surprising True Story of How Refugees from Burma Brought Life to a Dying Church Michael Spurlock & Jeanette Windle (Bethany House) $13.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.19
This good book is so inspiring (and, in many ways, surprising) that it became a major motion picture. The subtitle tells it all as it shows how a newly ordained pastor of a very small, struggling Episcopal church in Tennessee — broke and demoralized — took on a huge project of welcoming a community of Karen refugees from Burma. These were former farmers and, well, this is the true story the inspired the film that also dives a bit deeper into the background of the Karen people, Spurlock’s work in the All Saints church, and “how a community of believers rally to reach out to those in need, yet receive far more than they dared imagine.”
They Come Back Singing: Finding God with the Refugees Gary Smith, SJ (Loyola Press) $14.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.96
Smith worked for six years with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Sudanese refugee camps in Uganda. (An earlier book called Radical Compassion: Finding Christ in the Heart of the Poor, explored his ministry to the poor and disabled in Portland.)
This is, essentially, his African journal, the story of finding amazing faith and forgiveness in a very discouraging and dangerous place. It was, by most accounts, a hard and pitiless place.
Smith’s journal, it is said, is “a vivid, inspiring account of the deep connections he forged during his life-changing experience with the Sudanese people,” who were made refugees by the brutal civil war. Could this be a window to the best sort of spiritual life and the notion of Christian growth, experienced by this humble, thoughtful, priest?
When Stars Are Scattered Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed (Penguin) $12.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39
We could do a whole big list of children’s picture books, YA novels, and other kids resources for understanding the need to offer hospitality and welcome, to celebrate God’s plan of diversity and racial justice and the like. This, though — a graphic novel which was a finalist a few years back for the National Books Awards — tells the story of Omar, and his younger brother, Hassan, are from Somalia and have spent most of their lives in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. The lack of food and adequate medical care is obvious. The day-to-day dullness and struggle is vividly told. This is one you’ve got to read.
By the way, we have highlighted this before noting that Omar ended up in Lancaster, PA, and worked with friends in Church World Service’s refugee resettlement program here in Central PA. This has won a dozen important awards in the book world and we are happy to recommend it.
Separated by the Border: A Birth Mother, A Foster Mother, and a Migrant Child’s 3,000 Mile Journey Gene Thomas (IVP) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19
I wondered if I should list this here, now, since the politics of family separation is worse — or is it better, with everyone being deported carte blanche? — and foster parents (like this author) may be unable to intervene at all. The President has suggested removing birthright citizenship (as guaranteed by the 14th Constitutional amendment) so even Native American children — from Navajos in the Southwest to Yupics and Inuits in Alaska — could lose their citizenship. How horrible.
Maybe this tender, gripping story really is relevant and it might touch some hearts before it is too late.
Written in 2018, this nicely written but riveting read tells first of five-year-old Julia who traveled to the US with her mother, Guadalupe, from Honduras, in the cargo section of a tractor trailer. Her mother was captured by smugglers who exploited her and, at the US border, when her stepdad was deported, she ended up in a processing center as an unaccompanied minor.
Enter Gena Thomas. Thomas (as it says on the back cover) “tells the story of how Julia came to the United States, what she experienced in the system, and what it took to reunite her with her family.” Gena is a Spanish-speaking former missionary who became Julia’s foster mother. I won’t tell you about all that happens — it’s an amazing drama! — but Thomas understands the trauma of children and the tenacious power of motherly love. What a read.
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis Jonathan Blitzer (Penguin) $21.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.80
We have a friend who works in a missionary ministry, focused mostly in a certain country Central America. A PK, his wife is from Central PA; they are thoughtful, decent, down-to-Earth folk. In any case, he’s one of the most astute readers we know and he says, if I may quote him, that this one really is a must-read. It is, clearly, one of the most painstakingly detailed accounts of the stories of Central American immigration. It explores this by telling the long and complex stories of four people and why they chose to come to America.
