The Church of England has spent £26.7 million on racial justice work over the last three years. Since 2020, it has produced over half-a-dozen reports and General Synod papers on the subject. These have called for, among other things, the payment of reparations for slavery; the easing of legal restrictions on the removal of church monuments to those who may have been associated with the slave trade regardless of the monuments’ educational, artistic or historic importance; condemnation of those who would critique now-received notions about the involvement in and guilt of the Church and English society for slavery, not to mention the importation of critical race theory into Church policy; and changes to be made to the Church’s calendar and liturgy to incorporate racial justice themes and international styles of worship.
In addition, many senior clergy are vocal in support of a strongly liberal migration policy. Over the past year, bishops have condemned not only Sir Keir Starmer’s Island of Strangers speech, but also the plans of Reform to take a rigorous approach to detaining and deporting illegal migrants. Problems experienced by host communities resulting from migration – whether serious crime or profound social and cultural change and dislocation – are often described as mere ‘concerns’, whilst the diversity brought by migration is only ever portrayed as an unalloyed good.
Despite the considerable attention and resources given by the Church to these matters, there is a curious absence in their commentary. Nearly every pronouncement focuses on the duties of the host to the guest or the incomer. However, there is next to nothing on the duties of the incomer to the host.
The imperative to hospitality is a fundamental part of the Christian faith. The texts in scripture which intreat one to look after the stranger and outsider are well known and often quoted in Church pronouncements. From the New Testament, these include Christ’s injunction to love one’s neighbour and the subsequent parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel, St Paul’s statement that there is neither ‘Jew nor Greek’ in Christ (Galatians 3.28), and the command to show love to strangers (Hebrews 13.2). The Old Testament begins with the profound principle of all humanity being of inalienable dignity since it is created in the image of God (Genesis 1.27), and goes on with frequent injunctions not to oppress the stranger or sojourner (eg Exodus 22.21-2). God’s command in Leviticus 19.34 not to mistreat strangers and to love them as one’s self is an antecedent to Christ’s own command to love one’s neighbour.
However, as much as scripture bids the host to love the stranger, it is also replete with guidance as to how a guest should treat his host, and the role that a guest should play in the host’s society. As much as a host should cherish his guest, so should a guest respect his host and behave with humility. The scriptural stories offer models of the right attitude that guests and strangers should possess towards those who give them hospitality and sanctuary. Abraham is respectful to the children of Heth, his hosts in the land of Caanan, insisting on paying for a site to bury his wife Sarah rather than taking it as a gift (Genesis 23). Jacob, as a guest, served his relative Laban with forbearance, despite being exploited (Genesis 29). And Moses, although a stranger, put himself in danger to protect the daughters of Jethro (Moses 2.17).
Guests should behave with restraint. They should keep a metaphorical ‘knife to [their] throat’ to hold back excessive appetite for the host’s food (Proverbs 23.2) and ‘be not greedy’ at ‘a bountiful table’ (Ecclesiastes 31.12). Even if guests came without physical gifts to offer to their hosts, they would still offer something by way of a blessing. God in disguise as a guest in the Old Testament brought good news to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son (Genesis 18). Elijah caused the son of a widow who hosted him to come back to life (1 Kings 17). Christ, likewise, would bring healing, blessings, and offers of wisdom to his various hosts (eg Luke 19.1-10). He also spoke explicitly in a parable about the comportment of guests. When one is invited to a wedding feast, one should take the lowest place, so that the host might say ‘Friend, go up higher’ (Luke 14.10).
Deceit in obtaining protection from a host was accounted a serious transgression. The Gibeonites, a people of Canaan who were near neighbours of the Israelites under Joshua, used a ruse to obtain asylum from the Israelites to avoid facing them in battle. They ‘made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up; And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy.’ When Joshua asked them where they were from, they lied to him and said that they were from a ‘far country’, pointing to their worn-out shoes and clothes as proof of how long their journey had been. Joshua gave a promise to protect them, soon after which the deceit was discovered. Despite this, Joshua maintained his promise to protect them, but the Gibeonites were condemned to be ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ (Joshua 9).
David himself, when in flight from King Saul, practised a similar deceit. He was given hospitality by a Philistine King, Achish. Achish allowed David to reside safely in the town of Ziklag, from where David made deadly raids against other Philistine towns – but mendaciously told Achish that he was attacking Judah. Pointedly, God is absent from this part of the narrative, a signal that David’s conduct is awry (1 Samuel 27).
The command to look after strangers is put strongly in the Old Testament and echoed in the New Testament. However, in both cases, it exists in the context of other obligations of care. One is to support the stranger, but the stranger is often mentioned in the same breath as the widow and the fatherless, or those within the immediate society who happen to be defenceless and destitute (Deuteronomy 10.18, Psalm 94.6, Jeremiah 7.6, Zechariah 7.10, Malachi 3.5, 1 Timothy 5.10). It follows that it does not stand well with the biblical imperatives, in ordinary circumstances, if the relief of the stranger is bought at the expense of the oppression of those who are disadvantaged within the host’s society.
Although strangers are to be received and cherished, this does not mean that the host or the host’s society should change its character for the sake of the stranger. Guests and sojourners amongst the Israelites are to obey the law of the Israelites (Leviticus 18.26), to observe the sabbath (Deuteronomy 5.14), to observe various religious festivals (Deuteronomy 16), and to avoid blasphemy against God (Leviticus 24.16). If they wish to observe Passover, male strangers are to be circumcised, after which they may be treated as Israelites (Exodus 12.48). The stranger is blessed if they accept and worship God and obey his laws (Isaiah 56.3-8). Following from this, the preservation of the culture and religion of the host society is a vital matter (eg Leviticus 18.1-5, Deuteronomy 31.16-19, Jeremiah 3.13, 5.19). The idea of the unassimilated stranger taking over the host society is widely seen as a terrible curse (Deuteronomy 28.43, Proverbs 5.10, Psalm 109.11, Isaiah 1.7, Ezekiel 7.21).
One should also observe that in the New Testament, although the foundation of the Church brings a fellowship in unity amongst all Christians, this does not require the abolition of cultural or national distinctions. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit made different languages mutually intelligible, but it did not generate a single language in their place (Acts 2). There is no mandate to run down the cultural traditions of one society because of the presence or existence of others.
With the extent of biblical quotation here, perhaps this piece feels more like a sermon than an article. Whatever genre it might be, it is a necessary exercise when the Church of England is apt to enter so frequently into political discussion on questions of race, migration and culture, making extraordinary demands by drawing from scripture in a manner that does not give a full and nuanced picture of biblical ideas on these subjects. It is an alarming thought that despite the millions invested in the field, the Church has been unable to produce a rounded theological response to these issues, or that, even worse, it may have wilfully neglected full consideration of scripture in pursuit of a particular political end.
It is time for the Church to speak up as much about the duties that strangers and newcomers owe to our society, as the duties that our society owes to the stranger.
Bijan Omrani is the author of God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England, published by Forum Press.
