Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
God Loves Nations: Immigration Through a Biblical Lens
As we see from Genesis to Revelation, God deeply loves the nations, and His overarching plan throughout history involves them. But how does that shape our understanding of immigration today? Join us as we explore the intricate relationship between nations and immigration, tackling the mass migration trends shaping our present moment and the foundations behind God’s heart to bless the nations.
We examine God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 as a springboard for the discussion, “and all nations on earth will be blessed through you,” pointing out the parallels to the Great Commission entrusted to each of us in the New Testament. Looking at the historical contrast between nations and empires, we ask: Should Christians support deportation? How do we balance love for immigrants with the responsibility to maintain order? In a culture that often conflates compassion with open borders, we explore what it means to uphold both biblical justice and mercy.
Through Scripture, history, personal anecdotes, and practical insights, we encourage listeners to thoughtfully engage with immigration in a way that blesses their nation and honors God’s design.
Main Topics:
- God’s Heart for the Nations – How Scripture frames our understanding of national identity and immigration.
- Babel, Globalization, and Borders – What the Bible teaches about the integrity of nations.
- Justice, Mercy, and Order – A balanced and nuanced Christian approach to immigration policy.
View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!
Learn more about DNA’s free online Kingdomizer 101 Training: Truth and Transformation.
Thank you, amen. I always like that, dad, when at the beginning of the discussion you give an idea to the audience of what we're going to cover. You know kind of yeah, yeah, because we've talked about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe, just, yeah. Just overview the outline at the beginning and explain why we're talking about this right now. I am ready, yep.
Scott Allen:Welcome again, everyone, to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen. I'm the president of the DNA, joined today by my friends and co-workers Dwight Vogt, john Bottimore, luke Allen. Hi team, good to be with you guys today.
Luke Allen:Good to be here.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and we're spread out here Dwight's in Phoenix, john's in Florida today Good to be here Nations Alliance and something we've thought a lot about, care a lot about this subject of nations. It's a hot subject right now and it's been this way for some time, but it's really reached, I think, in some ways kind of a peak of energy and heat. What's driving the discussion today? I don't know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Just a few of my thoughts, guys. Number one your thoughts on it. Just a few of my thoughts, guys.
Scott Allen:Number one there's clearly this big push, especially in Europe and the United States, for massive immigration. I mean, in the United States we've seen, you know, during the Biden administration, something like 15 million people crossing the borders in a way that was encouraged and facilitated by government and NGOs and there's a kind of that's the action. There's a whole philosophy kind of behind that. So we're seeing mass immigration right now. I mean that's one kind of topic that's, I think. I mean that's one kind of topic that's, I think, adding heat to this. And I think there's an older but very current kind of idea too. Older in the sense that I remember hearing this, you know, 20 years ago. I remember hearing there was a conversation I had many years ago in Food for the Hungry with a guy who was a development worker, you know, in one of our countries that we worked with, and he was an American like I am, but he took exception to that, didn't like to be called an American, he liked to be referred to as a citizen of the world. I'm a citizen of the world and he made a big deal out of that and I remember feeling like that was odd and didn't quite sit well with me, you know.
Scott Allen:But it's this kind of mindset of globalism that you know nations aren't good, nations are kind of vectors of violence and idolatry, and you know they're a problem. And if we could just kind of get rid of the concept of nations and live together as a giant global family, maybe with the United Nations playing a facilitative role I don't know what you know then everything would be good, we'd be good. And so there is this kind of we shouldn't be too linked in or tied into any particular nation. That's not good. And so I think those two things go together the open immigration, this kind of globalist, kind of anti-nation mindset.
Scott Allen:You hear it a lot today too when people talk about nationalism, christian nationalism. That's a slur, that's a negative, that means that you are bad. You know You're a bad person. If you're a Christian nationalist, you apparently love Trump, or you love the country more than God and you've made the country an idol, etc. I'm not saying that people can't do that. Don't do that. But anyways, what are your thoughts on just current context? There's a lot to say about this, but before we get into just talking about nations and especially how we see nations in the Scriptures and the role of nations, help me fill in the picture of just our current context. Guys, what are you seeing?
John Bottimore:Scott, I think that was a great layout, and this expression of globalization and globalism in terms of the immigration question is also similar to what we've been seeing for what three, four, five decades in terms of the economic impacts of globalization, of trade and intellectual property and supply chain and all of these kinds of things and the and the effects of these on prices, the effects of these on labor forces and countries, and all of this. Ultimately, though and there's good arguments both ways on these sorts of things, depending on the types of things you're talking about, but ultimately this, these things also come down to another near and dear thing to us, which is culture, and important to consider nations and culture and differences and solutions that are different because of different groups and people and languages and cultures and such, and this immigration question is really bringing all of this to the forefront, so it's a really interesting topic.
Scott Allen:Yeah, you know. Thanks for putting that really important piece of the puzzle in place, John. I mean, we live at a time when you look at the broad sweep of history, where the world has become significantly smaller. You know, I think of my grandmother who grew up in South Dakota and she never left. She never traveled to any other country. I don't think she hardly left South Dakota. I think she took a trip, maybe once, to Washington State, but why? I mean she grew up in a time there, before jet airline travel was even possible. And now, not only do we fly around the world, you've got the internet, so've got, I mean. So the world has changed dramatically, you know, in terms of becoming much smaller. And you know those are big changes. You're right, and that affects economics and trade and all these things as well. So really well said, john. Yeah.
Scott Allen:What else, dwight and Luke, what are your thoughts on?
Dwight Vogt:kind of current context here. Yeah, my head's spinning just as you guys start talking, because I'm thinking of most of the news that we hear in the US nowadays is related to something either at our borders or outside our borders, whether it's tariffs or peace treaties in Ukraine or Israel and all the nations involved in trying to get everybody in line Israel and all the nations involved and trying to get everybody in line and just it's all about international cooperation and conflict. Really, we're talking about the nations these days.
Luke Allen:Yeah, and it's been interesting. As the discussion around Christian nationalism has kind of become a common church topic in the US, I've realized that a lot of people don't have a great understanding of why God loves the nations and why nations are throughout the Bible, this concept of nations that God talks about from Genesis to Revelation and it's been interesting. I'm thinking of two people in specific right now who have recently made statements prominent Christian leaders, both of whom I respect, who, when talking about nations the Great Commission in specific they point out that this is not talking about nations. You know, go and make disciples of all nations, great Commission, matthew 28, or 28, yeah, 19.
Luke Allen:They say this is just a translational issue, it's more like go and make disciples of all people in the nations Right, and that, to me, just sheds volumes on how little the church has understood about what nations are and the importance of God's love for the nations.
Scott Allen:So that's also an element to this discussion. I completely agree, Luke. I think the evangelical church right now has really kind of thick blinders on right now and when they see our engagement in the world, our mission towards the world, they think in very individualistic terms.
Scott Allen:It's about getting people saved and getting people into church, and of course it is. But individual people live in communities and you know they live in families and nations and God cares about all of that. You know so. But for people now, they don't like to talk about nations, they want to just talk about individual people. You know so we've got blinders on. I think you're right about that. Yeah, listen, let's move and transition and just talk about nations. Now. Let's maybe just define nations here a little bit. I think you can get really geeky on this, but I also think it's not that complicated. When we define nations, maybe just biblically, what are we talking about? What is a nation? Who wants to just lay some of that out. Dwight, you'll do good on this.
Scott Allen:You went to Biola and studied this.
Dwight Vogt:I'm thinking, Scott, when you raise the question, you must have an answer.
Scott Allen:I do, but I want to hear from somebody else too.