It is (as more than one reviewer observed) searing and gut-wrenching. It is also deeply humanizing, a glimpse into the lives of other human beings and their complex lives, risks, hopes, and dreams.
He offers, vividly, as one reviewer put it, a “a sweeping history of humanitarian crises on the US-Mexico border and of the politics of immigration in Washington” which becomes “a stunning epic.”
I’ll let the reviewers explain:
The masterstroke accomplishment of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is the way that Blitzer weaves the gripping stories of refugees with the 45-year history of policymaking in Washington, where elected officials and key bureaucrats — some craven and nakedly political, others well-meaning — repeatedly fought the wrong wars and worried about the wrong things to spin the tangled web of policies that caused a humanitarian nightmare. — Philadelphia Inquirer
If anyone is well placed to take on the agonizing story of America’s southern frontier it is Jonathan Blitzer, a writer who has spent the best part of a decade reporting from there.. . . What could be a complex story is a stunning epic woven around the lives of four individuals seeking sanctuary from the death squads and murderous gangs that at different times dominated their homelands . . . this is a novelistic account rather than a tract, and his tale is beautifully told. All four characters, whose lives he has followed over many years, linger in the reader’s mind. — Financial Times
In this urgent, extraordinary book, Jonathan Blitzer takes a crisis we generally encounter in the black-and-white simplicity of sound bites and statistics and reconceives it in complicated, unforgettable color. Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here tells the origin story of our border emergency as both a sweeping panorama, traversing decades and continents, and an intimate chronicle of the lives of a handful of indelible characters. Based on years of unparalleled reporting with migrants, activists, and policymakers, the book offers a profound reflection on one of the great paradoxes of American life —and a tribute to the astonishing indomitability of the human spirit. — Patrick Radden Keefe, author of The Snakehead and Empire of Pain
PRE-ORDER NOW The Asylum Seekers: A Chronicle of Life, Death, and Community at the Border Cristina Rathbone (Broadleaf Books) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19 // NOT YET RELEASED – DUE MARCH 18, 2025
This looks really good and we hope to have it before the release date. Here is how the publisher tells about it:
From award-winning journalist and priest Cristina Rathbone comes this remarkable work of reporting about a community of people at the US-Mexico border. In The Asylum Seekers, Rathbone renders in blistering detail the story of people camped at the foot of a bridge: the trauma they carry, the community they create, and the faith they maintain.
This book is a pastor’s account of her sojourn among people camped at our country’s southern border, people seeking asylum and rarely receiving it. Rathbone writes with admirable candor about her small triumphs and failures, her doubts and uncertainties. But to me, the great strength of this story is the author’s passionate sympathy for the desperate people she works with. It suffuses the book, like antivenin to the slanders forever thrown at immigrants. — Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Rough Sleepers and Mountains Beyond Mountains
The Asylum Seekers shines with a kind of moral clarity that illuminates not only the horrific effects of the United States immigration system on individuals, families, and children, but the personal toll of working alongside those affected. A must-read. — Alejandra Oliva, author of Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration
These pages are filled with both anguish and uplift, and they depict a religious faith that is anything but ethereal. Nothing I have read about the so-called border crisis has torn up my heart and haunted my conscience like The Asylum Seekers. — Samuel G. Freedman, award-winning author of Upon This Rock, Small Victories, and other books
Nothing I have read about the so-called border crisis has torn up my heart and haunted my conscience like The Asylum Seekers. — Samuel G. Freedman
BOOKS THAT EXPLORE THE BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF HOSPITALITY TO IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES
Start With Welcome: The Journey toward a Confident and Compassionate Immigration Conversation Bri Stensrud (Zondervan) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99
I wasn’t sure if I should list this as a story of immigration and a memoir of ministry or in this second category of books about a Christian view of the subject and how to get involved. It is sort of both…. There are lots of stories here, great examples and highlights, intimate details and well-written portraits. It is also the story of the author — hooray for Bri Stensrud — who, as a conservative, evangelical woman who is involved in pro-life work, rallies other pro-life women (with help from Focus on the Family, believe it or not) to expand the definition of being pro-life to include compassion for the poor, the excluded and needy. She thinks being a Godly pro-life evangelical means she simply must be consistent with her standing with and for the oppressed and marginalized. We must, she comes to realize, “love beyond your borders.”
