Our coffee table at home was always covered with publications like The Presbyterian Outlook and newsletters from organizations that fought racism and systemic poverty in the United States and our nation’s militaristic interventions in Central America. Our dinner table conversations centered as much around social justice concerns as the activities of three teenagers and the local church my father pastored. In 1986, we discussed the federal conviction of pastor John Fife and seven others on alien smuggling charges. Fife had started a fire in the faith community in 1982 when he led Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona, to become the first Sanctuary congregation in the United States. He and Southside were responding to the deaths of migrants in the desert and to the U.S. government’s policy of sending undocumented immigrants back to American-backed death squads in Guatemala and El Salvador. The witness of Southside Presbyterian Church to the gospel call to care for travelers … [Read more...]