Security at What Cost?

I want to make a counter-intuitive argument that might seem radical at first glance. Tell me what you think.

The new immigration bill has sparked a variety of comments from the conservative front. I was waiting for Pat Buchanan to chime in, and he has on WorldNet Daily (where else?). His argument is the same as always--that the flood of non-white immigrants now and in the future (exacerbated of course by "amnesty") do not share white anglo-saxon cultural values and a commitment to education and achievement. Therefore, we are doomed to be a nation of warring nationalities whose future is as bleak as the former Yugoslavia.

I want to offer a different perspective than Mr. Buchanan. His analysis has consistently failed to address one important question. Why are immigrants coming to America in record numbers? They surely are not coming to be the fodder of highly paid political pundits. Instead, they are coming because there is opportunity. If the job opportunities dried up in this land of plenty, so too would the flow of immigration. If the various entitlement programs in Western countries became insolvent, border fences would not be necessary. People anywhere do what they must for their families to survive and in some cases, thrive.

White Americans, on the other hand, are losing ground demographically because they are rich. Rich people just don't have a lot of babies. The few babies they do have are also losing ground economically to other folks because they are not as motivated to succeed as their parents were. After all, if tremendous wealth and decentralized authority has led to a 50% divorce rate and a skyrocketing crime rate, what exactly is to gain by rich kids working hard? (Think for a minute about the wisdom of the rich King Solomon in Ecclesiastes.) Of course there are many exceptions to this. But it is hard to imagine, say, Bill Gates' kids working as hard as their father. Don't think about this too long, but how many sons of great kings in history have outstripped their father's legacy? The answer is not many. Monarchies and empires have collapsed for this very reason. America is not immune from this trend regardless of how many immigrants we let in.

In fact, immigration may be just what we need to reverse this trend. America has always been united by ideas more than by ethnicity. That is why immigrants have always breathed new life into our sluggish economy at various periods--they come to work hard. Current and future waves of immigrants are no different. Lets face it, if we seal up the borders and allow ourselves to become all the richer, our kids will retire at 35 and the few remaining jobs will be exported to China and India, where people work hard for less reward. Call it unjust, but it is a fact of life. On the other hand, if rich kids were given the same opportunities as immigrants are given (read: not many), then maybe they would be motivated to succeed again. They would learn the value of working hard.

I have no guarantee that this would prevent terrorism or gang violence or any such evil. I do know, however, that the kind of ugly xenophobia peddled by the Pat Buchannans of the world leads nowhere but to insular irrelevance.

On Ending Affirmative Action

Have you heard about the new comprehensive immigration reform bill that was just introduced in the U.S. Senate? There really isn't much newsworthy about it--more border security, a temporary worker program, and a path to legal residency after paying a $5000 fine.

For those who are quick to call this "amnesty," know that people are able to plead guilty to charges against them every day in order to receive a reduced sentence. Most Americans, for example, have opted for traffic school over paying the entire speeding fine. We don't call this amnesty, but rather, judicial discretion. I have still to be convinced that some "law and order" conservatives aren't crying wolf in order to cover up an unsubtle fear of foreigners. It was Mr. Border Security himself, Sen. Tom Tancredo, who compared Miami to a "third world country" and suggested that blowing up Mecca would be a "good deterrent" against terrorism.

The most interesting feature of the bill, in my opinion, is the introduction of a new merit-based immigration policy. Instead of allowing potential immigrants only to be sponsored by potential employers or family members, they will also be judged according to the number of merit "points" they accumulate. Fluency in English earns big points, along with skills in areas of high demand. Tech and research companies and universities would benefit immediately from the changes.

So who are the losers in this bill? Contrary to some popular rhetoric, legal immigrants will not be harmed. Why? Legal immigrants never had to worry about hiring a coyote or making a dangerous crossing because the law already provided everything they needed to get across. They had family or some other connection in the U.S. Most of those who cross the border illegally do so in order to establish the beachhead necessary for legal immigration. There is no way under the current system for most illegals to come legally. So now, under the new bill, holes in the border will be sealed, and the incentive to breach those holes will be reduced.