This would be one of the best books to give to a MAGA-inclined person to help them understand the orthodox Biblical view of caring for those displaced from their homes, caring for migrants and exiles, standing with the oppressed.
How does one do this? Stensrud explores the doctrine of human dignity as the director of Women of Welcome, and helps us “understand God’s calling” concerning immigrants. As it says on the back, “She reveals that something is stirring. Something much bigger than platforms, politics, and pundits.” It starts, as she says, with one word: Welcome.
If you are curious what Scripture teaches about how to care for the immigrant and refugee in an incredibly complex world, there is no better place to start than this book. — Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control
Bri Stensrud courageously decided some years ago that — because immigration is not just a political issue but also a biblical issue impacting people fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image — she needed to engage. I’m so grateful that she did. — Matthew Soerens, Welcoming the Stranger
Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in Our Christian Response to Immigration Karen Gonzalez (Brazos Press) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19
We have highlighted this before and it remains as urgent now as it was when it was first released a few years ago. This is, perhaps, for those who already are convinced that people of faith and followers of Jesus must work hard to welcome immigrants with hospitality and solidarity. However, she is concerned that many well-intended helpers — God bless them! — are a bit ill-prepared to be faithful advocates for those facing abuse and marginalization. This book really is, as Adam Taylor puts it, “a road map to help all of us fully live out what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves.”
You see, such a goal is more complicated than we may realize and authentic solidarity will “put immigrants at the center of the conversation” even as we come to see ourselves in our immigrant neighbors.
This book really does need to be in the hands of those seeking to love immigrants and of those who are immigrant advocates.
This is a bit of a stretch but perhaps some will understand more deeply what this important book is about by thinking of the shift (in the conversations about race and racism) from being “color-blind” to being delightfully color-conscious, and the the shift from, say, talk of “racial reconciliation” to being anti-racist.
As Matthew Soerens notes, “Whether you agree with Console’s conclusions or not…you will find Beyond Welcome to be challenging, constructive, and helpful.”
The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong Karen Gonzalez (Herald Press) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59
Karen herself is a much admired immigration advocate who here, in her first book, recounts her own family’s migration from Guatemala to Los Angeles to the suburbs of South Florida. This is a well-told and important story — she signed the contract with the publisher sitting over coffee in our bookstore, by the way — but, perhaps more urgently, she introduces us to others who have fled their homelands. You know, people with names like Hagar. Joseph. Ruth. Jesus.
The back cover notes that this is “a riveting story of seeking safety in another land… a gripping journey of loss, alienation and belonging. But yet, it is clear that the foundation of all of this is her interpreting her own family journey and story in light of the Scriptures. This is a fabulous, personal, interesting, study of Scripture and is a great introduction to the issue for people or congregations trying to determine what they think.
As Rachel Held Evans put it, in one of the last books she endorsed before her sudden illness and death in 2019:
“Every single page of this beautiful, timely book pulses with prophetic truth.” — Rachel Held Evans
You Welcomed Me: Loving Refugees and Immigrants Because God First Loved Us Kent Annan (IVP) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59
We met Kent years ago and highlighted his very good book Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle: Living Fully, Loving Dangerously about his third world experiences (and then the extraordinary book written after the infamously horrible earthquake in Haiti, After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken, which I have described as a book for those whose faith is shaken by the sheer horror of the world’s suffering. And then, in 2016 he did a personal favorite, Slow Kingdom Coming: Practices for Doing Justice, Loving Mercy and Walking Humbly in the World.) We stock his books and appreciate his caring heart and really good writing.