Dwight Vogt:Well, I'll tell you where my first response is is the Tower of Babel. I mean, the whole world was uniting and there was one language, one culture and they built the tower and they wanted to reach God, and God said no, you're going to speak a million different languages now. That's hyperbole but it's a lot of languages and out of that you get nations, because people gather around the language speakers they know.
Scott Allen:Yeah, so a common denominator of nations is typically a common language, and along with a common language comes a common culture. And I would say even deeper than that, usually there's a common religion, a common worship. So you could go back to the ancient Greeks and the worship of Zeus or the Egyptian gods. You know, there's usually a worship at the core of it. So there's these things that kind of unite people and a particular group of people. A geography is typically a part of it as well. John, luke, what are your thoughts on just what is a nation? What defines nation?
John Bottimore:Yeah, so unlike our current definition, which is a political border, a common culture, a common worship, common understandings of ways to look at the world, it can be geographical but it can be very small geographical. You can have many nations within a nation. I mean we look at places like Papua New Guinea where there's something like 800 languages spoken in a not a very large country. There are many, many nations, many people groups within that. So I think if we think of nations as people groups, that really helps us to understand what the diaspora from the Tower of Babel led to around the world, as opposed to the modern-day states. And notice also the modern-day states' borders change. I mean they've changed a lot just since World War I and World War II, but the nations really haven't changed that much, aside obviously from the effects of global media and that kinds of things. But hearts, minds, cultures, religions and everything of these people groups are quite sustaining through centuries.
Scott Allen:So you're putting emphasis there on language, john, I think, as a kind of a real key definer, as a kind of a real key definer and I do too. And the Bible, you know, speaks about peoples, languages, tribes, tongues and languages is often the way it gets kind of phrased. Nations are a combination of tribes, tongues, languages. You know, I do think there's some real—well, we'll talk about this.
Scott Allen:I think the current nation-state people talk about collections of groups that have come together and formed nations. People like Vishal or others call them great nations. They're still nations, you know, even though they're a collection of people that maybe come together from a variety of different nations and that's true with a lot of nations around the world, not just the United States now but they've decided that they want to create a civil body politic and live together as a nation, and so I think that's still valid, even though, you know, in some cases, like in Canada, they may speak different languages, they may speak French and English, or in South Africa they speak two or three different national languages that are official. So I think there's validity to those nations today. So, as nations those are, I think we can call those nations.
Dwight Vogt:But you're right. But even then there's some overarching bond, bond, agreement and principle or philosophy.
Scott Allen:Yes, history shared history Some cultural bond that will connect them even across languages. Exactly exactly.
Dwight Vogt:And out of that then you form a government. Yeah. I mean you don't have. I guess we're leading to that. But you go nation and then you have a government.
Scott Allen:Yes, yes, yes, yes. Let's turn to the Bible now and look at, you know, nations is actually a significant idea and theme. Actually, all through the scriptures and Dwight, you already put a piece on the table here with the Tower of Babel. That's the beginning of nations. You know, from the time of Genesis, through the flood and then after the flood, you know, there weren't nations as we understand nations. There was just one group of people that all spoke the same language and there was, in a sense, one culture.
Scott Allen:But God, you know, said to Adam and Eve at the very beginning I want you to, you know, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth right, fill the earth right, fill the earth, spread out. And after the flood, the kind of human rebellion said no, we're all going to gather together in this one plane and we're going to create a tower and all live together and we're going to protect ourselves. I think the Babel is a fascinating story in Genesis, chapter 11, because it happens right after the flood and I've heard some Bible scholars say that it was protection, it was flood insurance.
Scott Allen:You know, we're going to build a tower and if God ever sends a flood, again, we'll be ready, you know, and it talks about making a name for ourselves too, and you know we're going to protect ourselves from this vengeful God. But so God says, no, you're not, I'm going to confuse your language and you are going to spread out over the face of the earth because of the confusion of languages. So that's the beginning of nations and it's interesting, you know, if you go all the way to the end, when you look at the new heaven and the new earth, it's not like we all come back into one monoculture again. No, the nations continue into the new heaven and the new earth. It's not like we all come back into one monoculture again. No, the nations continue into the new heavens and new earth. We see pictures of this, with the kings of the earth bringing their gifts into the new Jerusalem. There is that diversity of nations even in the new heaven and the new earth. So it continues from Babel forward.
Scott Allen:Let's continue the theme, though. Guys. You know we talk about Babel, but where else do we see nations in the Scripture? You know this is something I've done a lot of reading and writing about and teaching on. I've got thoughts, but you know I don't want to dominate too much here. What are your thoughts? Continue just kind of the biblical piece of this Luke. You already put the Great Commission on. Obviously, right there, at the heart of Jesus's mission to the Church go and make disciples of all nations. I don't think that's a mistake. I don't think he meant all individual people. There is a difference between individual people and nations. They're not the same thing. There is a difference between individual people and nations. They're not the same thing. Even collections of individual people are different than nations. Nations have a distinct character all of their own. Yeah, they are made up of individual people, but you can't equate them.
Luke Allen:Go ahead, Luke. Yeah, you see it throughout the entire narrative of the Bible, right?
Scott Allen:Yes.
Luke Allen:We're always looking at the Bible as best as possible through the big picture lens of creation, fall, redemption, restoration, right, and throughout every stage of that you see nations, as you just pointed out, dad, like you were saying in Revelations. I was looking at Revelation 7 this morning and I love the verse where it says after this I looked and behold, this is in the new heavens of the new earth. This I looked and behold, this is in the new heavens of the new earth. And a great multitude that one could not number, every nation, every tribe, people, language, standing before the throne of the lamb, clothed in white robes and with palm branches in their hands. And that's just a beautiful picture that in the new heavens and the new earth there's going to be the nations.
Scott Allen:The diversity of the nations.
Luke Allen:Yes, we're still going to be categorized as such with our nations and our languages.
Luke Allen:Yeah, we'll be Americans, we'll be British, we'll be yeah, you know, whatever it is exactly, and throughout the Old Testament it's obviously very clear the nations, the nation state of Israel. You have Babylon, you have Persia, you know, and they're pretty clearly defined nations and you see that throughout the Old Testament, god's plan for Israel is to bless the nations, starting with Abraham, moving on from there. So that's obviously very clear throughout the Old Testament and I think we can all agree on that. But you see that in the New Testament as well, and that's, I think, where sometimes we get a little confused. I'd like to hear you guys' thoughts on that. John, it looked like you had something to say.
John Bottimore:Yeah, I think you alluded to it here just a minute ago in the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, when God said to Abraham I'll make you a great nation, I'll bless you and make your name great, so that you'll be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.
Scott Allen:And in you and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And that word families can be translated to as nations. John In you all nations on the earth will be blessed.
John Bottimore:yeah, so all of this was very much a promise, but it was also very much a responsibility and a calling to Abraham. And then, of course, this all played out in the formation of the nation of Israel and its ultimate split into Judah and Israel and such and again this disobedience, just like Tower of Babel, this disobedience leads to the formation of new nations and so, yeah, it played out all through the Old Testament and of course, we see it also in Abraham's offspring in terms of the line of Jacob versus Esau and all going in different directions and nations that resulted out of that so very prevalent. I want to underscore.