Those who have the most to lose from this legislation are unskilled workers and underperforming students in the U.S. Remember when 9/11 happened and all visas to the U.S. were put on hold? Many graduate programs in elite schools were on the verge of shutting down. Why? The majority of their students were foreign nationals and could not return to the country. Still today, U.S. students struggle to compete with their foreign counterparts in school and in the work force. More students around the world are mastering the English language with an aim to study in the West. All of a sudden, the competition just got harder.

Current immigration policy represents a subtle form of discrimination whose drawbacks are somewhat similar to affirmative action. Schools and employers are cheated out of the best possible candidates due to a bureaucratic technicality. Our global marketplace does not allow for the antiquated notion that quotas must be reserved for the children of U.S. taxpayers. Universities and companies want to succeed more than they want to discriminate.

Do you see the irony here? Grand ideals of hard work and progress propelled the U.S. to enrich itself beyond its wildest imaginations. Now the children of these self-made men and women have listened to the siren song of affluence just long enough to be bored with the rat race altogether. They've passed the baton to those who have the discipline to run. After all, why run when there are so many good shows on television to watch? Why work hard when the system has got your back? But the same system that coddles the affluent acts as a giant magnet attracting those who simply want to survive. And they know how to run well. For the rich, the handwriting is on the wall, but it will have to wait until the next commercial break.

But wait, isn't it unfair for immigrants to take our jobs? Yes, stealing is unfair. But there is no stealing happening here. White kids can't "steal" opportunities from minorities when they are accepted on merit alone. Neither can foreign students or immigrants "steal" opportunities from citizens if they are welcomed on the basis of merit and not nationality or having the right connections.

This logic is distinctly American, of course. Most other societies value who you know and where you've come from a lot more than what you can do. Those who seek to keep foreigners away have nothing to blame but the very system that made them so rich in the first place.

Democracy Stinks

Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Well, I'm not so sure.

Democracy stinks. Sometimes.

Take for example, this speech by Democratic front-runner Senator Barack Obama about democracy given at the Sojourners Pentecost conference last year. He talked a lot about justice issues, but then he goes on to explain how he handles the abortion issue as a religious man and as a lawmaker in a democratic system:

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."

Let's be honest here, Senator. You "may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons," or, you may (and do) support abortion for political reasons. I'll blame political opportunism for your recent fiery rebuke of the ban on partial-birth abortion as a slippery slope toward the imminent subjugation of women. I would hate to think that you support such a horrific procedure "for religious reasons."

Liberal evangelicals like Jim Wallis and company may think they are being prophetic by giving left-leaning politicians like Obama and Hillary Clinton a platform to speak to evangelical audiences. In reality, they are just as politically idolatrous and cynical as the ugly caricature they paint of religious conservatives. Obama, Clinton, and John Edwards are all on tap to make a repeat appearance at this year's Pentecost event.

Back to the original quote, Senator Obama lectures us that democracy demands "universal" as opposed to religion-specific values. Score one for those of us who are sane enough to admit that all religions are not the same. But of course, that is not Obama's point, or else his attempt to legislate universal values that are "amenable to reason" would be dead on arrival. No politician would ever have recevied an invitation to deliver the a speech to a room full of Christians if he or she was advocating some bland mix of Islamic, Christian and secular values on, say, religious toleration or women's rights. In fact, the very issues Obama champions (e.g. social and economic justice, civil liberties, ending the Iraq War) are based not on universal values amenable to (a-religious?) reason but rather on deep-seated religious convictions.

Abortion is no less heinous to many evangelicals than slavery or cold-blooded murder. Slavery and segregation, as Obama would readily admit, were not ended by politicians bowing to the values of the majority. Dr. King, after all, was assassinated for his convictions. The fact that we are created equal may still be self-evident to those who inherited the vestiges of a Judeo-Christian worldview. Nevertheless, the worldview of non-believers (whose values we must also consider as equally important in our "democracy") does not find this truth to be self-evident, but rather counter-intuitive. Naturalism, after all, is based on the principle of survival of the fittest. That, too, is self-evident if empirical science is your only source of revelation. So how exactly did the "human rights" agenda win the day? Christian (not secular or universal) values became the law of the land.

