The Reformed Tradition and Immigration

The Reformed, at their best, are guardians of compassion and justice toward immigrants and refugees.

After Tuesday’s debate, immigration is at the front of many people’s minds.

During an unhinged moment of the debate, former President Donald Trump picked up on the baseless rhetoric of his Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance, saying:

They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats… They're eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame.

While Trump’s inflammatory and racist rhetoric was directed toward Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, it is not difficult to recall similar rhetoric Trump used toward immigrants in his first term as president. Trump’s frequent use of terms like “the China virus” incited a drastic increase in anti-Asian violence and discrimination in our country that many Asian Americans are still battling regularly.

Yet, even if one rejects such sinful words and behavior – as all Christians should – what are we to do then? Is it enough for us to vote for the policy we believe is best and move on? To say it another way, does God only ask for political activism of us, or is something more required in the way of Jesus? I might feel better about myself when I vote for policies that seem kinder toward immigrants. However, what responsibility must I also take in my local community to help the vulnerable people moving in next door?

The Reformed tradition has a revolutionary history of support for immigrants and refugees, beginning with John Calvin in Geneva. I intend not to commend policies or political action that are best considered in local communities. Instead, I suggest that recovering Calvin’s attitude toward immigrants would revive compassionate activity among the Reformed on behalf of our immigrant and refugee populations today. Such an attitude would passionately confront racism and violence toward immigrant communities while also insisting on personal and corporate responsibility for concrete action among God’s people.

Calvin and Immigration

Calvin was a political exile himself, having fled France and settled in Geneva. His experience with being a refugee may have caused him to read and apply Scripture toward such compassionate and revolutionary ends. Calvin’s leadership in Geneva created a city that each year welcomed, defended, and cared for thousands of immigrants and refugees. So significant were Calvin’s reforms in Geneva on behalf of the immigrant that one of his contemporaries described Geneva as “the most wonderful miracle of the whole world… Is it not wonderful that Spaniards, Italians, Scots, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, disagreeing on manners, speech, and apparel… being couples with only the yoke of Christ, should live so lovingly… like a spiritual and Christian congregation.”^[1]

Calvin used his position and power in the church to reform Genevan society so that the church and the state could work together on behalf of the poor and refugees. In 1544, the fifth largest expenditure in the city budget was for the “public almshouse,” the hospital. According to the Ordinances for Country Parishes, written by Calvin, fines were divided in such a way that one-third of the income would be directed toward the poor and another third to the deacons of the church to steward on behalf of the poor.^[2] While Calvin advocated for some separation between church and state, his theology was connected to his politics. Calvin demonstrates how “theology needs to engage public life [to] ensure that the fundamental Christian obligation of compassion toward those in need is properly carried out.”^[3]

Within the Church, Calvin instituted a robust order of deacons to care for the poor, sick, and immigrants. Calvin’s system of church government instituted two kinds of deacons, which he found in the Apostle Paul himself (see Romans 12:8 and 1 Timothy 5:9-10). The procurators were responsible for collecting and distributing the offerings from church members to help the poor. The hospitallers were responsible for caring for the sick, disabled, and the aging.^[4] Together, the diaconate ensured that those who needed help would receive it to the best of the church’s ability.

Many French refugees were wealthy, so they helped set up the “French Fund” to care for the growing refugee population. Calvin supported the fund with donations from his own modest income. By 1549, this fund was under the oversight of the diaconate, who used this fund to provide emergency medical services, housing, and employment for refugee families. While this fund would pay for refugees from any country, eventually, there would be other funds established to care for various ethnic groups taking refuge in Geneva.^[5]

Calvin’s care for the immigrants and the refugees was conducted in the face of significant resistance from Genevese nationalism. André Biéler has argued that were it not “for the spiritual energy of Calvin, Genevese nationalism would have absorbed the Reformation.” Calvin’s insistence on the authority of the Scriptures “put an end to the national myth and unveiled the dark spiritual power which makes the nation sacred.”^[6]

Calvin’s concern for the immigrant was not a mere idea that he left to others to execute; he put his own time, efforts, and even his life on the line to care for this growing, vulnerable population in his city. The story is told of John Calvin’s confrontation with anti-immigrant violence in Geneva. In 1555, under the leadership of the self-described Genevan Patriot Ami Perrin, an anti-immigrant mob stormed the streets of Geneva to threaten foreign-owned businesses. As the mob chanted, “Kill the French!”, Calvin himself stepped into the crowd and said, “If you must shed blood, let mine be first.”^[7]