As the immigration debates heated up a while back his son asked, innocently enough — are we “for them or against them.” Oh my. This book is the result, basic, yet profound, well written yet clear as a bell. We love because He first loved us, the Bible says, and we are to treat others as we have been treated by the merciful God who died for us.
Look: I was stunned by the animosity that arose against the preacher at the National Cathedral when she did what preachers do: she quoted Jesus and asked for mercy. Methinks this book, readable, even delightful, might be what some folks need. It isn’t simplistic — it has to look at “othering” and bias and power as it develops a theology of arms-wide-open prophetic hospitality — but even with nuance and first-hand experience of the complexity of these issues, it is a book full of practical guidance and steps for involvement.
Neighbor: Christian Encounters with “Illegal” Immigration Ben Daniel (WJK) $19.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.96
I ripped through this, twice as I recall, when it first came out in 2010. The debates about the Southern border were heating up more and more and I was not only intrigued to know what this Presbyterian pastor was doing — he was on the board of Presbyterian Border Ministries and was a tireless advocate — and I was intrigued that Franky Schaffer, son of Francis, had the foreword. Our old Dallastown friend, Rick Ufford-Chase, who founded Borderlinks and was a leader in our PC(USA) denomination, called it “the primer on immigration I’ve been waiting for” since it was rooted in church history, Biblical studies, and included political analysis and, of course, compelling stories.
Ufford-Chase continued,
Those who care deeply about the immigration traditions that have strengthened our country will find themselves caught up in Ben Daniel’s easy, non-preachy storytelling style.
As Frank Schaeffer notes, “At the very least this book will forever strip away the ability of those who have raised their hands against immigrants to say they are acting as Christians and patriots.”
Serving God in a Migrant Crisis Patrick Johnston with Dean Merrill (IVP) $15.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79
If some of the books on this list have been informed, at least a bit, with a progressive sort of inclusive vision that emerges from a careful study of the Bible’s own liberation themes, this book comes to the topic from the front lines of global, evangelical missions. Patrick Johnstone has, of course (I hope you know) inspired a generation of Christian workers and pray-ers with his informative Operation World prayer guides. After sixteen years as an urban missionary in a city in Africa, Johnstone served the WEC International leadership team for thirty some years. He continues to care deeply about reaching the lost, equipping missionaries to reach unreached people groups, doing global mapping, and authoring important volumes such as the jam-packed The Future of the Global Church: History, Trends and Possibilities.
Curiously, in a teaching I have pondered for decades, he insists that “God has used migration for millennia to achieve His purposes for his people…” and God might be doing so again in our time.
As millions are on the move, driven by war, drought, terrorism, poverty, failed states, environmental catastrophes, disease, revolutions, religious conflict, and more, we wonder: what is an evangelical response? We dare not turn our backs on people, or the times. The world is coming to our doorsteps. This short book, from what Stephan Bauman says are “noble and trustworthy guides” we get good data, spiritual vision, and tangible ideas.
Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the Immigration Debate Revised and Expanded Matthew Soerens & Jenny Yang (IVP) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39
I sometimes say that this is the one volume in this category that we most highly recommend. It’s hard to say when there are so many good ones, but this is a classic, now in a second edition, written by two vibrant leaders who work valiantly for World Relief, which is the relief arm of the NAE. Rave blurbs on the back are from the late, great, impeccable Ron Sider and Jo Anne Lyon, the global ambassador for the Wesleyan Church.
Reid Ribble, a former member of Congress from Wisconsin, notes that it is “refreshing to read Christian authors addressing a global crisis in a decidedly Christ-like manner.”
This is compassionate, Biblical, logical, addressing the complexities of the moral issues and the theological evaluations of various policy options. This puts a human face on the topic and delves deeply, without being overly arcane or academic. It’s a great, great resource.
