Darrell Bock
So, part of what was being said here is that
to really pick up the story of the real life
of the scriptures you’ve got to get your
hands around how it’s telling the story,
the way in which the characters develop, the
trajectory that it’s taking, the emphases
that it has.
We’re about halfway through out time.
Let’s transition and let’s take two particular
issues and walk through them.
The first one is kind of the classic where
people start.
It’s the issue of slavery.
You know, the old discussion was, “Well,
the Bible assumes slavery – it addresses
people.
You don’t see any revolutionary statements
to put an end to it.”
That kind of thing.
But, what you see is an acceptance of what’s
going on around it, and this developed into
a defense of the existence of slavery for
some.
That was challenged, if you will, by a hermeneutic
that said, “But wait a minute.
Let’s look and see what’s going on here
about the dignity of the human person, and
what the scripture has to say about the dignity
about the human person.”
Or, let’s look at those places particularly
when we come to the New Testament after Jesus
has come up where the way in which a slave
is engaged has nothing to do with the fact
that they’re a slave.
A book as insignificant seemingly as Philemon
putting a slave in the position of being equal
to the apostle Paul is shifting the way we
look at that slave as a person.
And, so the alternative view was to say, in
affect, that the direction of the thrust of
scripture as a whole was asking us actually
to reassess to some degree the way we saw
the person who happened to be a slave.
What lessons do you think for reading ethically
do you we get from the slavery discussion?
Daniel Rodas
Oh, I’d say several.
I mean, you’ve all ready mentioned the trajectory,
because things become clearer with this whole
idea of body of Christ and being one in the
spirit, and all this kind of stuff.
But, what happened in the Old Testament discussion
on slavery is that certain passages were picked
and read for slavery, like “everything according
to its kind.”
You see how they’re creation there.
So, you can see how this let itself to yes,
there are different kinds of humans, and so
everything according to its kind.
And, then Noah’s cursing, right?
One of the son’s was linked – the curse
was linked to blackness.
So, what you are seeing not only was the trajectory
not being captured, but then other passages
were being, looking back, I would say manipulated
according to a prior ideological, cultural,
racial, social commitment.
The thing that I would add to the trajectory
piece of what you said, Darrell, is that the
trajectory is also structural.
So, when you get into Old Testament law and
you compare Old Testament law to other ancient
or Eastern law codes, what you’re seeing
is the treatment of slaves is different than
it is in other cultures.
It’s more humane, for instance.
And, this is what you had to do in the 19th
century in the U.S.
It’s a structural discussion, not only an
attitude discussion.
And, you see the structural discussion going
on in the Old Testament.
Now, when you get into the New Testament I
think it is structural in the sense internal
to the church.
But, the church is a structure.
And, so the very fact that all of a sudden
that you are brothers – see, that’s a
structural statement.
I mean, in James it talks about who sits where
in the congregation.
And, so what you’re seeing are structural
moves internal to the body of Christ to the
church, which will then eventually begin to
permeate the rest of society.
So, it’s a structural engagement inside
out.
The thing that the Bible did not do in itself
– inside its pages – was the structural
engagements, the attitudinal differences were
major, but they weren’t a call to revolution.
Now, see one thing is what the scripture says
of orientation.
Another thing is to ask ourselves, “What
does the scripture actually tell me to do?”
Now, that’s a whole other issue.
What happens with the scripture sometimes
is it reorients our thinking.
But, it doesn’t tell me what to do.
If I’m in the prophets and it’s denouncing
structural oppression, well, it hasn’t told
me to do anything.
It’s just said this is wrong.
So, in one sense this is kind of good because
then you’ve got to think through, “Okay,
I’m not eighth century B.C.
I’m 21st century U.S.
What would that look like today?”
Darrell Bock
So, what you’re suggesting is there’s
an open-endedness to this in terms of the
application.
Daniel Rodas
Exactly.
Yeah, and so what you find is a scripture
and church history become the case studies.
So, for instance, if we talk about the Jubilee
that’s one structural mechanism to help
poor people.
Okay, we can’t do Jubilee like that now.
