The suffering other: citizenship, race, and ecclesial identity in the church’s witness among immigrant communities
Embargo Date
2027-05-15
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
The call to heavenly citizenship resonates from deep within Christian tradition. This framework has been deployed throughout the history of faith-based immigrant rights activism in the United States as a call to solidarity across lines of nationality. In response to both intensifying nationalism and rising awareness about racism in the US immigration system, Christian immigration activists in the New Sanctuary Movement are reimagining relationships across citizenship lines, developing practices that are intended to check their power within the movement and the privilege they have as white citizens beyond it. In particular, the movement has exchanged the role of the suffering migrant for a strategy that denounces the causes of suffering while emphasizing the humanity and agency of immigrants. This dissertation explores how such transformations in practice impact theologies of suffering and related ecclesiological frameworks. It advocates for a practical ecclesiology in sanctuary work that embraces the church’s pilgrim statues such that it allows a humble and confident performance of US citizen identity in solidarity with immigrant communities.
The dissertation develops an approach to practical theology that is undergirded by Martin Luther’s theology of the cross, especially as interpreted by feminist and liberation theologians. The argument engages with critical theory to problematize the violent, even sacrificial, character of US rhetoric and policy on immigration. In conversation with Latin American theologies of liberation and with feminist and womanist theologians in the US, the dissertation asserts that, when Christian theologies of suffering interact with violent discourses about immigrants, it can unwittingly maintain suffering as a burden for migrants. The dissertation employs a qualitative case study on a congregation in the New Sanctuary Movement along with textual data to track how perspectives on immigrant suffering have shifted among faith-based immigrant rights advocates in recent years, maintaining that citizens are most effective in their solidarity when they promote agency for immigrants rather than focusing on their suffering. In dialogue with postliberal treatments of Augustine’s notion of heavenly citizenship, the study concludes by proposing a practical ecclesiology for a church on pilgrimage that uses earthly citizenship to promote abundant life for immigrants.
Description
2025