The Bible and Borders: Hearing God’s Word on Immigration M. Daniel Carroll R. (Brazos Press) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00
You should know the name of M. Daniel Carroll R. who is an esteemed Old Testament scholar. (I’ve highlighted a number of his books, most recently, perhaps, The Lord Roars: Recovering the Prophetic Voice for Today.) Raised bi-lingually and cross- culturally in Houston by a Guatemalan mother and American father, he is uniquely situated to understand this topic. With personal experience and the passions of one who studies Amos and Micah and the like, he is a favorite go-to spokesperson.
As Dr. Carroll tells it, following the release of his previous book on immigration, Christians at the Border, he spent the next decade continuing to speak and write about the topic and sharpening his understanding about what the Bible does and doesn’t say. The Bible and Borders continues his top-notch (yet very readable) biblical scholarship, providing a succinct Biblical foundation for our talk and work on immigration. One review noted that this combines top-notch scholarly analysis with a pastoral heart.
The publisher has said that this book “sharpens Carroll’s focus and refines his argument” to make sure we hear clearly what the Bible says.
Granted, despite the religiosity of many in the MAGA movement, it seems evident to me that most far-right ideologues do not want to be Biblical people. Like their leader, they may not even know what the Bible does or doesn’t say. But for those who do care about Biblical teaching, this book is, quite simply, indispensable.
Seeking Refuge – On the Shores of the Global Refugee Crisis Stephan Bauman, Matthew Soerens, and Dr. Issam Smear (Moody Press) $13.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.19
Nearly a manifesto of World Relief — Bauman was at the time he wrote this the President of World Relief (and a heck of a great guy), and Soerens was the US Director of Church Mobilization for World Relief (he had been the head of the Evangelical Immigration Table, a coalition of evangelical organizations.) The are solid, creative, energetic guys. Dr. Smear is a licensed clinical professional counselor who has specialized in trauma treatment for refugees, victims of torture, and severely abused and neglected children. (His Master’s is from the clinical psychology program at Wheaton College.) One couldn’t ask for three more capable, professional, informed, and theologically impeccable authors. This book is short and inspiring, belief me.
You may recall a few years back when the flood of refugees was pouring out of Africa and the Middle East into Europe, especially. This book was drafted in that context, insisting that churches cannot ignore the refugee crisis, offering insight about how to respond to displaced people and the very real risks involved in receiving increased numbers of migrants. It’s a fair question to ask, about how to balance compassion and security.
Drawing from history, public policy, psychology, many personal stories, and their own unique Christian worldview, the authors offer a nuanced and compelling portrayal of the plight of refugees and the extraordinary opportunity we have to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Finding Jesus at the Border: Opening Our Hearts to the Stories of Our Immigrant Neighbors Julia Lambert Fogg (Brazos Press) $22.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60
Kudos to Brazos for bringing to the reading public books that are so germane and powerful. We stock everything they do, and this is a gem. Agree or not, this writer deserves your attention. She is ordained as a PC(USA) pastor and preaches in Lutheran congregations in her home in California. Yet, the heart of this book is about her own journey — interweaving Bible stories along the way —of accompanying immigrants near the US-Mexican border It is no joke or cliche that she was wondering “What Would Jesus Do?” and her creative Biblical exegesis on the ground —the vantage point makes a difference, of course — is fascinating and I think quite compelling.
A beautifully written, well-researched, painfully moving book that invites all believers to read Scripture in a new way. Any church community that reads it prayerfully will never be the same again! — Justo L. González, church historian, theologian, and author of Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective and Teach Us to Pray: The Lord’s Prayer in the Early Church and Today
Fogg shows that the scriptural trajectory of refugees’ border crossings — out of peril into safety, out of oppression into promise –does not end with Jesus and the Bible but continues today in the living stories of migrants. — Barbara Rossing, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, author of The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation
EXCELLENT (somewhat) MORE ACADEMIC RESOURCES
Our God Is Undocumented: Biblical Faith and Immigrant Justice Ched Myers & Matthew Cowell (Orbis Press) $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80
Meyers, as I recall, got his start thinking about all this while living as part of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker community. He became well known as an educator, activist, and writer with Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministry which does serious work enhancing serious Biblical literacy. (Recall, for instance, his groundbreaking Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus and his brand new, Fortress Press masterpiece, Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy: Luke’s Jesus and Sabbath Economics.)