So, the question is, “Okay, if they did
it that way in the eighth century, or let’s
say in the Monastic movement they set up these
convents and monasteries to help poor people.
And, St. Francis of Assisi”.
I mean, these are all case studies.
And, so Acts II, Acts IV.
I mean, that’s a case study.
So, the question now is, “Okay, so in 21st
century U.S. what would that look like?”
It may look different in Guatemala than it
does in the U.S. than it does in Kenya, than
it does in China.
So, that becomes now the appropriation question.
How do I appropriate the ethical vision?
And, there again I think the scripture can
give us guidelines and parameters.
One more thing about that – I don’t want
to talk too long.
For instance, I would think that the scriptures
would push us toward a non-violent parameter.
Okay, so because of Jesus.
And, so even though I see oppression, the
option of revolutionary violence to me, I
think, is excluded.
So, it doesn’t tell me what I need to do
because it was written 3,000 years ago.
But, I think it gives some parameters about
what I cannot do in terms of my options.
So, it becomes a more nuance discussion.
Darrell Bock
Yeah.
Now, this opens up the two examples I like
to bring to kind of illustrate these tensions
that we see, and how you wrestle with all
the pieces, rather than cherry pick the two
modern discussions that I think we see on
the table today.
One is gun control and the other’s immigration.
And, we’ll take them in that order because
we’re in Texas.
Daniel Rodas
Which is actually an important point.
Darrell Bock
Yeah, exactly right.
Yeah, I can tell you I’ve had the discussion
of gun control here in Texas.
I’ve had the discussion in the northeast.
It’s two very different conversations.
And, if you have that discussion in portions
of Europe where you don’t bear arms, it’s
a completely different discussion yet again.
And, so I remember making a point to a men’s
Bible study here in Texas - the topic was
gun control - in which I said, “Because
we have the right to bear arms, we’ve all
ready made an ethical decision that impacts
the playing field about how you have this
discussion.
If I were having this discussion in Britain
where you’re not allowed to bear arms, it’s
a completely different discussion just because
the context is so different for the discussion.”
Daniel Rodas
This is what we were talking about earlier
about the hermeneutical piece.
And, even the hermeneutical piece taken further,
back to the original document, is the second
amendment even about that?
Is it about, “Well, back then we needed
a militia and so people needed to have guns
if they were called up to fight a war.”
Well, that’s different than – I don’t
know if your hearers or viewers would remember
Columbine, or we just recently had this killing
in Aurora movie theater.
That’s not the militia.
That’s not second amendment Colonial period.
This is a whole other world.
So, the hermeneutical discussion is not only
the placement in Texas out of Texas.
The hermeneutical discussion is, “What about
that document?
Have we interpreted that document appropriately?”
Darrell Bock
Is it just a blanket statement of the right
to bear arms?
Or, was it a statement that was designed to
allow for a certain way for the country to
defend itself because of the way it was structured
at the time?
Daniel Rodas
Exactly.
And, its limitations at that time.
Darrell Bock
That’s right.
Well, again, and so what happened in this
discussion – what I do with the gun control
discussion is I go through a list of concerns.
You have some right of self-protection.
You have a right to protect your family – those
kinds of things.
The kinds of things that would lead a person
to say, “I have the right to bear arms.”
But, then you have, “Blessed are the peacemakers,”
and you have a series of text in the scriptures.
This is a trajectory that you’re talking
about.
This is actually what I emphasis when I do
this.
The trajectory is that we are to be as peaceable
a people that we can possibly be that our
first instinct isn’t supposed to be to pull
the trigger, but our first instinct is supposed
to take us somewhere else.
What that model does is it says, “Lay out
the entirety of the portrait of the scriptures,
and then ask yourself how you relate all the
pieces that you have on the table to one another,
along with the observation that you’re making,
as well as understanding the nature of the
context that you’re actually operating in.
Which is extra Biblical, or extra scriptural
in some ways.
Daniel Rodas
Right.
And, I would say that part of that discussion
– and you would know more about it because
you’ll talk about it more in Texas than
we do in Colorado.
