‘Please Mister President, have mercy…’: The Church’s calling to reach out to refugees and migrants

Abstract

President Donald Trump’s executive order to deport illegal migrants and refugees in the United States of America once again brought the plight of millions of migrants and asylum seekers worldwide to the attention of church leaders locally as well as within the ecumenical community. Revisiting the Old and New Testaments’ message on the calling of God’s people to reach out to the ‘other’ in the community, the article points to six perspectives on the church’s calling to minister the migrants and refugees. The perspectives are: (1) all Christians are foreigners and sojourners in the world; (2) following in the footsteps of Jesus; (3) standing with the Lord against injustice; (4) welcoming migrants and refugees into the church; (5) praying for the harassed and helpless; (6) joining in journeys of hope. The circumstances of refugees and migrants, as well as the churches’ calling to minister to them, are high on the agenda. In local churches, in the ecumenical community as well as institutions of theological training, much attention is given to the subject.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article offers a number of perspectives to reach out to the marginalised that may serve as guidelines in the fields of missiology, practical theology, ethics, church history and ecumenical studies to focus on the calling of the Church internationally as well as in South Africa. The article also offers a literature study of older and more recent publications on the subject, presenting several relevant perspectives.