Myers is an esteemed leader in radical Bible study which can fund resistance to the idols of the age found in ideologies of empire and injustice. From Walter Brueggemann to Elsa Tamez, from Brian Walsh to Dorothy Soelle, from Walter Wink to Sylvia Keesmaat, he is a leader in that league, a heavy hitter, in terms of Biblical study and socio-political analysis. You should know his book Watershed Discipleship, but I digress.
Our God Is Undocumented has a set of well-written narratives about a person who has forged important ground in radical service to others that illustrate the Biblical point being made in each chapter. In this sense, it is a fabulous combination of lived experience and Biblical exegesis. God has no passport, respects no human divisions, and invites us all to deeper views of how to allow a Biblical imagination to shape our perspectives. Wow, what a book. Fair warning — it’s not the simplest study and it presumes some awareness of justice themes in the Bible.
The trials and tribulations faced by the undocumented on the Mexican border represent the greatest human rights crisis occurring in the United States today. What then should be for Christian the proper response to this crisis? Myers and Cowell help us formulate a response faithful to our God, who happens to be undocumented. — Miguel de la Torre, Trials of Hope and Terror: Testimonies on Immigration
Strangers and Scapegoats: Extending God’s Welcome to Those on the Margins Matthew S. Cos (Baker Academic) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99
Vos, a Reformed evangelical with a PhD in sociology (and the chair of the department at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA) is respected in his field and, here, offers a very timely response (most generally described) to the widening cultural divides between “them” and “us.” He explores how the very notion of a stranger “lies at the root of many problems humanity faces, such as racism, sexism, and nationalism.” But if our identity is in Christ, we have the capacity to love strangers as neighbors, even friends. This is very mature and amazingly good stuff.
This big book is learned and informed, fascinating and captivating. As Aimee Byrd (herself no slouch in ongoing education and teaching) said, “I learned so much from reading Strangers and Scapegoats.” You will, too.
Vos knows it isn’t easy to live into the vision of God’s diverse Kingdom or to honor the image of God in others who we have reason to fear. Yet, he offers a wonderfully written exploration and rumination on how we can — by thinking Christianly and being formed in the ways of God — reject the world’s impulses and develop “a fresh lens by which to consider some of the most polarizing issues in the Christian community today.” Whether it is concern over gender issues or race or certainly immigration, we can resist the harm done by falling into fear and scapegoating. A few other authors join in with case studies making this thoughtful and full of uniquely Christian sociology.
This bracing book is powerful, eye opening, and hope filled. It empowers us to be good news and a healing force in this hurting world. — Carolyn Custis James, author of Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women and Malestrom: How Jesus Dismantles Patriarchy and Redefines Manhood
A masterful fusion of classic sociology, analysis of contemporary social problems, and personal experience that will support and stimulate Christians toward loving their neighbors. — Jenell Paris, Messiah University, co-author of Introducing Cultural Anthropology: A Christian Perspective
Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear Matthew Kaemingk (Eerdmans) $32.50 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.00
We gladly named this one of the Best Books of the Year when it hit in 2018 admits heightened tensions in Europe about Muslim immigration. It is a complex and delightfully sprawling work, looking at Abraham Kuyper’s old Holland, how commitment to pluralism shape a generous immigration policy for nearly a century until there was a radical reversal. As a contemporary neo-Kuyperian, Kaemingk does a splendid job looking for sustainable principles that could frame the West’s immigration policies and forges new evangelical ground for robust Christian-muslim dialogue.
Jamie Smith wrote an excellent foreword. Endorsements have been from leaders from various faith traditions who all rave; it was very widely reviewed. What a great book!
