“Immanuel joined the New Sanctuary Movement as a pastoral issue first and as a political issue secondarily,” says Frank Alton, pastor of Immanuel Church in Los Angeles.
The national debate about undocumented immigrants is not simply an “issue” for Immanuel Church. Undocumented immigrants not only represent a significant part of the congregation’s membership but its leadership as well. “Their status in this country impacts every area of their life,” according to Alton. Pastorally he has come to realize that “there is no way to minister effectively to that part of [the] congregation without addressing immigration as both a pastoral and a political issue.”
As a response, the church has joined the emerging New Sanctuary Movement. The movement is “a coalition of interfaith religious leaders and participating congregations, called by our faith to respond actively and publicly to the suffering of our immigrant brothers and sisters residing in the United States,” according to its pledge.
When the New Sanctuary Movement was getting underway last fall, Alton attended the initial meetings. He is quick to note that the church “did not want to join unless the immigrant leaders in [the] church were in agreement.” They were in agreement, and the session began to move forward, not realizing that its first act of “radical hospitality” as Alton calls it, would be to provide sanctuary for one of its own members.
Yolanda is a member of Immanuel Church, sings in the choir, and has a teenage daughter involved with the youth group. She is also an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who has been issued her final deportation papers after years of attempting to legalize her citizenship. During an emotional commissioning service as part of Sunday morning’s worship, children from the congregation gave the mother and daughter a blessing and then the youth and the leadership gathered to lay hands on them and pray. The “commissioning” was a ritual to make the space ready for them to move in. They will be moving into the church and actually living there.
“Immanuel is committed to a kind of radical hospitality that involves justice and inclusiveness,” says Alton. He acknowledges that this commitment often puts the church “at the margins of both the body politic and the body of Christ,” which “is not always comfortable but it is a place to which we feel called.”
The New Sanctuary Movement asserts that its churches are not doing anything illegal, as they are not “hiding”anyone, but all names are being made public.
“I am aware that many Presbyterian congregations (and some of our own members) have great difficulty with the church’s involvement in something that is so blatantly extra-legal,” the pastor says. “I would hope that our actions might encourage some Presbyterian congregations to consider anew the possibility that immigration might be one of those places where acting in ways that are at odds with government policy is appropriate.”
Erin Dunigan is a seminary graduate and freelance writer/photographer living in Newport Beach, Calif.