Politicians like Obama do not have the option to legislate supra-cultural values that everybody can agree to. Laws by nature are divisive things. Laws by nature involve the imposition of the will of those in power (be it a democratic majority, an aristocracy, or an autocrat) upon the unwilling. Lawmakers must choose some values over others. And contrary to Mr. Obama's nonsense-idealism, the criteria by which those choices are made have little to do with being "amenable to reason." Unless, of course, reason dictates that the one making the choice gets to stay in power. That after all, is the nature of politics.

Prophetic religion, on the other hand, cares about what is true and right and good. Without revelation (a highly exclusive thing, I realize), there is no standard for good and evil. Without revelation, reason gets us nowhere but to some airy-fairy social contract theory of governance. As American society has by and large rejected the normative value of revelation, their politicians have followed suit. The canard that politicians are controlled by special interest groups is a truism--it cannot be avoided for lack of a higher standard of judgment. Politicians are no different than the average American--they do what they must to survive. True prophets value truth more than their own reputation and even their own lives.

Who, then, should evangelicals vote for? Must they by necessity become a more powerful and vocal interest group in order to get the legislation they want? Must they elect the right people so as to enforce the will of God on the unwilling? How much compromise must we tolerate in order to consider anyone the right person for the job?

Sometimes I wish I didn't have the right to vote. Then maybe what is true and pleasing to God would be more important than the person we choose to empower. It's hard to speak the truth to a guy (or gal) who "we the people" gave a mandate to rule, especially when he or she seems to be better than the other guy. But as reason should tell us, the good is often the biggest enemy of the best.

One day democracy as we know it will disappear. On that day, the King of Kings will write the law on our hearts and minds. We won't have any say in the matter. I long for that day.

How many children?

If you're like me, you get annoyed by authors and commentators who casually throw out the word "biblical" like a twenty-ton trump card. Try Googling the word. You'll find polemics and recipes, books and institutions--all aimed at narrowing and defining what is and isn't "biblical."

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in family issues. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and the Council for Biblical Equality have been sparring over Paul's infamous words for nearly a decade. Somewhere in the midst of all this debate, the issue of children has been raised. The questions are: Must Christian couples who are able have children? And if so, how many is enough or too many?

These questions may seem strange to some. That's because they are strange--but they are not going away. Unless we are resigned to personal freedom as our only guide (and I think this is how many of us live, truth be told), we must pause long enough to reflect on the witness of Scripture and the Church.

Scripture.
The Bible says in Genesis 1 that we are to have kids and fill the earth with them. The Psalms remind us that children are gifts from God. Jesus arrived on earth not as a grown man (as had Adam), but as a child. He suffered the little children to come to Him, and said that the kingdom of God belongs to them. True religion, says James, is looking after orphans--abandoned children. Many key biblical figures (Adam, Jacob, and David come to mind) had lots of children. Others were barren and had small families after God blessed them (Abraham and Sarah, Hannah). Children are those who will continue the family line. Parents are given the privilege of passing not only possesions to them but also the faith. Nowhere, however, does Scripture mandate any couple to have a certain number of kids.

Church.
The witness of the Church in this area has been somewhat schizophrenic. For centuries, the most devoted Christians in the world abstained from sexual intercourse altogether. Nonetheless, the growth of the Church has been sustained over the years largely by the bearing of children (hence the historic strong opposition to birth control by the Roman Catholic Church). All but the free church traditions (Anabaptists, Baptists, etc.) uphold the practice of initiating children through baptism into the community of faith at infancy. The indoctrination of children through catechism or Sunday School has always been central in Christian practice. Religious families today continue to have higher than average birthrates. This is particularly true in secularizing places like Europe. This, by the way, is not just a result of the eschewing of contraception, but rather, stems from the conviction that raising children is a privilege. It is God's will. And for some (but certainly not all), the more the better.

So it seems that neither Scripture nor Church tradition provide definitive answers to our questions: If we can have children, must we? and If so, how many? Many have attempted to answer these questions, but to do so, they must introduce other elements into their reasoning. These other elements include pragmatism and virtue ethics.