Kaemingk is a winsome guide through difficult terrain. He avoids the easy dead-ends–assimilate or stay out–that too often shape responses to the real challenges of Muslim immigration in western democracies. But he also doesn’t assume that we’ll find our way somewhere in the middle of those opposing poles. Instead, he charts an alternative course, using a theological map that takes pluralism seriously. Along the way, he stays grounded in real-world experience while never losing sight of basic convictions. The result: A book that is both timely and compelling. — Kristen Deede Johnson, Western Theological Seminary, co-author of The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance
Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration by Tisha Rajendra (Eerdmans) $26.50 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.20
The author is a teacher and ethics scholar from Loyola University in Chicago; the important contribution she carefully makes here is she in how she backs up a bit, giving an overview of various schools of thought about the nature of justice and who owes what to whom. This is classic, solid, ethical reflection. One might say this offers reasonable theories and prudent applications.
A creative contribution to the urgent ethical challenges raised by migration today. Drawing on social analysis and Christian thought, Rajendra shows that treating migrants justly will require rethinking and reshaping the social, political, and economic relationships that set the context for the movement of people today. Essential reading for all concerned with ethics and migration. — David Hollenbach, SJ, The Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics Mark R. Glanville & Luke Glanville (IVP Academic) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19
When Biblical scholars like Christopher Wright and M. Daniel Carroll R. rave about a book, you know it is worth having. Mark Glanville is a professor of pastoral theology at Regent College (while Luke is associate professor in the department of international relations at Australian National University.) Both have done exceptional, high-end scholarly monographs ad which this remains a meaty title (and over 250 pages) it is engaging and empowering for anyone interested in refugee issues. As Wright put it, it is, “constructive, creative, hope-filled.”
Discerning Welcome: A Reformed Faith Approach to Refugees Ellen Clark Clemot (Cascade) $21.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.80
Wow — this uniquely Reformed, slim, dense volume invites us all to wonder how the Reformed tradition responds to questions of “who is my neighbor” and what the nature of political justice might be even as we promote healthy public theology to enhance the common good. It looks at Calvin on occasion, and has a chapter on the sovereignty of the state and another on civil disobedience. Even United Methodist leader Will Willimon suggest that Clemot “has given the church a wonderful book that encourages churches to welcome on there in the name of Christ.”
Donald McKim (a well known name in the history of Reformed theology) raves, even as Luke Bretherton (of Duke, author of the magisterial Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy) says it “unfolds a Reformed view” that is not only rooted in a fine, broad, understanding of that particular heritage but “distills wisdom born of pastoral practice legal experience, and a clear-eyed analysis of the contemporary situation.” The author is both an attorney (so she cites the important Robert Heimburger Cambridge text, God and the Illegal Alien: United States Immigration Law and a Theology of Politics) and a PC(USA) pastor. I am astonished she didn’t cite Matt Kaemingk, but it is still a very fine and useful book.
Immigrant Neighbors Among Us: Immigration Across Theological Traditions edited by M. Daniel Carroll R. & Leopoldo A.Sanchez M. (Pickwick) $25.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00
This is a great ecumenical handbook offering expert theological essays by Latino/a scholars/leaders in various (Christian) faith traditions. You’ll learn about representative theologians from Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist/Wesleyan, Pentecostal and independent evangelical churches making a case for a particularly Latinas/os-shaped theology within these traditions today. Carroll R is at Denver Theological Seminary and Sanches M is at Concordia Seminary in St Louis.
White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall Reece Jones (Beacon Press) $25.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.76
I mentioned above our involvement, years ago, with a project trying to get detained Chinese asylum seekers out of jail and to reform the grounds of asylum law. In that multi-year campaign we studied the history immigration law (what did we know here in land-locked central PA?) We discovered the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and, as this book shows, legal efforts against the Chinese went back (especially in California) long before that. This is, as Pulitzer Prize-winner Greg Grandid says, is “a damning inquiry into the history of the border as a place where race is created and racism honed into razor-sharp ideology” It is searing, if eloquent, filled with masterful storytelling.