Scott Allen:I think what you're talking about is super important, john, and I don't think Christians give it enough, don't have a clear enough kind of picture of this in their minds or give it nearly enough importance. That, especially Genesis 12, 1 and 2, this is really the beginning of God's, in a sense, his strategy for redeeming the whole world, and it's a strategy, if you will, that hasn't changed, it's not, it's still. This is the same basic game plan and it's just what you said I'm going to. He chooses Abraham out of all of the nations and all the people. He comes down to one man, abraham, and then he makes him a promise I'm going to make you a nation and then he makes him a promise. I'm going to make you a nation, and that's the nation of Israel, and I'm going to bless you and I'm going to give you a mission. You're going to be a nation with a mission and that mission is to be a blessing and at the end of time, if you carry out this mission in my help, all the nations on earth will be blessed through you. So somebody described it to me. It's this way it's like God could have done his redemptive plan for the world in any, all sorts of different ways. But he said I'm going to do it through nations. I'm going to create one nation, I'm going to really bless that nation. But the point isn't for them to be blessed and just go oh aren't we great? And we just can revel in God's blessing and forget the rest of the world. No, the whole point is that you're blessed to be a blessing to the nations and you see this in the Old Testament, throughout the Old Testament, in the sense that God does this. So you see it right away, with the story of Joseph. Right, joseph, one of the people from this nation, abraham's nation, the Jewish nation, ends up, you know, in prison in Egypt and you know. Then you know the whole story of Joseph ends up, you know, getting elevated to second in command. Egypt is the most powerful empire in the world. This giant famine comes and God uses who. He uses Joseph in Pharaoh's court to save. It says to save the entire world, actually, from this terrible famine. That's an example of how God uses this nation, the people of this nation, to be a blessing to the world.
Scott Allen:I think too of you know, during the time of Solomon. You know, solomon was the builder of the temple and he built a part of that temple explicitly for other nations, for Gentiles. There was the tabernacle of the, or the courtyard for the Gentiles, so that they could come and worship the living God, the God of Israel. And that happened. You know he prayed that they would. He prayed that they would come and know the living God and that we could be a blessing to them because they would have access to the knowledge of the living God. And then you see the story of Sheba. You know in present day, wherever it is, libya or Ethiopia, coming and worshiping the living God and going back and bringing knowledge of the living God back to her nation. And so this is the picture of what God wants for the nation of Israel. And you see it again in Psalm 67, very beautifully, where David prays. You know he says God bless us, bless our nation, so that all the nations on earth will be blessed. You know he prays for that.
Scott Allen:And then, if I could just add one more piece, the time that Jesus was the most angry. We know the time when he was tipping over. You know tables in the temple. He was irate. You know whipping people, you know just going berserk really.
Scott Allen:And the reason was, and he said very clearly he goes this is a temple for all nations. I gave it to Israel because Israel was to be a blessing to all the nations, but you have turned it into a den of thieves. In other words, nations were coming to worship the living God at the temple and you were extorting them with these exorbitant prices for their you know their sacrifices, and that just set him off because they were deliberately misusing their purpose, which was to be a blessing. So the biblical idea there, if I could summarize it, is that God raised up nations and blesses nations, not so that they can be worshipped or anything like that, but so that they can be a blessing to other nations and in that way, god's blessing spreads through the world. That's just his game plan. So any thoughts on that? I?
Dwight Vogt:want to. Again. You're making me think, scott, so I'm like well, okay, that explains nations.
Scott Allen:But why did God it's?
Luke Allen:So, I'm like well, okay, that explains nations.
Dwight Vogt:But why did God? It's interesting because I grew up saying, well, the Tower of Babel was a curse and God was afraid that the world would become one and everybody would speak the same language and then there would be this great evil. And so we have the World Economic Forum and we have the Mark of the Beast, and that's a bad direction. We don't ever want one world. So that's evil. So he creates nations to push back evil. That's how we're going to do it. But then when you see in heaven, you would think, well, he would erase the nations in heaven. Why doesn't he erase the nations? If the nations were something against evil, why doesn't he erase them and make us all one? And yet he doesn't? I'm just thinking about that. I'm going. I think it's because God really does love diversity.
Dwight Vogt:He does and he loves culture and he loves language and he loves expression. Yes. And the worst thing that can happen is when you know one nation takes over the whole world, makes everybody think alike, talk alike, wear the same clothes alike, and God said, no, I don't want that. I want this wonderful diversity. So I'm not only going to keep individuals as individuals, but I'm going to keep nations as nations. That's my hypothesis here.
Scott Allen:Yeah, no, it's a really important point. And, by the way, just back to Babel, really really important point. Yeah, no, it's a really important point. And, by the way, just back to Babel, I mean for sure it was the fallen heart of man, right, that was kind of rebelling against God. We're not going to spread over the face of the earth, we're all going to come together against you.
Scott Allen:And I think there's a mercy at Babel, though, too. God could have wiped them out like he did at the flood, but he didn't. And in his mercy, god always is taking evil and using it for good, and I think that's what he does at Babel. He confuses their languages. He creates the nations, doesn't make nations bad. It actually is kind of a mercy that he creates the nations, I think.
Scott Allen:But yeah, this is something I learned most recently from a Jewish scholar who sees Israel, I think correctly, as the quintessential nation, the model of nations for all nations, and he said this is oh, what's this? I can't think of it right now, but Yoram Hazoni, yeah, he said nations, you have to always remember nations in the Bible are always offset against empire. Nations are good, godly, part of God's plan. Empire is evil. Empire is always a mark of Satan and human rebellion. What is an empire, then? And he says empire is a nation.
Scott Allen:Luke, you mentioned Persia. It's a good example. It was a nation, right, you know, there was the Persian people. But then they set about becoming an empire by conquering other nations and trying to put everybody under their rule. Right? So this or the Babylonian empire, or the Greek or the Roman, you know that this idea of we're going to conquer other nations and put them under our heel, that's the basic idea of empire. That's not biblical. God wants that diversity. I think part of the reason he wants it is the same reason that our founding fathers in the United States wanted a separation of powers, that whenever there's a concentration of power, it creates great evil. And if you could separate power there's a lot of separation of power out there through a great variety of nations it minimizes the amount of evil that can be done in the world. You know.
John Bottimore:That's right, god knows the human heart and he knows, when we have this kind of empire, absolute power, then absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes.
Luke Allen:Yeah, dad, when you explain kind of the story of nations throughout the Old Testament. I love that overview. I think most Christians would agree with that. But I think we often think, well, that was BC, now we're AD. Yes, something's changed. You know, jesus came, jesus changed everything.
Luke Allen:And yet I think it's so important to make that connection is? You know, after Jesus died, rose again, he's about to ascend and the disciples are like, hey, you just made all things new. You know, you changed us from BC to AD. This is. You know what's the new plan Jesus? What are we going to do now? He says same plan Go and make disciples of all nations. And you know, obviously it's going to look a little different now, uh, because we're on this side of christ's resurrection, but still go and make disciples of all nations. And then what's cool is we look through history, the last 2 000 years. I think christians have recognized that well in our good times. And uh, for example, the modern nation states in europe were created by christians who recognized the model of is in the Old Testament and said, oh, we should make the German nation, we should make the Netherlands into a nation. And yet tell me if I'm getting a little bit carried away here, but then the pride of man came along.
Scott Allen:You're bringing up a really important piece of history, Luke. I want to go into that a little bit.
Luke Allen:I know, but just a second if I could finish my point. But then the pride of man came along not long after that and we see the age of colonization. And they switched from seeing themselves as nations to seeing themselves as empires, empire, yep.
Luke Allen:And it went from, you know, the Netherlands as its little country with its little people group, its little language, to trying to take over the world and taking over parts of Africa and so on and so forth, right kind of. And then, like you were saying, dad, maybe the US founding fathers kind of pushed against that idea and said we need to stop doing this. We're getting too, you know, we're reaching too far in, like the English Empire at that time.
Luke Allen:So, let's get back to this idea of more of a biblical idea of nations. Is that too much of a stretch? No, you put a lot of really important things on the table.
