ICE in Columbia

A Theology of the Stranger

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” —Hebrews 13:2 NIV

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News broke recently that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has signed a long-term lease for office space in downtown Columbia, South Carolina.

A decision that has reportedly caught city officials off guard, sparking debate about its procedural and political implications.

While I am not interested in the procedural or political calculus of such decisions, I am interested in the theological work of helping people of faith interpret moments like this.

Because for Christians, our conclusions about border policy, detention protocols, or federal authority are never merely pragmatic. They are downstream from our theological convictions about those whom Scripture calls “strangers.”

First, let’s define it.

A stranger is a socially vulnerable outsider, often ethnically, culturally, or politically displaced.

That definition matters because America has long been shaped by two competing narratives of national identity, each carrying its own implicit theology and moral vision of belonging.

One tells a story of refuge, opportunity, and possibility.

The other tells a story of protection, preservation, and purity.

At its best, that first story is the true American Dream.

At its worst, that second story is American exceptionalism, a distorted theology of chosenness popularized within the white evangelical movement, based on the belief that prosperity proves moral superiority and divine preference.

And when that distortion takes root, it turns strangers into suspects.

But such a posture is at odds with the biblical witness, which consistently presents God as attentive to and often identified with the socially vulnerable outsider.

In the Torah, Yahweh commands:

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

Leviticus 19:34 NIV

Here we see God connecting mercy to memory by reminding them that they were once the vulnerable ones and that their faithfulness to Him would be measured not merely by the vows they made, but by how they treated the vulnerable among them.

Over and over again, the Old Testament pairs three groups together: the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner, and Yahweh makes clear that injustice toward them is not merely a social issue; it’s a spiritual one.

When we turn to Jesus in the New Testament, the pattern intensifies.

When asked to define “neighbor” in Luke 10, a question that one could argue was posed in a prejudiced manner, Jesus responds not with a definition, but with a parable in which a Samaritan, an ethnically despised outsider, becomes the moral exemplar.

And then Jesus goes even further.

In Matthew 25, He self-identifies not with the powerful, but with the hungry, the prisoner, and the stranger:

“I was a stranger, and you invited me in.” —Jesus

The Greek term used here, xenos, shares its linguistic root with the word xenophobia, literally meaning “fear of the foreigner.”

The kingdom of God is, among other things, the slow dismantling of xenophobia.

Scripture, therefore, resists any attempt to define “neighbor” narrowly or to collapse moral responsibility into national proximity.

Now, before I go, let me address the political elephant in the room.

Some might read this and assume I am advocating for “open borders.”

I am not.

As Christians, we can affirm the need for policy, process, and lawful systems, but we cannot allow our moral imagination to be discipled by national fear.

As Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Arnold writes:

“Seeing the stranger as an enemy and working toward keeping them away is incompatible with the teachings of the New Testament. For those who claim the Bible’s teachings to be authoritative, the New Testament’s unified command to treat the stranger hospitably should be the lens used in considering matters around immigration.”

Policy may define jurisdiction, but it must not define compassion.

The law may regulate entry, but it must not regulate mercy.

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Against The Grain

Against the Grain is the second newsletter from the “with Sean Dreher” Substack. It focuses on culture, conscience, and curiosity. As a missional thinker, I remind myself that Paul said not to be conformed, he didn’t say not to be informed. In these writings, I’ll wrestle with the cultural realities (and assumptions) of our day and how we can process them as followers of Jesus. It’s my best attempt at imagining what Paul would say if he were writing a letter to America.

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