But, to me it has to be part of a coherent
vision of the Christian life.
See, and what happens is sometimes Christian
ethics are basically, “Be a good person.
Pay your taxes, and whatever.”
Darrell Bock
And, then you take it one issue at a time.
Daniel Rodas
One issue at a time.
And, so for instance, and again, your viewers
may disagree with me on this, but I’m a
pacifist.
I think that’s consistent with the trajectory
of the scripture and Jesus.
Okay, that’s all in the discussion.
But, so as I think through gun control, that
becomes the question I ask.
How does that fit into my view of what it
means to be a Christian?
And, what should the church in a country – not
only this one, but we live here – obsessed
with violence.
Our video games, our movies, our obsession
with guns.
And, you know, the macho, everyone’s pushing
each other and standing up for themselves.
In a country obsessed with violence of all
kinds, what does it mean to be a Christian?
That’s the kind of question I would want
to be asking.
Okay?
So, does it mean arming yourself to the teeth?
Going and asking for a concealed weapon permit
– is that part of what it means to be a
Christian?
Can you even imagine Jesus having that conversation?
So, that’s where I would like myself and
others to get to.
How does this cohere with what it means to
be a Christian?
And, those are the kind of conversations I
don’t hear.
Darrell Bock
Well, let’s shift gears here and talk a
little bit about immigration where you’ve
got I think the same kind of dilemma.
You’ve got the people who start with the
Romans 13 text, and we’ve got our laws,
and we’ve got to uphold our laws.
And, a person who comes into the country has
violated the law.
And, then of course, the more difficult part
of that is that someone maybe two or three
generations ago made that decision to come
into the country.
Now they have kids.
They have a family.
And, I’m doing this on purpose to make the
question more complex, but also to make it
more real in terms of what we’re really
dealing with.
So, now if you talk about disciplining the
person who came in, you’re actually talking
about – according to the law – you’re
actually talking about splitting families
and doing other things that we know the Bible
gets nervous about.
So, that’s one side of the question.
But, then the other side of the question is
that is the teaching, the trajectory, if you
will of the sojourner – how a host country
should treat an alien.
What hospitality is about.
The generosity of the scripture.
The emphasis of the scripture about the gospel
itself being an invitation into forgiveness,
as opposed to being something else.
All those kinds of things.
And, you start to line this up, and all of
a sudden you realize this is a much more complex
picture than simply one text.
Daniel Rodas
Right.
I mean, you open up so many lines of discussion,
but let me just mention the Romans 13.
When people say, “We ought to obey immigration
law,” what they’ve just told me is they
don’t know what it is.
Because, if they did, they wouldn’t say
that.
Darrell Bock
So, this is talking about understanding sociologically
what the context is of the law that frames
it.
Daniel Rodas
Exactly.
Let me give you an example.
I mean, people have this idea if they’re
here illegally there must be an office they
can go to, and a form to fill out, and a fine
to pay.
Why don’t they want to do that?
Well, in the current U.S. immigration law,
if you were here undocumented, there is no
provision for you to get rights.
And, people – they just think, “Well,
there must be some way.”
Now, my answer is there actually isn’t.
So, there’s no line to get into, no office
to go to, no form to fill out, no fine to
be paid.
There is nothing they can do under current
law.
And, so that’s why we want immigration reform.
Now, splitting families is another example
where people don’t understand.
Under current law if you’re undocumented
and you’re the dad, and you’re picked
up, that will leave the mother with three
kids – two of whom may have been born here.
Okay, so they’re citizens.
Under current law, if one or both parents
are deported that is not considered hardship.
Okay?
What would have to be – because I’m involved
with someone who’s actually trying to get
all this worked out in Colorado.
And, the son – the middle son – he’s
autistic.
And, with immigration law, or the best in
Denver tell me is, the deportation of both
parents is not a hardship.
The only way that that family could prove
that the father needed to be there, she said
– this is the way she said it, is if he’s
in the hospital – the little boy – hooked
up with tubes.
Then they might consider it a hardship from
a legal standpoint.