Scott Allen:I'd like to kind of unpack a little bit. The difference between Old Testament and New Testament when it comes to nations is a really important question, because in the Old Testament it was literally the nation of Israel and in the New Testament it changes dramatically. And here's why I think what happens happens with jesus. It says this is significant is that you gentiles, like all of us here, we then become through faith in jesus, we get, we come grafted in right to to that promise of abraham and that nation. You know we are now citizens of israel in a sense. You know, through faith in jesus christ and in the sense that the blessing now comes to us and we then carry it out not as blood Jews but as people grafted into the promise of being a part of a nation that's been blessed in order to be a blessing. But then how does that, you know, work out? That works out through all the nations, because we're part of all the nations now right Through Christ. You know this kind of blessing then expands to Gentiles and then they bring that blessing to all the nations. So it gets kind of multiplied through Jesus in a significant way. I think that's important.
Scott Allen:But back to the history, luke. You know the concept of nations was kind of lost. Actually it got kind of subsumed by the concept of empire during the early church days, because the context of the early church was in the context of the Roman Empire. It was an empire, right, this big empire. And then when Constantine and many of these leaders of the Roman Empire became Christians, there was this dramatic change, the kind of Christianization but it was a Christianization of an empire, right Suddenly, not so much a nation but an empire, and I've heard people say that kind of.
Scott Allen:One of the downfalls or challenges, I guess, of the Catholicism is that it kind of cut its teeth within the context of that empire mentality, such that the Pope then kind of just replaced Caesar and you had kind of this kind of Christian empire idea. That lasted for quite a while through the Middle Ages and that kind of came to an end with the Reformation, when people opened the Bibles and could read the Bibles in their native language for the first time and people started going. They kind of recovered this biblical idea of nations, starting with Israel, and they said we should be a nation Switzerland, england, holland, that's when you had the modern nation states. It was right after the Reformation, the modern nation states, and it was kind of a recovery of that old idea of nations. We should be a nation under God and be a blessing to the nations. It was a good idea, you know, and you're right, in a fallen world it got corrupted.
Scott Allen:Many of those countries went on and kind of formed their own empires. That's always the tension, isn't it? I think, and I see that tension today too, with globalism, because globalism really is just another way of saying empire, isn't it? You know, if it's, it has to be kind of either nation state nations, or or is some kind of super nation kind of a thing somebody's going mean. You know so, and I'm not to me, anytime you go to that supra-nation thing, you're moving back towards that rebellious babble position. You know which is dangerous for us.
John Bottimore:Yeah, john, it's a control, it's a power, it's another expression of self-worship, and anytime we get far, far away where decisions are, far far away from where the needs and solutions are best understood, it's not a good solution. I mean, we're not talking here about education in the United States now, but that's a great example of returning education to the states and even to the local areas and all of that. So it's a really important antidote to power and corruption that globalization can bring, to keep the idea of nations and cultures, even in today's world, like we're talking about now nations and cultures, even in today's world, like we're talking about now.
Scott Allen:John, you and I lived in Japan and I've always been struck by the relationship between the United States and Japan, especially after World War II, and I think it's to me it's one of the high watermarks of our country, our nation, which is kind of you know what Joram has done we call a great nation because we're a nation of nations. But we are a nation. We have a common history and you know common geography and things like that. But it's interesting, the founding fathers of the United States, they were making the decision to separate from England right at the time when England was just on the verge of becoming this massive global empire. And they saw that and they kind of opted out of that. They said we want to be our own nation. So that's interesting. They formed a nation and I think the United States at its best understood that we exist as a nation to be a blessing to other nations and not to be an empire.
Scott Allen:And there's always been temptation and we've failed, often kind of moved in that empire direction. But especially at the end of World War II that would have been the easiest time for us to kind of become a great empire because, you know, the world was in collapse. We had just defeated a country like Japan. It would have been very easy for us to make Japan part of the greater American empire, but decisions were made there, I think correctly and biblically actually to say no, japan is its own unique nation and it needs to stand up again as a nation. And actually the United States brought missionaries to Japan. It didn't try to subsume Japan. You know, made decisions even to keep the emperor of Japan instead of hanging him. And you know we became friends quite quickly and we were a blessing. If you ask Japanese people today, you know they have good feelings towards America, which is amazing because we fought this brutal war and we defeated them. But it was the way we treated them after the war, by respecting them as a people and not trying to take them over and trying to get them up on their own feet.
Scott Allen:And I think that, to me, was the United States at its best. Now there's lots of examples of when we've been at our worst. I think of the way we treated a lot of the indigenous peoples, the native peoples. You know you discover gold in the Black Hills and there's the Sioux Nation there we're just going to run roughshod right over them because we want the gold. I mean, we've been. You know it's a checkered history, but there's been times where our own nation, I think, has understood the biblical and walked in that in a way. That's been good. So any thoughts on what I'm saying here?
Dwight Vogt:So nations are good. Yeah, I'm going to jump now Go ahead, let's transition. What does that have to do with immigration?
Scott Allen:John, what are your thoughts on that?
John Bottimore:Yeah, we need a good segue here. So we've talked a lot about nations as people, groups, languages, cultures and everything, and without trying to totally differentiate that from political borders and all of that, let's just kind of keep both of those in play. We have immigration now and maybe we have this idea that's another expression of globalization that people should be free to live anywhere they want. Well, that's not been the immigration policy of our nation, nor has that been the immigration policy of hardly any nation. And again, now I'm talking about countries with sovereign governments and political borders and all of that. And again, if we want to use this, nations are good, empires are bad kind of an idea. It's the common understanding of things, the common language, the common culture, the support for one another types of things that is challenged when you have unfettered immigration. Yes.
John Bottimore:And so we absolutely believe in immigration, we absolutely believe in caring for the oppressed, in dealing with refugees and you know true asylees and political oppression, religious oppression and kinds of things that happen, and we have a system that has for a long time dealt with that. That's very different than the kind of immigration that we see now. That is challenging the nations, if you will, because it's much more of a preference thing. Make no mistake, these are very, very difficult situations that people are in, but they're primarily economically driven and things like that. They're not the same as the kind of religious persecution.
John Bottimore:Necessarily, political persecution that we see we face today in our nation and in Europe has faced a lot, let's say, in the last 10 years since the Syrian civil war broke out and such, and we see the impacts of that throughout Western Europe and we're in a very different situation here because it's largely a different people group again, of different nations, that are coming into the United States but still having a very significant impact on our nation or our culture. I'm going to stop in just one second after just saying this. A lot of this is wonderful in terms of the things that come in New ideas, new foods, new cultures, new languages, new music, et cetera. It's wonderful to have this stuff added to the expression of life in the United States, but it also brings in huge challenges to again to the culture of a nation. So, dwight, I'm not sure that really gave a crisp transition of immigration to the nation.
Dwight Vogt:Well, I'm going to ask a follow-up question, john. Yeah, we just finished talking about the nations. The nations are good. God created nations, he loves nations, he wants nations to flourish and yet before this podcast, we talked about it and where we're at. But what's the question in the church today? There's some confusion in the church today. It came out with the Pope talking about JD Vance's comment last week.
Scott Allen:Yeah, go ahead with that. So maybe somebody could just summarize For those who aren't familiar with that, because I thought that was kind of a clarifying discussion.
Dwight Vogt:But there's confusion in the church with regard to nations and borders, and I'd rather not clarify that. I'd rather one of you do it. But that's what I'm asking. What's the confusion? Well, I can pause and let you.
Scott Allen:I can clarify and then you can continue. Yeah, jd Vance came out and said you know, we do think that there he was talking about Christian kind of Christian thought and quoting Luke correct me if I'm wrong Augustine no. Aquinas, the Summa yeah.
