Christian responses to global migration are as loud as they are numerous. With voices evoking either the injunction to love the stranger or a commitment to the rule of law, this polarized cacophony has become yet another theater in the culture war. But migration is not an idea. It is not an abstraction. Migration is about people, present in our midst or encountered at our edges. Their presence at our borders forces us to consider the core values we want most to uphold, and the stories that taught us those values in the first place. In the United States, our most popular origin stories tell of a nation that fought off tyranny and committed itself to liberty, democracy, and the dream of an unencumbered pursuit of happiness, of a life lived on one's own terms. But is this the whole story? Whose perspectives have shaped the stories we tell, and which perspectives have been ignored? Theology in Motion tracks the story of the United States--how it formed and how it came to dominate the land that now rests between its borders--to consider more fully what type of nation the US has been and the type of global neighbor it has chosen to be. From a Christian moral perspective, this history helps us look to the future by analyzing how our past choices have left us with present responsibilities. Taking these responsibilities seriously and pursuing more just global relationships provides a way forward in which all people might participate and to which Christians are called.
Aimee Allison Hein is assistant professor of moral theology at Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. Her writing has appeared in Asian Horizons and Health Progress.
Given the dangerous political divisions in this country, the churches have a justice-oriented responsibility toward one of its main causes: immigration. Aimee Hein argues with power, passion, and plenty of examples that American Christians can and should repair and restore immigration, and that migrants and Indigenous peoples too are "capable agents" leading immigration reform. This book is exceptionally timely, well-researched, culture-critical, and yet hopeful. It will give courage and energy to anyone at a loss to see how our immigration problem can be solved, or what the churches can really do about it. --Lisa Sowle Cahill, J. Donald Monan, S.J., Professor of Theology, Boston College This incisive book grapples with the history that shapes and misshapes how US Christians conceive of border enforcement. Hein offers a piercing theological-ethical reflection on the demands that our past places on the relationships that bind immigrants and citizens today, deepening migration ethics' ability to provide an expansive vision that takes us beyond communitarian and cosmopolitan views to discern a more just future. --Victor Carmona, associate professor of theology and religious studies, University of San Diego Aimee Hein provides a compelling and bold ecumenical agenda for the urgent challenges posed by forced migration in our day. Her integration of Indigenous studies with Christian theological ethics and practice yields an account of citizens' responsibilities in justice that will be of great service to disciples and citizens alike. Interrogating the function and costs of our nation's founding myths, she challenges US citizens to remember rightly, repent, and repair, advancing a valuable responsibility framework for migration ethics today. --Kristin E. Heyer, professor of theological ethics, Boston College Aimee Hein's new book draws on a synthesis of US history, theologies of responsibility, and ethics of immigration in order to argue that the United States and its Christian churches have specific responsibilities of repair to immigrant communities. In this context, being a disciple means learning new histories and stories. Hein shows us that a just response to immigration includes changes at the level of law, policy, churches, communities, and human hearts. Essential reading for any study not only of the theology and ethics of migration, but of justice and the ethics of memory. --Tisha M. Rajendra, associate professor of Christian ethics, Loyola University Chicago