So, under current law, there is the exception
clause of hardship.
But, to try to prove that is almost impossible.
So, that is one of the few exceptions.
Another exception under current law is, again,
if you’re the husband, let’s say I’m
the wife.
And, you beat me.
So, the wife can claim some kind of asylum,
you see, because of abuse.
That’s another exception, you see.
So, this is what people don’t know.
So, when they say, “Oh, they gotta obey
law,” I’m going, “Well, you have no
idea…”
Darrell Bock
How confused the law actually is.
Daniel Rodas
Yeah, and how – see, U.S. law is about entry.
It’s really not about once you’re here,
because they don’t know what to do with
you once you’re here except deport you.
Another thing people don’t know is about
40 to 45 percent of those who are here illegally
came in legally.
So, the idea of the fence doesn’t deal with
45 percent of those who came in illegally.
“Well, what do you mean?”
Well, what they did was they came in on student
visas, tourist visas, temporary worker visas,
and just stayed.
The law, as it now stands, does not track
you when your visa expires.
Darrell Bock
And, there’s no place for you to go.
So, you’re stuck.
You’re in no man’s land.
Daniel Rodas
Yup.
And, so people don’t know that, either.
So, if I tell them,
Well, you know, 45 percent of those who are
undocumented came in legally,” they just
assume everyone kind of crossed the boarder
over, under, and through the fence.
Well, not if you’re Asian.
Not if you’re African.
Not if you’re Canadian.
We have undocumented Canadians in this country.
You see, and about 20 percent of all Koreans,
for instance, are undocumented.
You see, this is the secret that no one talks
about, you see?
And, they didn’t come in through the fence.
They came in on tourist visas, or student
visas and then just stayed.
So, this is why you need reform.
So, one thing is the whole pragmatics of reforming
a law that is incredibly messed up, which
the U.S. democracy allows us to do.
I mean, we change laws all the time, right?
We don’t like them.
Darrell Bock
Right.
Or, they don’t work.
Daniel Rodas
Or, they don’t work.
And, so you’ve got to change them.
You see, we do this all the time.
Why can’t we do this with immigration, you
see?
And, what you’re seeing then is there’s
other things driving the anti-immigration
thing because they’re not thinking about
– because they usually don’t know – how
pragmatically broken the system is.
But, even if they did sometimes they still
don’t want to hear it.
That tells me there’s more going on here
than just the law.
I mean, I hate to use this word, but there
may be some racism going on, comfortableness
with foreign language, foreign customs – which
is all very human.
But, yeah, so it’s a whole Pandora’s box.
Darrell Bock
Okay, so we do have Romans 13 on the table.
It’s a part of the equation.
So, you can’t just – you don’t just
throw it out.
But, I think part of the point that’s being
made is when we look at the whole of scripture,
we see Israel as a community being urged to
have a certain attitude towards aliens and
sojourners to understand and appreciate their
own experience as aliens and sojourners, which
makes them sensitive in this regard.
I like to transfer this in thinking about
the Christian perspective and seeing – we
see in the scripture a principle of offering
forgiveness for people to have a new start.
That’s at the core of what the scripture
is, and if you have any doubts about how important
that is, a text like Matthew 18 is one of
my favorites to bring up in relation to this.
This is the parable where the guy is forgiven
a huge debt, and then he goes out and he doesn’t
forgive the guy with the little debt.
And, so the guy who forgave him the huge debt
comes back and says, “You didn’t get this.
You should get this.”
And, there’s a sense in which there is a
willingness – the trajectory is there’s
a willingness to take people in and to take
them in on the basis of a start that involves
an element of forgiveness in it.
So, that’s also on the table.
Daniel Rodas
Yeah, and I think a piece in the Old Testament
side is historical memory.
You do this because once you were slaves in
Egypt.
And, what I see in this country is the historical
immigrant memory is pretty truncated.
Darrell Bock
Weak.
Daniel Rodas
So, St. Patrick’s Day – so we all drink
beer and wear green.
Okay, but we don’t talk about the quotas
on the Irish and the Irish ghettos.