Scott Allen:Aquinas JD Vance is Catholic, but Aquinas, of course, one of the great church fathers, and I think Aquinas' point isn't Catholic, I think it's Christian. There's a natural order to our loves. We can't love everyone, even though the Bible calls us to love our neighbor. We are to love all people in a sense, but practically speaking you can't, because we're finite. We, we are to love all people in a sense, but practically speaking you can't, because we're finite. We can't love six, seven, eight billion or whatever the world population is. You know, we can barely. You know you helped me on this, luke. One time you said there's been studies done on how many people you can actually have any kind of relationship with. It's pretty small isn't it?
Luke Allen:What is it? Yeah, humans, I mean, throughout history we've lived in small villages. So they did a study on how many people you can actually be close to and live life with and care about and emotionally invest in and whatnot. And these are studies that came out of the UK, I don't know five years ago, and they figured that the number for most people is between about 100 and 150. Right, and that's kind of people you can actually worry about.
Scott Allen:That's your limit Right.
Luke Allen:Yeah, and so the.
Scott Allen:Bible says there is. So yeah, we're to love all people, but there's an order to our loves, and you know the Latin phrase. I can't say it like JD.
Luke Allen:Vance did Say it again.
Scott Allen:Order amoris. That's it, order amororis.
Luke Allen:That's it, order Amoris.
Scott Allen:Yes, and that is that you're to love, like, let's say, you're supposed to love your wife more than your children, right, and it gets kind of weird if you turn that around.
Scott Allen:It goes bad. Let's say, you're to love your family and, you know, have a responsibility of caring for your family in a way that you don't with other families Not that you don't care for other families, but you've got to kind of put that hierarchy or order to this. And he was saying all this and he said and nation, we have a responsibility to care for the people of our own nations before we start trying to care for the whole world. And Pope Francis shot back saying, no, we have to care for the whole world, right, and Pope Francis shot back saying, no, you know, we have to care for the whole world, you know, and he didn't like this idea of kind of prioritizing our loves, it seems to me. Anyways, that was kind of the thing that came out, you know, and Pope Francis was kind of reflecting more of the globalist mindset. You know, we have a responsibility to love the whole world, you know, including.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, go ahead more of the globalist mindset. We have a responsibility to love the whole world, including, and not only that. I think there's the Mixed into this.
Scott Allen:love the whole world is still the idea that you're one world citizen, friend back at Food for the Hungry Right that mindset we shouldn't even have nations we should have one global community with no borders. Yes.
Dwight Vogt:And everybody should just be one, and that's actually people in the church sometimes feel that way, yeah.
Scott Allen:I think that it goes together with a negative feeling towards the nations, that nations are kind of bad and there's reasons that people can feel that way. Right, nations have attacked other nations and done bad things, so we should. You know things would be better if we didn't have them and our nation is bad, you know there's this kind of critical feeling towards our own nation. Yeah, go ahead, luke.
Luke Allen:Especially as Americans. We struggle with this because you know the guy you used to work with. We go on these mission trips you know whether it's to Haiti or to Rwanda and we look at these people and we say why in the world do I get to be an American? You grew up here. You know I remember speaking to again from Nepal and he was describing the visa to America as the golden visa, Like if you can get that, you're set. It was like you feel a little guilty, right you know why? Why me Definitely?
Luke Allen:Um so how do we, how do we justify that? You know, an easy response is everyone come here. You know. But I don't think that's the right response.
Scott Allen:I think you know we are to love the whole world. But the way you love another nation is you try to go to that nation and if you can offer help and support you know the missionaries do that, people that work in Christian relief and development let's help them, you know, as a nation, and not try to kind of erase their borders and erase our borders and just kind of merge us all together. That doesn't seem to me the Christian approach. Yeah, we should. People are called some Christians are called heroically to go cross-culturally and share the love of God and bring development to other nations. Not everyone, so it's not a calling for everybody and it doesn't—you know. And just because we're to love our own families and our own nations in a higher kind of category of order doesn't mean we don't love other people or other nations. Right, I mean you know what I'm saying. It's not we love them and we don't love them. It's just we have to kind of prioritize loves.
John Bottimore:Go ahead, john. I'll try it. Exactly when God said at Pentecost to the church, he said you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, judea, samaria and to the ends of the earth. He didn't say oh, by the way, when you get to the ends of the earth it's now called blank empire and we're going to get rid of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
Scott Allen:So the nations remain. And, by the way, john, that's a super important nations verse, that one you quoted right there, you know. Again, going back to our biblical theme of nations, that one's super important. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, judea and into all the earth.
John Bottimore:You know we're to go into all the nations, right, yeah, and we have now again, amidst globalization, a lot of the Judea Samaria, to the ends of the earth, have come to us in our nation here, and so the cultures and differences come to us.
John Bottimore:We're no better equipped to necessarily deal with them than we would be if we were going there, but we're called to do that as the church. But again, the idea of unfettered immigration into a nation is a lot different than the calling of the church to go to all the nations of the world through missionaries, whether they be sent missionaries or national missionaries.
Scott Allen:That's very different than the idea of just opening all borders to all people around the world, I think a lot of the current attitude behind immigration today is, yeah, unfettered, open borders, with the idea that when they come here, they don't need to in any way integrate into our nation. Because we don't love our nation, we don't even believe in it, we don't want it. There's kind of a sense we want to tear it down and this is a way to do it actually, I think, whereas earlier generations said no, there is a unique American nation. We love it, we're proud of it and we want to welcome immigrants, but they have to become part of America. They have to learn our language, our customs, our language, our constitution, our constitutional system of government and they have to kind of love that. And we have to work at that.
Scott Allen:That takes some time. You can't just open it up, and now the idea is you just come, whatever culture, language you have, that's fine. You can just set up your little islands and tribal groups in the United States and you see that right. You see that in places like Michigan, for example, where you've got lots of Muslim immigrants who don't even speak English or whatever it is, you know, and that's the kind of idea now. It's just, you know, this melting pot idea is really vilified today. Well, we know.
John Bottimore:It's just, you know, this melting pot idea is really vilified today. Well, we know, certainly there are some proponents of open immigration who really want that kind of thing to be a hurt to the United States and to remake it in some other image or whatever. But setting that aside for a minute, the metaphor that we've always had is a melting pot. Yes.
John Bottimore:Yes, that we've always had is a melting pot where, yes, we want lots of different things to come in, but it's all melted together into a beautiful, into a beautiful amalgam, a beautiful mixture in a melting pot from the many one, right, you know that's yeah what probably it's probably been a good 20, 30 years from now, but I've only heard it recently. Now they call it a tossed salad, this idea that you have an onion and you have a tomato and you have a carrot.
John Bottimore:They exist side by side, but they don't mix together. They don't mix together.
John Bottimore:They don't adopt a common culture, Even though they come from different cultures they don't adopt a new common culture.
Scott Allen:It's an anti-nation idea behind that. John isn't it? It is.
Dwight Vogt:It actually attacks the idea of nation, it idea behind that. John, isn't it? It is it actually?
Dwight Vogt:attacks the idea of nation. It does, yes, it gets to the root of nation. And it's interesting, you know, why do we have borders? Why is it okay for Japan to have borders? Why is it okay for Switzerland to have borders, for Germany, for, whatever you know, south Africa, and I'm thinking back to Genesis 1, that one of the things that is very clear in creation is God said my plan for the world will be to take chaos which was Genesis 1 and 2, and bring order.
Dwight Vogt:I'm going to separate, I'm going to have boundaries. There's going to be boundaries between light and dark, there's going to be separation between animals, and so order becomes the goal of God to create order, because that's where he knows there's safety and order. So this nation is responsible for creating order around this people group and this nation has borders, so it creates order. It doesn't mean you exclude people. You can have a melting pot, but where we've blown it is we've just thrown, we've invited disorder. Not that people are disordered, but we have allowed a situation in our country where it creates disorder. Yes, and that is never godly, in my opinion.