It is easy to see how, even in this grossly insufficient summary, some have referred to Calvin as a revolutionary leader in his concern for the poor and the vulnerable in his city. Nearly 53 years ago, W. Fred Graham concluded:

In Geneva Christian concern for the poor, the sick, the orphan, the widow, the refugee, was institutionalized in the diaconate and legislated by law. Because the problems were so great, the effort to solve these human problems was prodigious, using up a fair portion of the budget and the time at the disposal of the city Council. Every effort was made to plan in such ways that human needs were met. Later Christians lost the urgency of this need to plan… Not so [in] Calvin’s Geneva. There a revolutionary people supporting a flood of refugees struggled with success to bring order out of chaos. That their efforts were successful and that they were pursued so vigorously was due to the iron will and careful concern of their chief pastor. In this concern he showed himself not only to be a leader of a revolution, but a revolutionary statesman as well.^[8]

Concluding Thoughts

As I said above, my intent here is not to suggest specific policies for immigration reform. However, it is evident how Calvin’s attitude toward immigrants and refugees challenges two dominant ideologies that are alive in our day.

First, a thoroughly Calvinistic and Reformed posture toward immigration would vehemently confront racist, nationalistic attitudes. John Calvin was committed to the care of immigrants because he knew that Scripture revealed God to be the protector of the weak and the oppressed, including foreigners, immigrants, and refugees. So, when the Psalmist said in Psalm 82:

How long will you defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?
³ Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
⁴ Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Calvin Responded:

We are here briefly taught that a just and well-regulated government will be distinguished for maintaining the rights of the poor and afflicted.^[9]

To be committed to the poor and the refugee is to follow in the ways of the God of the Bible. To utilize political processes to establish care for growing immigrant populations is not a progressive idea but a thoroughly Reformed one. This is why Calvin scholar Rubén Rosario Rodríguez has so firmly concluded:

For Calvin, standing by while the poor, the immigrant, and the political refugee are suffering and exploited is a sinful act, a violation of the image of God. It is our Christian duty not only to alleviate this suffering through ministries of compassion but also to order our political life in faithfulness to God to eliminate such suffering.

When Reformed Christians in the United States ignore the suffering of refugees (the image of God in their midst), when they quietly hide behind an unjust rule of law (placing the nation’s laws above God’s laws), when they passively submit to an unjust leader (placing the leader’s sovereignty above God’s sovereignty), not only do they risk committing injustice against their neighbor, but they are also in danger of committing idolatry against their God.^[10]

At the same time, a genuinely Reformed attitude toward immigrants and refugees holds little space for the kind of political activism that avoids personal or corporate responsibility. It is easy to say that we are for immigrants when we step into a voting booth; how much more difficult is it for us to live in such a way that we are compassionate, sacrificial guardians of immigrant and refugee populations among us.

In his Institutes, Calvin commends such sacrificial care for immigrants – “strangers” – that we would be willing to go to the “end of our resources.” Calvin wrote:

Therefore, whatever man you meet who needs your aid, you have no reason to refuse to help him. Say, “He is a stranger”; but the Lord has given him a mark that ought to be familiar to you, by virtue of the fact that he forbids you to despise your own flesh…

Say that he does not deserve even your least effort for his sake; but the image of God, which recommends him to you, is worthy of your giving yourself and all your possessions.

Rather, each man will so consider with himself that in all his greatness he is a debtor to his neighbors, and that he ought in exercising kindness toward them to set no other limit than the end of his resources; these, as widely as they are extended, ought to have their limits set according to the rule of love.^[11]

The Reformed, at their best, are guardians of the most vulnerable, including the immigrant and refugee among us. Our commitment to the Scriptures and the glory of God demands it. More than that, our belief in the power of the gospel – this “rule of love” – governs our hearts in such a way as to order our lives for the sake of others. This is the way of Jesus: to be moved with such compassion so as to act on behalf of those who cannot help themselves.

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^[1] John Bale, quoted in Rubén Rosario Rodríguez, Calvin for the World, 50.

^[2] W. Fred Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, 100.

^[3] Rodríguez, Calvin for the World, 53.

^[4] André Biéler, Calvin’s Social and Economic Thought, 322.

^[5] Rodríguez, Calvin for the World, 52-53.

^[6] André Biéler, The Social Humanism of Calvin, 74.

^[7] Rodríguez, Calvin for the World, 49-50.

^[8] Graham, The Constructive Revolutionary, 114-115.

^[9] See Calvin’s comments on Psalm 82.

^[10] Rodríguez, Calvin for the World, 61.

^[11] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.7.6-7