Mennonite Church USA vs The Department of Homeland Security
By Rebecca Stoltzfus and Phil Waite, pastor of College Mennonite Church
We are writing jointly, as a Mennonite pastor (Phil) and college president (Becky), to explain and support a recent lawsuit filed to protect our religious freedom to practice our faith in the sanctuary on this campus.
Last week, the Mennonite Church USA joined more than two dozen faith groups, Christians and Jews together, to file a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security making the case that our religious freedom was violated by the withdrawal of protection from immigration enforcement actions in places of worship and during religious ceremonies.
The lawsuit is a remarkable action of interfaith solidarity on behalf of our immigrant-rich faith communities as well as the broader communities that we serve. Diana Butler Bass, American historian of Christianity, wrote in her blog, The Cottage,
“When you make both the Episcopalians and the Mennonites mad enough to bring a suit against you, well, that’s huge.”
The lawsuit matters to Goshen College because it is an important expression of our faith tradition, and also because the Church-Chapel building that houses our Education Department and where we gather for chapels and convocations, is also home to a congregation, College Mennonite Church. This affects our campus.
The lawsuit makes the case in plain language:
“Together, [Christians and Jews] bring this suit unified on a fundamental belief: Every human being, regardless of birthplace, is a child of God worthy of dignity, care, and love. Welcoming the stranger, or immigrant, is thus a central precept of [our] faith practices.
The Torah lays out this tenet 36 times, more than any other teaching: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love them as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34). In the Gospels, Jesus Christ not only echoes this command, but self-identifies with the stranger: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35). [our] religious scripture, teaching, and traditions offer clear, repeated, and irrefutable unanimity on [our] obligation to embrace, serve, and defend the refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants in [our] midst without regard to documentation or legal status. . . .
An immigration enforcement action during worship services, ministry work, or other congregational activities would be devastating to [our] religious practice. It would shatter the consecrated space of sanctuary, thwart communal worship, and undermine the social service outreach that is central to religious expression and spiritual practice for [our] congregations and members.”
We want to take this moment to emphasize two things.
First, that religious freedoms in the United States cannot be taken for granted in this country.
Numerous forces now seek to reduce religious freedom in the United States. In a recent case brought by the Apache Stronghold — another lawsuit supported by Mennonite institutions — the force in play is the desire for unconstrained industrial growth that depends upon mineral extraction. In the case of the shared sanctuary on this campus, it is the desire to exclude people who have crossed our border to come into our community seeking physical and economic safety through arduous journeys.
Mennonites were one of the first Christian movements to press for a separation of church and state, and we particularly resist the political and social movements afoot that seek to merge Christian and American identities. Rather, we strive to be loyal to and rooted in the way of Jesus. The power of Christ is not the power of domination, it is the power of love. It does not depend on the power of the state, nor will it be co-opted by the state.
Second, we emphasize that our Mennonite faith is formed and expressed in active love and service to our community.
Providing hospitality and safety to our immigrant congregants and neighbors is an essential part of our religious life. We do so not in response to political documents or permissions; as the lawsuit explains, we do this “because every human being, regardless of birthplace, is a child of God worthy of dignity, care and love.”
Mennonites do not share a common political view about immigration policy in a broader sense. That is not the focus of this lawsuit. Neither does this lawsuit protest the similar removal of prior longstanding protections afforded to educational settings, which would be the whole of our campus, or healthcare settings. The lawsuit argues that the government should restore the special protection of our congregational life in our places of worship – a centuries-old show of respect for the sacred that predates American law.
In this time of threat and anxiety for the immigrant community, Goshen College is striving to create as much clarity and safety as possible for our immigrant students, employees, neighbors and their families. This will take community solidarity. It is heartening to know that so many faith communities are working to restore the long-standing protections to religious sanctuaries across the nation, including the one on our campus.