Scott Allen:No, disorder isn't God's way.
Luke Allen:And it's a simple concept, it's chaos. If you have a teacher who has a classroom of 14 students. The teacher can handle that classroom well and create order and freedom and a place for students to learn. Once you throw 200 other students in that classroom, you know there goes the order instantly.
Dwight Vogt:Right, it's somewhat similar. Nobody flourishes, nobody prospers, nobody thrives.
Scott Allen:I think the other thing you lose too, dwight, in this kind of globalist, kind of empire mindset is not just order but diversity. God loves diversity and there's something so powerful and beautiful about the diversity of the nations. You know, I was in Columbia, South America, in September and I was teaching down there and it was one of their national holidays. I forget one of the days that I was down there I don't remember what it was celebrating, but we started the teaching time with. They brought in the Colombian flag and everyone stood and put their hand over their heart and then they showed a 20-minute video of Colombia that had Colombian music to it, beautiful music, unique, powerful. That beautiful music from Latin America and Colombia specifically, and it showed the people of Colombia, you know, and the indigenous people, the people that had immigrated from Spain. It showed the geography, it showed the ocean, it showed the mountains, it showed the food, showed the dancing, and at the end of that thing I was crying. I was like this is so beautiful, you know, and I was.
Scott Allen:You know it's another nation, columbia's, not my own nation, but there's something about nations that's just we get a sense of it at the, you know the Olympics, or you know where you see these nations and people are proud of their nations, are proud of the distinctives, their uniquenesses, and it's something we all celebrate, isn't it Right? I mean, there's something very good about that.
Dwight Vogt:Go ahead, dwight. Yeah, and I'm arguing that order, to have diversity, you have to have order. Yeah, because order provides the place where you can then have diversity. I mean, the founders of the United States had wanted 13 unique colonies, but they wanted enough order so that those 13 colonies could flourish and thrive and trade and do different things and have different, you know, activities. So, anyway, order does not mean equality or uniformity.
John Bottimore:Yeah that's right, and I would take it a step further. To have healthy diversity, not only do you have to have order, but you have to have unifying things that you are aiming at together, and that gets back to culture and other things. Otherwise you have a tossed salad where the tomato goes wherever it wants to and the fork never finds it. If you have a melting pot, you have this coming together. So it's really important.
John Bottimore:The idea of diversity by itself is not unifying. You have to have a higher unifying objective. And, of course, when we look at this in the church, the church is full of all tribes, tongues and nations. The unity is very simple the love of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ whom we worship and adore and we will worship at the throne for all time. So that kind of unity Now I mean taking it down to humans in today's world and everything it's not that same level of unity, but it still has something that pulls it together and we can argue that patriotism. We talked about Christian nationalism earlier. Let's just separate that general idea or whatever. But patriotism of a country and a nation is a good thing. By the way, I'm not saying anything by that that Christian nationalism isn't, I'm just for anybody listening to this, it automatically turns off when you say Christian nationalism is still the idea.
John Bottimore:I think Christian nationalism is just a slur.
John Bottimore:It is, it's assuming that any kind of love for your nation is wrong when you say Christian nationalism is still the idea.
Scott Allen:I think Christian nationalism is just a slur. It's assuming that any kind of love for your nation is wrong. I would say that's false. We should love our nation, but it shouldn't be a disordered love. Our love for our nation certainly should not be greater than our love for God. They would accuse those who kind of use that phrase. Christian nationalists would accuse. If you have any love for your nation, that means you love your nation more than God. No, no.
John Bottimore:Yeah, I would argue that because of our love for God and we see this expressed in our nation, we can have a love for our nation. That's trying to do that, so it doesn't replace it. It is simply striving, because of the love of God, to have that kind of love and expression in a nation.
Dwight Vogt:Anyway, Dwight, you were going to say something.
Scott Allen:Oh.
Dwight Vogt:I, like Andrew Peterson, has this song that he sings every year at his Christmas program. You know it's. I love this city and he's talking about Nashville and it's just this heart-wrenching it's. I love this city and he's talking about Nashville and it's just this heart wrenching. Oh, I love this city and he talks about the sounds and the smells and the beauty of his city Of a place Basically he's not saying, he's not a nationalist, he's a lover of his city and a steward. And what's unique about it.
Scott Allen:That's right. Special about it, we shifted over to nationalism. We shifted over to nationalism, but anyway, no same idea, but it's the same with the nation.
Dwight Vogt:You steward your nation.
Scott Allen:You love your nation and I think, as Christians, this gets back to make disciples of all nations we talked about. One of the defining characteristics of a nation is a common religion, a common worship. All cultures have at the center a cult right. You know, all cultures have at the center a cult right. And to disciple the nations is simply to say where that worship is the worship of an idol, a false god, it's going to destroy the nation. That's just basic biblical ideas. It's the worship of the true and living God. It's the replacing of that worship that causes that nation to thrive and to flourish. It doesn't lose the distinctiveness of being a unique nation. Colombia is not South is not, japan is not South Africa. It doesn't lose the distinctive, but it becomes.
Scott Allen:It's like the glory that's present in the uniqueness there is revealed through the worship of the living God.
Scott Allen:That's what I think it means to disciple a nation through the worship of the living God. That's what I think it means to disciple a nation that it should be reflected nationally, this worship of the living God, in a way that brings flourishing and freedom and causes the uniqueness and the distinctiveness of these different nations to flourish. And so then, when you get to the new heavens and the new earth, and this common picture in Isaiah and in Revelation of the kings of the earth bringing the glory and the splend. Heavens and the new earth, and this common picture in Isaiah and in Revelation of the kings of the earth bringing the glory and the splendor of the nations into the New Jerusalem. It's something like that. It's once the nation has been discipled and worshiped the living God and the glory has been revealed. That's unique, that is then offered as a gift. That kind of revealing of that glory, that unique glory of each nation, I think is something that is central to Christian mission.
Luke Allen:If we could yeah, go for it, dwight.
Dwight Vogt:I was going to change direction, well, I want to transition to something else and you might just shut it down, guys. But okay, disciple the nation. And we have an immigration issue in the us, a huge challenge with what? 30 million illegal people in our nation with no citizenship status and no rights to be here. You know what are we going to do. You know who? So we have my friend, john thune, who's a you know senator, head of the senate, and he's a biola graduate alma mater.
Scott Allen:Is he your friend? What Is he your friend?
Dwight Vogt:No, his brother is. My wife knows his brother, that's all what, yeah, and it's a small.
Scott Allen:Wow, dwight, but anyway it just that means I can say that my coworkers you know, get him on the podcast? My question is this.
Dwight Vogt:My question is this my question is this and yet there's a guy in our church that owns a soup kitchen in a part of town where it works with illegals and provides food. They both want to disciple a nation. They're both American citizens. What advice would you give them, based on our conversation today, in terms of how they should go about discipling our nation on this issue of immigration and people coming in?
John Bottimore:Yeah, let me try.
Dwight Vogt:Okay.
John Bottimore:We have some experience in working with that population as well. I think the message is very clear to the individual Christian Love those people, love them, serve them, serve them, proclaim the gospel in word and in deed. Christian love, love those people, love them, serve them, serve them, proclaim the gospel in word and indeed, and seek for them to become a believer in Jesus Christ, but not conditionally, not as a rice Christian or a soup Christian. It's very clear to the individual. I think it's very clear to the local church. That's not to say that everybody in the local church gets involved in that ministry, as opposed to many other good ministries, but it's clear that the local church ought to be a light to its community, of all people in its community, not just natives of the United States in there. So that's all very, very clear.
