On Inauguration Day, the Trump administration altered current Immigration and Customs Enforcement coverage to permit arrests to be made in “delicate places” corresponding to homes of worship. Since that change, a lot consideration has been given to an historic follow with trendy impression: sanctuary.
Two distinct practices of sanctuary took root in American spiritual life in the previous few many years, every as a type of protest. The primary was within the Eighties, when the Reagan administration denied asylum claims for folks from nations dominated by US-backed regimes. The second, which I’m a part of, emerged a couple of decade in the past in protest of US immigration coverage. They had been unequivocally profitable, altering the authorized panorama with ABC v Thornburgh and establishing a legacy of sanctuary cities and campuses that continues right now.
Each the sanctuary motion of the Eighties and the brand new sanctuary motion of the 2010s housed folks in homes of worship and gave them a platform to talk about their scenario—a technique they derived from the Hebrew Bible. Mosaic regulation prescribes sanctuary cities for these responsible of unintentional manslaughter as a type of forbearance of revenge. However the biblical custom most straight related to present-day follow is altar sanctuary. Taking a look at this custom within the Hebrew Bible can inform us one thing in regards to the strengths and weaknesses of sanctuary right now.
The biblical materials on altar sanctuary is anchored by two tales in 1 Kings. Every tells of somebody who grasps “the horns of the altar” within the tabernacle and pleads for mercy—an act that requires the king to not less than rigorously take into account the plea. Within the first story, Adonijah is given a reprieve by his brother, King Solomon (1:50–53). Within the second, Joab’s plea is unsuccessful (2:28–34).
It’s the latter story that has essentially the most relevance to our current second. Joab has gotten tied up within the energy struggles between King David’s sons, supporting Adonijah over the eventual victor, Solomon. If that’s not sufficient, earlier Joab killed one other of David’s sons, Absalom, throughout a civil warfare (2 Sam. 18:9–15), and he murdered Abner and Amasa, each rivals for Joab’s position as commander of David’s military (3:26–27; 20:7–10). On his deathbed, David made Solomon swear vengeance upon Joab for the latter killings (1 Kings 2:5–6). Joab quickly seeks sanctuary:
Joab fled to the tent of the Lord and grasped the horns of the altar. When it was advised King Solomon, “Joab has fled to the tent of the Lord and now could be beside the altar,” Solomon despatched Benaiah son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, strike him down.” So Benaiah got here to the tent of the Lord and stated to him, “The king instructions, ‘Come out.’” However he stated, “No, I’ll die right here.” Then Benaiah introduced the king phrase once more, saying, “Thus stated Joab, and thus he answered me.” The king replied to him, “Do as he has stated, strike him down and bury him; and thus take away from me and from my father’s home the guilt for the blood that Joab shed with out trigger. (1 Kings 2:29–31)
This story of sanctuary’s failure captures each the follow’s promise and its issue. The story options an abuse of energy by a monarch, who has sworn himself to revenge and can cease at nothing to kill his enemy. Joab is just not innocent—however by laying maintain of the altar and invoking sanctuary, he’s claiming a particular safety. In impact, Joab is saying he’s not responsible of the crime that Solomon seeks his blood for, a declare that should be thought of. However Solomon has closed his coronary heart to contemplating this feature, and he ignores Joab’s sanctuary declare.
To make certain, the connection between this story and present-day sanctuary efforts turns into extra tenuous when one considers that Joab is a prison, whereas these now fearing deportation are much less more likely to be needed for against the law than the common American is. Nonetheless, the connection is actual. President Trump’s abrogation of the protections for homes of worship guarantees to permit simply the identical thirst for revenge to unfold into church buildings. He has lengthy made immigrants, documented and undocumented alike, the goal of his ire. Throughout his marketing campaign, he inspired chants from the gang of “ship them again”—focusing on Haitian refugees who’re right here legally—and this January he moved swiftly to finish short-term protected standing for 350,000 Venezuelans on this nation. For a lot of, sanctuary has by no means felt extra tenuous. However the actuality is that it has at all times been this fashion: depending on these in energy respecting the sanctity of holy area.
The traditional custom of sanctuary went on to provide rise to a proper system within the Center Ages, by which individuals might be protected for a restricted time frame inside the doorways of a sanctuary. This technique seems in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, during which Quasimodo cries, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!” Fashionable sanctuary actions have made use of each the biblical and the medieval fashions to push again towards insurance policies they’ve discovered to be immoral.
Regardless of its lengthy historical past, sanctuary enjoys few authorized protections. There isn’t any regulation that claims spiritual areas are in any method totally different out of your native Starbucks. Nevertheless, the federal authorities has lengthy been loath to intrude in such areas because of the First Modification. The most typical query I get requested about sanctuary is whether or not it’s authorized, and my reply is at all times a powerful “possibly.” The very fact is that till there’s a case that makes it to the Supreme Courtroom, there’s not a great reply to this query. Some activists had been prosecuted within the Eighties, however the outcomes had been a public relations catastrophe for the Reagan administration, so there haven’t been many subsequent rulings. Makes an attempt to legalize sanctuary activism have all relied on the free train of faith clause discovered within the First Modification.