Pragmatism.
Pragmatism is the reigning philosophy and ethical framework of our day. It is life according to what works best or produces a desired outcome. However, the issue of children has been handled pragmatically by married couples from the beginning of history. When Cain, the first child ever born, killed his younger brother, Abel, their parents, Adam and Eve, immediately set about having another child to replace the one who was lost. The desired outcome may have been to assuage their grief, but more likely it arose from the practical need for an heir (since Cain was cut off). Young women from the time of Eve onwards have withstood tremendous labor pains (epidruals are a fairly recent innovation) for reasons of sheer survival. The lack of an heir means that everything the family has (primarily land in agraraian societies) will be lost in one generation. A lack of children would have meant destitution in old age. To have children, therefore, is to survive. The insuffrable King Henry VIII did not have his wives put away or put to death because he believed sons were a sign of God's blessing. No, instead he knew that sons were a symbol of his legacy that would continue once his own life expired. Having no heir threatened the very legitimacy of his rule.

Although the stakes are much lower in urban, capitalistic, and democratic socieities, there are still many couples who choose to have children because of some desired outcome. Children for some couples still represent an economic advantage (i.e. someone to take over the family business, tax breaks from the government, etc.) or social security in old age. They may fill a need for companionship for some. In affluent societies, children (natural or adopted) can even be treated as a trendy accesory to show off in polite company, similar to the latest handbag or sports car. Churches, unfortunately, can be ugly examples of this kind of behavior, often making infertile couples (who make up 1/6 of the married population) feel inferior or excluded.

On the other side of the equation are couples who intentionally choose to have few or no children. Their numbers are on the increase, as declining birthrates in affluent societies bear witness. Children for some represent an economic burden. Having children severely limits the options of what a couple can do in their spare time. Some prefer having pets instead that can be easily boarded for weeks on end to make way for long holidays or other pursuits. More recently, there are arguments that children are a threat to the environment. I just finished reading an article about a professor who recommends having 2 or fewer children in order to fight not world hunger or overcrowding, but global warming due to the large CO2 output of humans.* Christians too can espouse some form of this logic. Some mission agencies, for example, have long discouraged large families that place undue burden on those supporting them financially. Environmentally and socially conscious Christians are sensitive to the concerns that children born in the West consume at exponentially higher rates than their counterparts in the developing world. Whether the desired outcome is economic advantage, social justice, or a healthy planet, couples are still left without a clear principle on the issue.

Virtue Ethics.
Loosely defined, virtue ethics is concerned not so much with a desired outcome but rather the character of those who are making the ethical choices. Prospective parents might ask themselves questions like, "What sort of family do we want to be?" or "How can we embody the values of our community in our decision?" The last question may be especially difficult to raise much less answer answer in hyper-individualistic societies. However, it is particuarly relevant in religious communities of faith. Virtue ethics must necessarily address the concerns of those who are infertile, those who are underresourced, and the concerns of creation care. However it must also address the witness of the community in history, both in Scripture and in the Church.

Virtue ethics is more complex than asking what others might think of a very personal decision. It is the willingness to submit to the values of the community and the kind of character it seeks to instill. Perhaps that is why semi-closed religious communities (such as in Mormomism, Amish communities, or in more communal forms of Protestantism) have higher than average birthrates. There are sociological reasons why missionary communties overseas free from institutional constraints are full of large families. Large families (particularly in societies where children are undervalued, treated as commodities, or limited by law) are often a living testimony to the value and worth of human life created in the image of God. The discipline and indoctrination of children often happens outside the walls of the home, even in the West. How or whether we discipline our children says much about what we value and the kind of people we are. In a society where autonomy and anonymity are high values, virtue ethics may make us quite uncomfortable.

Toward a Solution...
Pragmatism is an easy solution in that the question of children is answered by what works best in a given situation. However, couples who choose large families for, say, econcomic reasons yet fail to properly care for or discipline their children are not doing society (or their children) any favors. Likewise, couples who choose not to have children in order to promote a trendy cause or travel the world certainly do not usually win many admirers. Despite the obvious defincies of pragmatism alone, however, no one can ignore the practical issues involved in having and raising children.