Scott Allen:If I could just brag on you a little bit. John too, because this is very much a calling for you and your wife Kim. I mean, I've known you guys for years and I've seen how you've done this with people in church or in community from Iran or Afghanistan, and you've become their friends. You've brought them into your home, you've helped them in all sorts of ways where they need help. I mean you guys really model this to me. You've been a real example of this and you continue.
Scott Allen:I know that's a big part of your ministry, even today.
John Bottimore:Yeah, thank you, and Kim has a real, real, real heart in that too, and I'm learning as well. So that's I think it's very important. It's a very important message to individual Christians and to the church. But we ought not, as citizens let's say, now, all of us are citizens of the United States we ought not conflate that as a command to our government to say, well, you have to do the same. I mean a citizen. A nation is sovereign and a nation is going to make immigration policies and services to immigrants.
Scott Allen:Let's say a nation or the rulers of a nation have a responsibility towards the borders in a way that maybe just the average citizen doesn't.
John Bottimore:Is that that's right and and really I think it's an expression of order amorous. If they have first, they have first and a uh, a duty to its citizens. And absolutely we want, as a nation founded on biblical truth, to express that and welcome in people and all from other nations in an orderly way and in a way that and it's not wrong to say, by the way, that we want to have immigration that serves America's self-interest, because a stronger America can be a better partner in the world. A weak America cannot be a very good partner in the world. So it's not wrong to say that, it's not selfish to say that. So I think we as Christians have to be careful not to conflate the commands of scripture that we have to ourselves to our government. That's the real issue.
Scott Allen:What I hear you say, if I could say, john is something—it's kind of the road less traveled, because it seems to me today in the Church just speaking of maybe even the Evangelical Church or the Bible-believing Church I don't hear a lot of that. I hear people that care a lot about immigration and immigrants but they tend to kind of just say care for the immigrants means open borders, right across the border illegally as economic migrants, calling them political asylum seekers, facing political persecution if we can game it, whatever. But I'm not hearing you say that. I'm hearing you say something that I really agree with, but I don't hear it a lot in the church, which is love the immigrant, care for them as individuals and as churches, but from a political standpoint, support governments that have policies that have rational and border policies that protect the nation.
John Bottimore:I just don't hear that a lot. No, that's right. That's right. Or be obedient to the laws in any way, even if you don't really agree with it. Be obedient to the laws because that's our nation.
Scott Allen:We want to be obedient to that which is really what we need to do right now. Isn't it Through our rule of laws to change them? No, it's. Our immigration laws have been so gamed and played with through all variety of special interests who benefit from one way or another from people flooding into the country.
John Bottimore:Well, here's an example of language and we talk about how important language is, words and definitions and everything we talk about. Everybody who comes into the United States now as a refugee they're not. A refugee is a very distinct definitional category and it's a very small percentage, by the way, of all the non-citizens in the United States who seek, before they come into our country, to become a refugee to the United States and go through the incredible vetting that they have to go through and all. That's very different than people who come in across the border undocumented, illegally and all, and it's and it's distinctly different from us, from an asylum case as well. So we have to be careful again about how we kind of amorphize all of this stuff to our own desires by calling everybody a refugee, desires by calling everybody a refugee when they're not.
Scott Allen:And John, am I correct? You would know more than I, but it seems to me that the refugee program that we've had, or the laws that kind of define what it means to come into the country as a refugee, have been deliberately almost destroyed out of a desire to bring in more people.
Scott Allen:We'll just call them refugees and get them to answer questions in a certain way at the border that kind of can put them into that refugee category. Well, partly because, yeah, we feel like there's more of a moral responsibility which there is to true refugees literally fleeing death and political persecution.
Luke Allen:They can't go back to their home country. So if we can call all of these, people political refugees.
Scott Allen:That makes it easier to get them in. The problem is then you don't create any distinction between the true person, that's literally a refugee, and fleeing, versus the economic migrant. They all call them refugees.
John Bottimore:It harms the actual political refugee, doesn't it? That's right. The ability to process refugee cases and even existing asylum cases is very difficult now because we're up to about 2 million asylum cases just way too much for the system to process. And so the process of asylees who applied years ago and of refugees who are in the pipeline and all there's just not enough resources applied to it to properly handle it. So it's not a first in, first out kind of a thing. It's been totally thrown on its heels.
Scott Allen:It's a huge mess right now, right, and I think any kind of clarity on immigration in the United States anyways starts with understanding that our current systems are completely broken and deliberately so They've been broken and gamed for different interests, special interests, so that's all got to be recognized right out the beginning.
Dwight Vogt:So you're telling me that John Thune needs to create order.
John Bottimore:Yeah so.
Dwight Vogt:Dwight, let me give an example. Yeah, that's right.
John Bottimore:And people's interests need to be clearly stated. I think too. Yeah. So, dwight, let me form an immigration policy that results in a strengthened nation. So let's think about an immigration policy that is related to a healthy, prospering, strong nation, not just immigration for the sake of immigration, and again, that's that kind of healthy self-interest that we have to have as an immigration policy. Many countries have it. They have a much simpler situation and all they don't have anywhere near the kind of influx that we have, but there are many, many who do.
John Bottimore:And so that's what the thoughtful people who are working on this subject at the state level, the at the federal level, are trying to do. But it's a, it's a very. It's very difficult, very difficult, and it's a it's. It's as Scott said at the very beginning, it's very fraught with with emotion and difficult and process difficulty.
Dwight Vogt:Now, yeah, and the reason I love my nation, proud of my country, is because we've led with that, I think, historically what's good for the nation as a whole. But there's also been a. If there's a person that's being persecuted the Jews under Russia and Hitler you know we would welcome people who were oppressed. Give me your tired, your poor. We can't always do that, but I love that about any nation if they will make some amends for the poorest of the poor.
John Bottimore:I'd like to give an example of a Fourth of July picnic it would be a beautiful thing in our country to be in a big, beautiful park and to see groups of people, families and friends and stuff like that, hundreds of different groups and all with all kinds of backgrounds and everything. But they all have an American flag on their table and they all realize why they're there and everything. And they all realize why they're there and everything. I've told you stories before. I've been to parks on Fourth of July and all that, and it's people gathering as they would normally gather, maybe on a Sunday or something in that park, but the great majority of them are not there to celebrate the Fourth of July. That's just where they gather on Sundays and they're having a wonderful time.
John Bottimore:That's great. It's great to see. But that is not the kind of unity of a nation in the melting pot that we've talked about on this podcast. That's a tossed salad. That again, a tossed salad isn't necessarily bad, but it's not the kind of higher, more noble thing of a group of people that want to be a melting pot, together for a higher calling.
Luke Allen:Yeah, it's, it's, it's. It's difficult. As I'm listening to you guys processing it's, um, it gets emotional pretty quick, like, say I don't have a friend named Peter here who's from you know, venezuela. But say I did, and I'm trying to be a loving on Peter and be a good friend to him. His name's probably Pedro actually. And, um, you know, uh, leviticus 1934 says the stranger sojourns with you. You shall um be a native among you and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God, so I want to love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God, so I want to love him and treat him as a brother. And yet, at the same time, am I going to go vote for the politician that's going to deport him back to his country, because that feels so unloving to Pedro. That's that tension I'm feeling here and it's difficult. I see why this is such a tense topic and it's difficult.
Scott Allen:I see why this is such a tense topic. I mean, to me it's not hard in some way to say if all the Pedros, or whatever, from Venezuela came to the United States, where does that leave Venezuela? Weak? Do we want to weaken nations and see them harmed? No, I mean, ideally we want to see people like Pedro, strong, educated, healthy, going back and making his nation great. You know as well, I think you know. You know, I know it's very emotional this idea of deporting people, but the idea of let's just bring them all here, where does that leave their nations? You know, I think that's a question I sometimes wrestle with.
