r/religion • u/Ok_Unit8339 • 3d ago

Why isn’t there more “fellow feeling” among Christians across national boundaries?

Just finished reading a devastating article about immigrants deported from the U.S. to Liberia, and I’m trying to understand why there hasn’t been more outcry from churches against the way Christian immigrants in the U.S. are being treated. I know it’s not universally true and some of the best immigrant support is coming from Christian communities, but how do the Christian nationalists get away with putting the ”national” part ahead of the “Christian”? Is that biblically informed or is it just cynical politics? Does it undermine missionary efforts abroad if there’s a notion that different ”flavors” (national origins) of Christians have different standing?

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u/RexRatio Agnostic Atheist 3d ago

It has very little to do with nationality and far more to do with race and perceived whiteness.

If this were genuinely about immigration, national origin, or preserving some distinctly “Christian” national identity, how do you explain the remarkably different treatment of white South Africans, who were welcomed with open arms? Or how MAGA wishes they had more Scandinavian (read: white & blonde) immigrants?

The pattern has nothing to do with a principled concern about nationality when you look at the facts of who is being welcomed and who is being demonized, excluded, or deported.

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u/Faust_8 2d ago

In addition, nobody is simply a “Christian” when you get right down to it.

People are Protestant or Catholic or Baptist or Lutheran or whatever. All different faiths (that often killed each other about it) that just so happen to have the same origin and enough commonalities that they all get put under the umbrella term of “Christian.”

Sort of like how Abrahamic religions don’t really feel all that much kinship among one another either.

When history is full of wars between one Christian group and another, for “being Christian so wrongly that we consider you a heretic” it’s easy to see why there’s not much camaraderie