The Church, Migration and the Primacy of Motion: Beyond Hospitality

Abstract

A common liberal-progressive reaction to contemporary mass migration emphasizes an offer of hospitality. This tendency coincides neatly with the Church’s propensity to conceive of itself as rooted in a concrete place. Moreover, migration is typically approached through the lens of the history of the nation state, with the result that it is framed in ahistorical terms. This chapter analyses the extent to which both of these predispositions undermine a theology of migration as well as ecclesial responses to asylum seeking. The discussion develops the premise that the migrant is not a type of person or fixed identity but is a fluid social position that individuals occupy under certain conditions of social mobility. This analysis is developed with reference to the contemporary primacy of migration and motion. The argument advances three points that encourage the Church to move beyond hospitality in its thinking on contemporary migration: (i) greater attention to the reasons many resist or reject offering such hospitality; (ii) the importance of challenging any diminishment of the value of hospitality; and (iii) overcoming static theologies of the church. The image of the Church as an “ark” is offered in service of such a political theology of migration.