I have not read this new one yet but hope to soon. It looks important…
Jesus the Refugee: Ancient Injustice and Modern Solidarity D. Glenn Butner, Jr. (Fortress Press) $25.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00
Is the holy family a refugee family? If the holy family fled persecution today, how would American refugee systems receive Jesus and his parents? This fiesty book combines historical, theological, and legal analyses and attempts to “break down today’s devilishly complex legal regime.” Dr. Butner (a professor of Christian ministry at Sterling College in Kansas who has published texts on trinitarian theology) introduces us to the basics of modern refugee law and raises ethical challenges to our current systems. Danielle Vella of the Jesuit Refugee Service says it is “a must-read for those who want to turn their compassion into concrete acts of solidarity.”

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Intercultural Church: A Biblical Vision for an Age of Migration Safwat Marzouk (Fortress Press) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19
We stock the other serious works in the “Word & World” series of books (designed as “theology for Christian ministry” — the first was by Wes Granberg-Michaelson) and this, too, is serious, thoughtful, but written for application for those in religious ministry and Christian leadership.
What does in mean to welcome strangers while living as aliens ourselves? This starts with the sojourners (and settlers) who inhabit the Bible. These folks inspire Marzouk who is a professor of Old Testament at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminar an ordinary ed in the Synod of the Nile (Egypt) where he has served as pastor. Can the church be a community of resistance embodying God’s vision for a multiethnic “intercultural” politics?
Church on the Way: Hospitality and Migration Nell Becker Sweeden (Pickwick) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40
When excellent authors on the Biblical mandate of offering hospitality such as the late Christine Pohl and Amy One affirm a book like this, we notice. Sweden is a professor of Wesleyan Theology at George Fox Seminary in Portland and in this serious book —not much more than 150 pages — she uses “critical analysis and constructive re-imagining” to offer an ecumenical Christian ecclesiology strong enough to speak to this issue. Amos Yong says it is “neither sentimental nor oblivious to the theoretical-theological and practical challenges.” This really does make a substantive contribution. There’s a forward by Miguel A. De La Torre.
Jesus, King of Strangers: What the Bible Really Say About Immigration Mark Hamilton (Eerdmans) $23.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.19
This is not a scholarly textbook, granted, but it seems a bit more sophisticated than many. It is very nicely written, serious, and invites us to consider the “church’s true language for migrants.” It examines the Bibles’ key ideas about human movement and the relationship between migrants and their hosts. Hamilton argued that reclaiming the biblical language will “free the church from hyper nationalism and fear-driven demagoguery.”
Hamilton got his PhD from Harvard and teaches Biblical studies in Abilene, Texas. Shaun Casey of Georgetown wrote a powerful forward in which he claims this is a once-in-a-lifetime work.
Eight Million Exiles: Missional Action Research and the Crisis of Forced Migration Christopher M. Hays (Eerdmans) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99
Hays is president of Scholar Leaders, a ministry dedicated to cultivating theological leaders from around the globe. As it asks on the back, “how pastors, scholars, and others can use missional action research to make a real difference for displaced persons abroad.” Rooted in his first-hand research and reform efforts in Colombia, Eight Million Exiles offers a model for “how to put academic research to use to serve those in need.”
As the daily news fills with accounts of migrants who put themselves at unfathomable risk to find safety and support for themselves and their families, we wonder what churches and theological schools can do to help. Christopher Hays and his team in Colombia sought theologically wise and active responses to the agonizing stories of over eight million people displaced by the violence that swept the land. In lively prose, Hays offers a living model for any community that seeks to bring the gospel and justice to those who suffer the consequences of living in a shattered world. This is genuine theology ‘on the road.’ — Gene L. Green, Wheaton College co-author of Majority World Theology: Christian Doctrine in Global Context
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