We don’t talk about how the Irish were marginalized.
Darrell Bock
We’ve forgotten the 19th century.
Male 2
We’ve forgotten the 19th century, or we’ve
idealized it.
Okay, the Chinese Exclusion Act, which kept
Chinese out of this country, even though we
imported them for labor to build our railroads
during the gold rush.
So, then we put in place this exclusion act
that was in place for 63 years.
And, so we’ve forgotten those stories.
The most tragic story, getting back to the
slavery issue, of immigration into this country
was the importation of black labor.
That’s what it was.
The Africans were brought in to work our farms.
And, we go to Civil War for this, and we have
the 13th and 14th amendment, but we still
have segregation for another century.
So, what you’re seeing is there’s this
immigrant population that we brought in to
work, and so we want their work.
We just don’t want them.
And, so we’ve forgotten all of that.
You see?
The Italians – what we did to the Italians.
The WOP – what does the WOP mean?
Without Papers.
We’ve forgotten all that language, and we
idealize it with Columbus Day, or Oktoberfest.
The largest immigrant group in mid-19th century
were the Germans.
We’ve forgotten that.
I’ve got this great – I’ve got to give
it to you.
It’s this article written by Benjamin Franklin,
and from the colonial period.
And, he’s worried about the Germans because
listen to what he says.
“They have their own schools, stores, and
churches, and newspapers.”
He’s worried about them learning English.
And, then he says, “And, the men beat their
mothers.”
And, then he says, “They’re not the same
pigment color that we are.”
I’m going, “A German and a Brit?
I mean, really?
They’re that different?”
But, what you’re seeing even with Benjamin
Franklin is this rejection of the other – of
the German speaking other.
You see?
So, it’s all very human, but we’ve lost
all those memories.
And, I think this is the wisdom of the scriptures
because God says, “Don’t ever forget,
because when you do, you become Egypt.”
And, this is what happens.
You repeat Egypt.
And, that’s what we see in this country.
Darrell Bock
And, you look at the nature of the church
theologically where part of what is supposed
to represent is the ability of God to bring
people together, and reconcile into one another,
and help what I would call a positive assimilation
happen.
Which, isn’t that you become like me, but
we together appreciating who we are, work
together side by side.
That’s another important trajectory of the
scripture is.
I think what we’re talking about here in
one sense, when you talk your way through
it you can begin to see it.
But, on the other hand, it’s such a different
way of thinking about reading scripture than
the way most of us were taught.
It takes some time, I think, and reflection
to kind of get your hands around how it works.
Let’s come back to the one piece.
So, we’ve got this situation in which we’ve
got these themes.
And, there should be a feel – people want
us to go back to being a Christian country,
but they don’t want us to extend a hand.
How does that work?
So, let’s try and put all the pieces together.
What kinds of things – we’ve all ready
said this is somewhat open-ended in terms
of how you address the particulars.
How do you put the law piece in with the other
stuff?
How do you make the ethical reflection of
the whole of the cannon?
Daniel Rodas
Well, on the law piece, if you want me to
go somewhere else tell me.
But, the law piece to me, that’s why I think
the Old Testament law is important, because
it’s grounded in creating a different kind
of people.
They’ve come out of Egypt with its social
construction of reality, which was law, and
religion, and hierarchy of race, and economics.
He takes them in the middle of nowhere, gives
them another law, which isn’t just about
sacrifices for sin.
Right?
And, we get to Jesus and we’re done.
I mean, it’s about what you eat, what you
wear, whom you marry.
Darrell Bock
It’s building a people in a community.
Daniel Rodas
It’s building an alternative culture.
So, if you begin, when I have the law discussion
when I present on immigration, I talk about
law as a cultural builder, and identifier,
and definer.
So, the question you ask is, “What does
the law tell us about the heart of a country?”
And, what the Old Testament law does is I
think you see the heart of the Old Testament
law in terms of what it does to the vulnerable
people of the time, which would have been
the poor, the widows, and the orphans, and
the alien, or the immigrant – whatever you
want to call them.
So, what you see is this constant referral
to these groups of people because that tells
you who you really are.