ICE’s change to its longstanding delicate places coverage makes the declare that spiritual areas are usually not particular zones free from enforcement. However its actual intent is to unfold concern—an effort that seems to be having some success. Some would-be sanctuary church buildings are backing away from activism that they could in any other case really feel referred to as to, fearing that their nonprofit standing is perhaps in jeopardy—or fearing for the protection of their congregation.
And but, regardless of these shifts within the enforcement panorama, sanctuary continues to take pleasure in an influence all its personal. Non secular areas, in spite of everything, proceed to carry significance. For Christians in eucharistic traditions, the area across the altar is hallowed by the very presence of God—and even lower-church Protestants like me would argue that the bodily area of our sanctuary is holy as a result of it has been set aside and consecrated for our communal life. Non secular areas additionally maintain what we’d name sociological holiness: the social capital borne of centuries of theological claims in regards to the sanctity of church area.
Regardless of the supply, Christians agree that the place the place we worship is imbued with sanctity and should be protected against incursion. Within the Center Ages, that appeared like barring weapons from being introduced into the church; there have been even particular buildings constructed to carry the surrendered weapons. Immediately, many Christians would see an ICE arrest in a church as profaning one of many holiest areas possible. Certainly, if there’s something that’s more likely to keep Trump’s hand, it’s the recognition that such actions are more likely to be broadly condemned exactly as a result of sociological holiness lingers even the place its theological roots have been both denied or forgotten.
The identical might be stated of many bedrocks of our worldwide and federal authorized frameworks. The worldwide constitution of human rights rests on a theological spine: the concept we’re all imbued with dignity by advantage of our creation within the picture of God. The UN 1951 Refugee Conference and later paperwork are extra express, offering protections for refugees from persecution utilizing the identical language because the biblical mannequin and requiring that refugees and asylum seekers be in concern of their life so as to search safety. This reliance on concern has been one of many sticking factors of sanctuary activism over the many years, the documentation of concern main some activists to see themselves as higher enforcement brokers than even the federal government.
The Trump administration’s recission of the delicate places coverage was meant to throw the brand new sanctuary motion off guard, making a local weather of concern amongst activists who would usually search to face as much as the administration’s focusing on of immigrants. However as a sanctuary scholar and activist, I believe he overestimated the impact of such an motion. He could have even overplayed his hand.
A number of church buildings have proclaimed themselves sanctuaries for these fearing deportation throughout Trump’s second time period. They’ve thought of the brand new authorized panorama and responded by redoubling their dedication to undocumented and documented immigrants. They achieve this as a result of there exist increased legal guidelines than ICE memos. In doing so, they declare to be following God’s regulation to guard the weak.
One in all these church buildings is the one I pastor. After I led it to declare itself a sanctuary church, I didn’t do that as a result of it was secure or self-evidently authorized. I did it as a result of the Christian custom teaches that what we do or fail to do for essentially the most weak in our midst is what we do or fail to do for God. That’s why I believe it’s unlikely {that a} change to ICE coverage will form the calculus of these dedicated, like I’m, to the sanctuary motion. On the finish of the day, it comes all the way down to the truth that I’d not let Jesus get deported, and I can’t let the identical occur to those that I imagine this administration is focusing on for cruelty’s sake.
Martin Luther King Jr. put it greatest in Letter from Birmingham Jail: “One has not solely a authorized however an ethical duty to obey simply legal guidelines. Conversely, one has an ethical duty to disobey unjust legal guidelines.” One of many pleasant issues about King’s argument is how he makes it clear that this concept is just not new. It’s constructed on the claims discovered all through scripture, significantly within the Hebrew Bible, that decry unjust legal guidelines and those that implement them, in addition to on historic Christian thought. King even quotes Augustine’s assertion in On the Free Alternative of the Will that “an unjust regulation is not any regulation in any respect.”
Unjust legal guidelines can’t command obedience. The truth that this concept is just not a brand new one is what makes it maybe the sanctuary motion’s biggest power. Nourished by centuries of pure regulation thinkers and theologians, this theme might be discovered in all places from the works of Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau to the US navy’s recognition that solely lawful orders might be obeyed by troopers. It’s deeply ingrained.
ICE modified its delicate places coverage so as to undermine the sanctuary motion. However by making such a transfer a precedence—on Trump’s first day again in workplace—it additionally clearly communicated that sanctuary has an impression. The quantity of people that might be shielded in sanctuary church buildings is vanishingly small, so this determination can’t be in regards to the numbers. It’s in regards to the non secular energy of sanctuary as a follow. That energy comes from each theological sources and sociological ones, an historic follow that finds new which means within the current—and these twin sources of sanctuary’s energy make it tough to get rid of by way of a mere change in coverage. Sanctuary, prefer it or not, is right here to remain.