Dwight Vogt:I think we have to accept the fact that to be a Christian in government these days, with decision-making authority and responsibility, is a bit of a solemn task. I mean a Solomon task, not solemn task, that's two. But because you're trying to say what's good for the nation, what's good for the best for the nation, what's good for people in general, and finding that line.
Scott Allen:I would love to have Christians very thoughtful Christians form a policy. I've never seen it Like what would be a policy on immigration and border that's deeply shaped by biblical principles. Yeah, I guess. John could write it. I kind of would love to see that and I haven't you know, because it seems like Christians are arguing for open borders, or you know, or somehow like shutting it all down and getting everyone out or something.
Dwight Vogt:I don't know, deporting 30 million people, right, so it's a little challenging.
Scott Allen:Actually that border, if you were in, if that was your responsibility, because you were a civic official, you know, and border was in your, in your Christian, what would that look like? I kind of would love to see that, frankly, because I don't think it. I mean it would be, it would be complex, but it wouldn't be, it shouldn't be that hard. I mean, we've got John, you mentioned one principle. It should be, you know, the principle of it should be a blessing to our nation and the other nations of the world, frankly, something that helps the nations. That should be a principle that guides it. You know, not just that brings in the cheapest labor so that we can have low you know low costs for employment or whatever it is, and, you know, make the greatest buck that we can, you know, in our manufacturing.
John Bottimore:Yeah, well, you know, we're seeing the segmentation that's going on now in terms of the deportation proceedings Very clearly, people who are felons and all are first being criminals, and people have been in a short amount of time and their criminals are being deported first and all. And so I do think a thoughtful policy would very clearly look at these different kinds of things, and I I mean, I'm just this is just a personal opinion I think people who have come, who have worked hard to to assimilate, who have learned our language, who have contributed um, have kept their culture, have kept their language, all that's beautiful celebrate the beautiful.
John Bottimore:Celebrate the fourth. You know, celebrate the fourth. These kinds of things are the hardest ones of all and I think really thoughtful immigration policy really does properly need to segment these and it's a hard challenge when you're talking about this many people. But just declaring a mass amnesty is not the answer either.
Luke Allen:Yeah, let's take a couple minutes to do some practical takeaways for people, for ourselves, before we wrap up today. I know for myself easy takeaway, john, I love what you were saying is just if there's a person around me from another country around the world that's looking to, you know, make it in this new place and they feel alienated and need some help, I can be the first one to do that because, ultimately, they're an image bearer of God and I can love them as such. We're brothers in Christ, or you know what I mean there Both created by God, and I can love them as such. That's an easy takeaway Not so easy actually in application, but easy to say. So what?
John Bottimore:else. I would just say continue to be a learner on this subject. I'm trying to continue to read about it and learn about it. It's very complex, but it's also very much at the heart. We're talking about people here. This is not some other subject that we're dealing with in policy. So continuing to think about it, continue to think about it as a Christian, as a church, but also as a citizen. And what are the appropriate thoughts there, what are the appropriate harmonies there? But what are the appropriate distinctions there that we should do? And if there's opportunities to be asked to contribute to something, then yeah, I mean, I'm in the DC area, so maybe I can look for that sort of thing.
Scott Allen:I mean, I think, just the idea of not so much related to immigration but just discipling nations. You know that we are here, we are blessed and called not just to be Christians individually in the church but to be a blessing to our nation. And core to that is where there are harmful ideas, harmful practices that are deeply unbiblical. We can't just ignore them. Those have to be challenged with the truth in a loving way, you know, and we have to work, just this daily work, to bring light and bring truth into our nations and not just kind of, oh God doesn't care about the nations, he doesn't care, you know it doesn't matter. No, you know.
Scott Allen:Back to William Wilberforce and slavery, you know he could have easily said, oh, it doesn't matter, but he said no, you know, we've got to stand against this on the principle that the slave is a human being with equal dignity, and that's what he said over and over again. Is he not a man? That's what we have to do, that's our same job, you know, to be that same blessing to our nation and that's a job of all Christians. So God wants to see the nations blessed. We don't worship the nation, but we're here to bless the nation and the nation itself is to be a blessing to other nations. That's the biblical idea. So what can you do? What can we do to push back against these lies, against these harmful things that are destroying the nation? What's one thing you know that we can do in our sphere to bring truth and light.
Luke Allen:Yeah, that's another misconception with the great commission is oftentimes you say, well, that's for the missionaries to do and you know some country over there. And yes, it is, but you also are in a nation right now and you can decide missionaries in that respect.
Scott Allen:That's right. Yeah, we're all to bless the nation. Yeah, it starts in your city, right In your state.
Dwight Vogt:I'm really challenged by this right now. Living in Oregon, I know that my sense is that it's easy to love with softness, but it's not easy to love with hardness, and that's as apparent as well. And yet I think that if the Christians in this nation would say we've got a mess, the least we can do is come up with a solution that works well for somebody and everybody. And that's a hard, hard, hard, hard problem to tackle, and I'm not sure anybody wants to tackle it.
Scott Allen:Um, I remember are you talking about the immigration policy specifically?
Dwight Vogt:I'm talking about the immigration policy 30 million people that are here without rights you know, and having to steal social security numbers and live under anyway, daca kids, the whole thing it's just a mess. And and yet who's going to actually say let's tackle it? Let's going to actually say let's tackle it, let's just start and let's tackle this and let's do our best Totally.
Scott Allen:If you're listening to our podcast, and you're in a position, a role, that policy is something that's part of your purview, especially this kind of policy. I would really challenge you Don't just go along with whatever you know. These powerful interests on this issue currently are saying what does it mean to apply biblical principles, five or six core biblical principles around this subject of nations and Nash that we've been talking about? What are those principles? Apply them. What would that look like as a policy? Do something about that. Let's create that. We're not good at that.
Scott Allen:Evangelicals used to be. We used to create education and economic and all sorts of things in a deeply biblical way, but we stopped. And you know I know this from Christian relief and development when I was at Food for the Hungry, we just went along with whatever everyone else was doing wherever the money was, but we prayed because we were Christians right. And whatever everyone else was doing wherever the money was, but we prayed because we were Christians right. And we never stopped and we said what does it look like to do work with the poor in a distinctively biblical way? Very few Christians do that. We started doing that and many others you know began doing that and it was revolutionary because these principles actually, when you apply, they work because they're true. Same for immigration. What does it look like in this area? So totally agree with you, dwight. Why don't you do that, dwight?
Luke Allen:Yeah, yeah, a retirement project.
Dwight Vogt:No it's Luke's generation. I'm sorry we're handing this off to Luke's generation to solve every problem we created. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Luke Allen:You're welcome, Luke. That's how it always goes. You're the future. Solve all of our problems.
Scott Allen:That's why you're here, luke.
Dwight Vogt:Yay, all right, and now you know, now you know the answers.
Scott Allen:Well, great guys, this has been a fun discussion and, I think, really profitable ones. Helped shape my, sharpen my thinking, Really love you guys and love talking with you guys and learning from you. And again, John, you guys, it's not just talk, you guys have really put the skin in the game on this issue. And Dwight, you too. I mean, I think we've all tried in different ways, you know. So, yeah, again, I want to thank all of you who are listening to the podcast today. We are deeply grateful for the listeners, the supporters of the podcast and the Disciple Nations Alliance, our partners. We want to apply biblical truth to every area of life because we believe that's the foundation of human flourishing and strong and healthy nations that can be a blessing to other nations. Thank you for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