So, when you look at current U.S. law, the
question is, “What does it say about ourselves?
How do we treat those who are vulnerable in
our midst?
How do we treat poor people?
What kind of attitudes do we have?”
What did segregation law in this country tell
us about us?
That’s the kind of question you have to
begin to ask, and that’s when we get to
what you were saying about being a forgiving
people.
See, what do our attitudes about law and about
the kind of law that we have on immigration
tell us about us as Christians?
If we accept it without any question, what
have we just said about the church?
That’s the kind of discussion that we need
to get, and then to try to inform people about
the history of immigration law, which is checkered.
And, you know, what’s changed is the color
of the people, but discrimination is just
part of the history of the country.
Darrell Bock
It’s the cycle we go through.
It’s just the names of the immigrants change.
Daniel Rodas
Exactly.
And, everyone is listening to this or watching
this – if they go back far enough, their
ancestors went through the very same thing.
But, they’ve probably forgotten and have
idealized it.
So, you have to go at immigration law.
You have to talk about what law does and what
it says about us.
And, the one I hear, which kind of puzzles
me, is they go, “Oh, we have the rule of
law.”
And, I’m going, “Every country in the
history of the world had the rule of law.”
I mean, we have ancient law codes.
So, when you say, “We have the rule of law,”
you’ve told me nothing.
Darrell Bock
Yeah, Hammurabi is very old.
Daniel Rodas
Yeah, I mean, so everyone today around the
world is the rule of law.
I mean, so you haven’t said anything.
The question you have to ask is, “What kind
of law do we have?
Is it a good law, or a law that needs to be
worked?
And, what are the motivations and what are
the values that drive the law?”
And, that’s where I think the Christian
contribution, because ideally biblically I
think is that it would ground what we think
would be good immigration law, which we need,
in a different set of values than sometimes
is out in the marketplace.
So, those of us who want immigration reform,
you get the caricatures.
So, “Oh, you just want open boarders.”
And, I go, “Well, I don’t think anyone
is talking like that,” because nobody is.
I mean, there may be some kind of radical
out there who is.
But, what you’re talking about is a different
kind of immigration law that covers the waterfront
instead of just entry, and all these kinds
of things.
So, what are the values that area gonna drive
that kind of discussion, and what is the place
of the Bible and Christian faith in that discussion?
Now, we can inform at least at the value level,
and now the Bible becomes our moral compass
even if it doesn’t give us the recipe for
what we need to do.
Darrell Bock
So, it might not write the law for us, but
it tells us what attitudes should go into
the writing of those laws.
Daniel Rodas
What attitudes and what values we want the
law to reflect.
Darrell Bock
Well, I mean, we’ve only just scratched
the surface.
But, hopefully this is a glimpse and it’s
an initial one.
I’m sure we’ll come back to this again,
and again, and again because it is dealing
with the ethical of scriptures is deep.
And, it’s not something you just absorb
in a sound byte.
It’s something that really takes a reflection
and a lifetime of study to appreciate the
depth of the riches of what’s going on in
the scripture, and the way in which it engages
life, and the various tensions and angles
that come from it.
So, I appreciate you taking the time with
us to be a part of 
this discussion, and to 
kind of lead us in the discussion.
I will mention the – yes, we will do the
promo.
Now, you originally wrote this how 
long ago?
The first edition was –
Daniel Rodas
2008.
This one is coming out – well, by the time
this shows it’ll be out.
Darrell Bock
Yeah.
This is Christians, the Boarder, Immigration,
Church, and the Bible, Second Edition by M.
Daniel Carrol Rodas.
And, this is a revision and expansion of an
earlier version which works through the history
of the discussion, elements of the sociology
of what’s going on, as well as the Old Testament
and 
New Testament values – that kind of thing.
And, just kind of gets a person oriented by
taking an exemplary look at the ethical dimensions
of the question, and thinking through it biblically.
So, I thank you for being a part of The Table
podcast.
And, we thank you 
for joining us.
This 
is 
The Table where we discuss issues of God and
culture.