For Christians, it is the lack of a specific biblical command on the subject that makes us scratch our heads. "Be fruitful and multiply" cannot possibly be universalized in a day in which so many couples who want to have children cannot, and a day in which poverty and human suffering are true epidemics. The Bible itself forsees a time in which pregnancy and having children will be a curse as opposed to a blessing (read, for example, the prophecy of Jesus in Matthew 24, specifically verse 19). This seems to be referring to the time immediately preceding Jesus' return, but the shadows of such a time can be seen in our own day. The same world that keeps Wal-Mart and McDonalds turning record profits allows more than 30,000 children to die each day from hunger-related causes. Headlines of child homelessness, forced child prostitution and school shootings allow us to ask questions some might consider unthinkable such as, "Could it be better that some children are never born at all?" And yet, children still represent the hope of innocence and renewal in a fallen world. Are we suprised that the Bible uses language like "born again" and "children of God" to describe the community of faith?

The questions I have raised, "If we can have children, must we?" and "If so, how many?" must be answered by every married couple. They are not new questions, and they will not be going away anytime soon. There are no easy answers, nor should there be. The decision to have a child is one of the most significant (having eternal consequences) that any human being can undertake. Adopting ontological positions such as "children are biblical" or "children are bad for the planet" are insufficient grounds to make such a decision. For example, if having a child is always the right thing to do, then why not have as many as possible? Why stop at 3 when you can have 10? If having a child is always wrong, how can that ethic be propogated or enforced when those who hold to it have threatened their own ultimate survival? If having a large family is always right, what about those who cannot support their children financially? If having a large family is always wrong, then why do we seek to end human suffering in communities with high birthrates? Are religious communities, therefore, always a threat?

These are real questions, not just an academic exercise. Katrina and I are planning to move to a part of the world where the number or children a couple can have is restricted by law. Nonetheless, many of our colleagues have chosen to have several (three or more) children. For us to follow suit would mean financial and relational hardship. We call three countries of the world "home." Plane tickets get more expensive as children get older. We must ask the question whether the need for our respective families to see their grandchildren is more or less important than the need for our partners to be satisfied with how we spend our money. We must ask how important it is to model the parenting of multiple children in a society where single children are both terribly spoiled and put under tremendous pressure to succeed by their parents and grandparents. We must consider how fair it is to raise children who have no say in the matter as to where we call "home." We must consider how valuable it is for children to grow up with one or more siblings. We must consider how long we can realistically live overseas as our children get closer to university age. We must consider the long-term impacts of birth control. We must consider our role and witness within our organization and within the universal Church.

None of these questions is unique to us. In fact, most of them are as old as life itself. Some societies have tried to make an end run around the questions by issuing a decree from the top down. Others, like our own, leave it up to the individual (yet fallen) conscience of the couple. Neither approach, in my mind, is sufficient. We must look to the Bible, but more than that, to the God who is revealed therein. We must look to the world He has created. We must look to the community of faith, the embodiment of Jesus on earth. We must look to our families, and even, down the road, to our children. We must talk to the One who has adopted us into His family.

In case you were wondering (if you've read this far), we are not expecting another child that we know of. However, we are asking the questions. Katrina and I love Ella Grace more than we could have imagined before that day in February when we found out she was coming. We pray that she will grow to be a follower of Jesus who will go where the questions lead. We believe that she will grow (as some have spoken over her) to be an ambassador of reconciliation in the world. And we think that she would do mighty fine with a sibling or two.

As followers of Jesus ourselves, the very least we can do for our children is ask the hard questions.



*One is left wondering whether the affluent intelligentsia of the world will soon be outbred and overwhelmed by those who still consider children a means of survival. Birthrates are still highest in sub-Saharan Africa, which is also the whereabouts of the world's worst HIV/AIDS epidemic. Would the same professor suggest that we stop our fight against the disease so that expensive beach homes in Cape Cod don't end up underwater? Just curious where this thinking leads. Furthermore, I have never heard of any tenured professors volunteering for suicide or isolation from modern conveniences in order to combat global warming. How, then could they apply for grant money? Global warming is a serious issue that must not be trivialized or made anathema for people of faith due to such foolishness.