Protecting Our Border

Immigration is a hot topic now. Actually, it has been a hot topic throughout our nation’s history, beginning with John Adam's administration.

At the heart of the debate is how we define and control our borders.

A border tells us where a thing begins. It tells us how a thing differs from its neighbors. It outlines the territory under its control.

Every material thing – every abstract belief come to think of it -- has a  border of some sort.

We feel the difference when we cross a national border. The flags are different. The currency is different.  Sometimes, even the language is different.

When we cross the border into another country, we may feel excited. 

Or, we may feel apprehensive. 

Having lived as an immigrant for long periods of my life, I have felt all of these things. 

Once, after having spent two weeks in the Soviet Union I was relieved when we flew out of Soviet air space. I had been treated well. I enjoy Russian people and their culture. It was just that I had grown up fearing what seemed to be an unavoidable war with the communist block. Things had changed but my emotions were still responding to old fears.

Borders establish what (or who) belongs within the borders and what does not. The influence that comes from inside those borders may extend well beyond them. However, influence is not control and enjoying something from the outside is not the same as submission to it inside.

One will discover all sorts of difference within a nation’s borders. Massachusetts doesn’t feel much like New Mexico. But such differences are held within common boundaries. New Mexico can’t establish a monarchy. West Virginia can’t make Swahili its official language.

Some people get intense about protecting borders. They want to know the exact inch where New York ends and Québec begins. They want what’s over there to stay over there. They want what’s over here to stay just as it is.

Others think of borders as gradual shifts of influence and control.

The influence of Mexico extends well beyond the legal boundary that separates it from the United States. Hundreds of miles before one reaches that border, Spanish place names, language, food and other cultural markers inform us that our country is not merely Anglo-Saxon. Cultures mix and mingle like this on both sides of most national borders.

Nonetheless, there is a border. There is a place where one nation’s control ends and another nation’s control begins. If we do not protect that border, people will stop respecting the nation it defines.  That is why border areas often feel lawless, as though no one on either side of it has enough authority to establish order.

Religions also have borders. Buddhists do not make pilgrimages to Mecca. Hindus do not observe Rash Hashanah. One does not shout out “praise the name of Zoroaster!” in a Christian worship service.

Beliefs and practices sometimes migrate across religious lines through a process that takes a long time. The process radically redefines those beliefs and practices however. For example, early Northern European Christians borrowed the word “God” from early religious traditions. The actual word “God” is not linguistically related to Hebrew or Greek words used to call upon the Creator. Now, English speaking Christians think nothing of referring to the deity of the Hebrew scriptures as "God." The old pagan word "God" got baptised, so to speak.

In many countries, missionaries get into fights about this. In the early stages of Christianizing a people, missionaries often worry about using local words for God. Most of the time, they end up importing a word from holier languages – such as English.  “God” sounds right to them. “Zakox” or “Achapichiti” sound scary and unholy.

The reason missionaries argue about what to call God is that they know words carry connotations and influences. They don’t want to import an alien concept into their faith. Others are less concerned. They want to communicate with their new converts and don't want to burden them with a lot of imported, foreign-sounding terms.

These kinds of disagreements have been going on for two thousand years. It’s why some American believers get upset when they learn that Arabic Christians call God “Allah.”

Because of our long history of making adaptations to local culture, we have all sorts of differences. Some of us make the sign of the cross when we pray. Others raise their hands. Yet others fold their hands. Some make no physical gesture at all. 

We do our rituals differently.  Some claim to not have any rituals. We call the various parts of church architecture different things. We use different words to describe our doctrines.

Just as Massachusetts and New Mexico live within common boundaries, so do Baptists and Copts.

We call the common boundary that includes Baptists and Copts but which excludes Wicca practitioners)  Orthodoxy.

Orthodoxy is a boundary. for example, it defines what writings we accept as Holy Scripture. That’s why all Christians have a common Bible, consisting of sixty-six books. We have another set of writings, which we may read for our devotional benefit and which we honor. We call that small collection of writings the Apocrypha, or more properly, the 'deutero-canonical' (which means ‘almost canonical’) writings.  Some of us use those writings more than others, just as Texans tend to eat more tacos than New Englanders.

No Christian is free to accept the Bhagavad Gita as Holy Scripture. On the other hand, although we rarely read it, we all accept the Book of Nahum. Nahum is within our borders.  The Bhagavad Gita is not. That is what we mean by the concept of 'canon'. It is a border that defines Christian scripture, drawn a long time ago and honored by all types of Christians.

Some of us are rather like religious tourists though. From time to time we visit other religions and see what they are about. We may even learn from those religions. I have read the Bhagavad Gita, for example. I found it beautiful and, in places, inspiring. However, just as a tourist does not vote in the national elections of the country visits, Christians do not participate in rituals that compromise their understanding of God and faith. I do not bow to a statue of Krishna. I do not pray to Thor.

I am a faithful citizen of the kingdom of Christ. I do not try to carry contraband across the border.

Through the centuries, Christians learned the core principles of their faith, that is to say its boundaries,  through a process of instruction called catechism. Christians did this in order to protect its borders. Most denominations have abandoned the practice. The kids thought it was boring. (Evidently, that is also why we no longer study civics.)

As a result of abandoning catechism, Christianity’s borders are shifting. Paganism is creeping in on one side, humanism on the other. The language of Zion is not well understood now by those who live near our borders. They are no longer sure what “redemption” means. They are unsure of the meaning or utility of “canon.” They may halfway believe in reincarnation. They may not be sure how worship differs from a concert. They often do not know the two great creeds of the Church or understand the purpose these creeds served.

If the sections of a nation do not remember that they share a common border, the differences between places like Massachusetts and New Mexico become more like the differences between New Zealand and Ghana.  People in them keep moving away from one another. They forget their commonality or why that commonality was ever important. They forget their shared history and common ancestry.

Without the knowledge that instruction like civics and catechism, borders disappear.

When a tourist decides to become a citizen, he crosses a border. He takes an oath of loyalty to a new country. He learns a new language. He may even change his clothes.

When one changes his religion, he crosses a border called “conversion.”  After conversion, he prays to a different god. He reads different scripture. He adopts different practices.

There is no conversion unless one crosses that spiritual border.

Without learning where the borders are and what purpose they serve, no amount of anger and anxiety will atone for the ignorance.

Unprotected borders will disappear, and with them, the nations those borders once defined.