“Under the Radar”: Undocumented Immigrants, Christian Faith Communities, and the Precarious Spaces of Welcome in the U.S. South

Abstract

This article examines the limits of welcome that Christian communities of faith in the U.S. South extend to recent immigrants. We argue that churches are political spaces in which pastors and lay members weigh faith-based conceptions of hospitality against law-and-order discourses and in which notions of universal membership confront racialized immigration politics. Drawing on sixty interviews with pastors and lay ministers in thirty-five churches in Greenville–Spartanburg, South Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; and Charlotte, North Carolina, we show how hospitality within individual churches often operates quietly, “under the radar,” producing a politics of invisibility. This invisibility, although providing some shelter from harsh law enforcement practices, does little to fundamentally alter the precarious situation of immigrants. We show that as Christian ethics of hospitality come up against worldly social boundaries of race and legal status, the actual practice of hospitality in these churches falls short of biblical ideals. Our analysis furthers understandings of political and faith-based membership and the dynamic articulations between them.

本文检视美国南方的基督教信仰社群在欢迎晚近移民时的限制。我们主张, 教堂是政治的空间, 其中牧师与教会成员秉持着以信仰为基础的悦纳异己之概念, 而非根据法律与规范的论述, 其中普世的成员资格遭遇了种族化的移民政治。我们在南卡罗来纳州格林威尔—斯巴坦堡、乔治亚州亚特兰大, 以及北卡罗来纳州夏洛特的三十五座教会中, 对牧师与教会神职人员进行了六十个访谈, 以此展示个别教会如何经常暗中、 “秘密” 进行悦纳异己, 生产了不可见的政治。此一不可见性, 儘管对严峻的执法工作提供了部分庇护, 但却几乎无法根本性地改变移民的不安定处境。我们指出, 当基督教悦纳异己的伦理遭遇世俗的种族与法律身份的社会边界时, 这些教会悦纳异己的实际作为却难以达到圣经的理想。我们的分析得以进一步理解以政治和信仰为基础的会员资格, 以及两者之间的动态接合。

Este artículo examina las limitaciones en la acogida que las comunidades de fe cristiana del Sur de los EE.UU. brindan a inmigrantes recientes. Nuestro argumento es que las iglesias son espacios políticos donde pastores y feligreses laicos sopesan las concepciones de hospitalidad basadas en la fe, frente a los discursos de ley y orden, y donde las nociones de membrecía universal tienen que confrontar políticas de inmigración racializadas. Con base en sesenta entrevistas con pastores y ministros laicos de treinta y cinco iglesias de Greenville-Spartanburg, Carolina del Sur; Atlanta, Georgia; y Charlotte, Carolina del Norte, hacemos ver que la hospitalidad a nivel individual de iglesias opera silenciosamente, “por debajo del radar,” lo cual produce una política de invisibilidad. Si bien provee alguna protección contra las duras prácticas de aplicación de la ley, esta invisibilidad poco hace para alterar significativamente la precaria situación de los inmigrantes. Mostramos que en cuanto la ética cristiana de la hospitalidad tiene que vérselas con los mundanos límites sociales impuestos por raza y estatus legal, la práctica real de la hospitalidad en aquellas iglesias queda bien alejada de los ideales bíblicos. Nuestro análisis avanza en la comprensión de una membrecía basada en política y fe y de las articulaciones dinámicas que ocurren entre éstas.

Key Words:

• belonging
• evangelical Christianity
• hospitality
• immigration
• places of worship

关键词:

• 归属感
• 基督教福音派
• 悦纳异己
• 移民
• 礼拜空间

Palabras clave:

• pertenencia
• Cristiandad evangélica
• hospitalidad
• inmigración
• lugares de culto

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF; BCS-1021907 and BCS-1021666). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF. We thank our research participants for sharing their insights, and Catherine Cottrell, Rebecca Lane, and Derek Ruez for their research assistance.

Notes

The foreign-born population constitutes 9.5 percent in Georgia, 8 percent in North Carolina, and 4.5 percent in South Carolina. The undocumented population is estimated at 4.39 percent in Georgia, 3.41 percent in North Carolina, and 1.19 percent in South Carolina.

Secular, as we use it here, refers to different realms of authority—separating church and state, rather than determining whether or not individual subjects are spiritual or religious (cf. Wilford 2010).

They were joined, in the spring of 2013, by numerous conservative evangelical Protestants previously refusing to advocate on behalf of undocumented immigrants.

Megachurches are defined as having a minimum of 2,000 members (Warf and Winsberg 2010).

Although no pastor mentioned this as a reason, churches stand to lose their tax-exempt status if they engage in explicitly political activities.

A member church of the conservative Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which does not ordain women.