One of the most convincing proofs of the pervasiveness of Christian influence in the West is the compulsive need, even of progressives, to enlist Jesus Christ into the ranks of their moral crusades.

Each Christmas season, this takes the form of the familiar refrain that “Jesus was a refugee” or even an “illegal immigrant,”^[1] with the above passage from Matthew’s Gospel documenting Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt cited as evidence. Jesus was an immigrant, so the logic of some pastors goes; thus, in all circumstances, illegal immigrants must be welcomed rather than detained, prosecuted, or deported.^[2] Whether those making the claims personally adhere to the doctrines of Christianity or the commands of Christ is inconsequential, as long as the story of Jesus can be mustered to defend a particular social cause.

Yet it is not immediately clear if, or how, the claim that Jesus was a refugee falls short. The biblical record, after all, clearly describes the infant Savior and his parents seeking asylum in another country, fleeing a form of persecution that was both religious and political. This fact, taken together with Scripture’s injunctions to show kindness to and exercise justice towards sojourners (Exod. 22:21, 23:9; Lev. 19:33–34; Deut.10:18–19, 24:17–18, 27:19), points us clearly to God’s compassion for the alien, which we are to model.

This point is true as far as it goes. The question is simply: how far does it go? Do today’s terms like migrant, refugee, or asylum-seeker map accurately onto Christ’s circumstances in first-century Rome? And to whatever extent they do or do not map accurately, does it then follow that civil governments today are duty-bound to pass permissive immigration policies?

To understand the issue, we must overlay both the denotations and connotations of today’s immigration vocabulary atop the particular circumstances of Jesus’s flight to Egypt.

Establishing Definitions

According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, a refugee is “any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality . . . and who is unable or unwilling to return to . . . that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”^[3] Following this definition, the Office of Homeland Security Statistics reported that in 2024, the United States admitted 37,050 principal refugees (those with a direct claim of persecution) and 63,000 derivative refugees (their spouses and children), for a total of 100,050 refugee admissions under the refugee category.^[4] It is worth noting how this number pales in comparison to the total number of migrants to the US, both legal and illegal, numbering in the multiple tens of millions. One may rightly wonder whether the arguments for unfettered mass migration justified on the basis of the moral imperative to receive sincere asylum-seekers are not guilty of intentional obfuscation—the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent. This matter aside, the question for evangelical Christians is not only political, but exegetical.

Joseph, Mary, and Jesus’s flight to Egypt certainly clears the threshold (anachronisms aside, of course) of the modern U.S. legal definition of a refugee. No doubt this polite and lowly Jewish family was outside their country of nationality, unable and unwilling to return on account of well-founded fear of persecution.

But what about the connotation of terms like “refugee” today? One easily recognizable feature of today’s refugees is their relative permanence. In the U.S., fewer than two percent of individuals granted asylum return to their countries of origin,^[5] while approximately 83 percent of those eligible eventually naturalize as U.S. citizens—a rate higher than any other legal immigrant category.^[6] Today’s refugees, generally speaking, are often not temporary visitors but semi-permanent residents—some assimilating to American language and culture, and others huddling in their own ethnic enclaves. And thirdly, today’s asylum-seekers are generally supportive of more lax immigration policies; approximately 75–85 percent of naturalized-citizen voters who were formerly granted asylum or resettled as refugees either register with or consistently vote for the Democratic Party.^[7] None of these general characterizations are definitional of refugee status, of course, and neither should they be taken as prejudicial arguments against receiving verified asylees. These connotations do matter, however, in understanding the rhetorical strategy of those committed to the “Jesus was a refugee” slogan—and in separating what the simple phrase may mean from what it must not mean.

To the Word

Though short, the episode in Matthew’s Gospel recording the flight to Egypt is rife with both theological and political significance—yet relatively little with regard to immigration policy. Consider several features of the passage that should impress themselves upon the reader:

1. The providence of God. Joseph becomes aware of the plot against the baby Jesus’s life through divine revelation via an angelic messenger (Matt. 2:13). This revelation in the form of a dream was necessary in order to preserve the holy Child. Had the life of the young Messiah been taken prematurely before he had lived to minister, preach, and actively fulfill the law of God on behalf of his people, our salvation would not have been accomplished. God, who is sovereign over all whatsoever that comes to pass, was nevertheless particularly active in these climactic events, ensuring the successful mission of Christ and directing the course of events “in the fullness of time” towards his redemptive purposes (Gal. 4:4).
2. The prophetic significance. Matthew informs his readers: “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet” (Matt. 2:15). Citing Hosea 11:1 (“Out of Egypt I called my son”), the evangelist illustrates that, just as Israel, God’s typological son, was brought out of captivity in Egypt, so too God’s literal Son would recapitulate Israel’s history through his own personal exodus. Literarily, this parallel not only establishes Jesus’s messianic identity but also clarifies his messianic mission to serve as the true, consummate, covenant head of his people who would do for God’s people what they could never do for themselves.
3. The role reversal. Recognizing the parallels to the biblical exodus reveals rich irony. Jesus’s exodus is inverted. It is Herod, a pseudo-king of Israel, who is recast in the role of the spiritual Pharaoh. Judea is a place of persecution, not the land of promise; Egypt, in turn, is a place of refuge, not slavery. Among other points, this serves to accentuate the spiritual bankruptcy of that generation of the Jewish nation, upon whom would ultimately come the bloodguilt of all the old covenant martyrs (Luke 11:51). Here the two kings stand opposed—Jesus, the rightful King briefly driven out, and Herod, a counterfeit ruler clinging to borrowed authority.

In sum, the flight to Egypt is doing far more literarily than militating for a given political policy on immigration; it is arguably not doing this at all. Having considered the text in more detail, we are now prepared to consider where the comparisons between Jesus and today’s migrants break down.

Not Comparable

Though we may justifiably call Jesus and his family refugees during their time spent hiding from Herod in Egypt, the circumstances surrounding this period of Jesus’s life were qualitatively different from many modern refugees. The stark differences between Jesus and modern refugees subvert progressives’ attempts to use the flight to Egypt as justification for open border policies. Several observations from the text lead to this conclusion.

First, and notably, Jesus and his family remained within the political boundaries of the Roman empire before, during, and after their flight to Egypt. Rather than escape one oppressive regime to flee to a transnational empire a world away, they fled to another jurisdiction a relatively short distance away from their homeland. This fact stands in contrast to the many migrants who pass by numerous other free nations (or, freer nations) in which they could take refuge on their way to the United States. Both geographically and politically, the flight of Joseph and Mary from Judea to Egypt was more comparable to a trek from Manhattan to Pittsburgh than from Haiti to Ohio. Of course, this is not to minimize the plight faced by the holy family, nor that faced by scores of sincere asylum-seekers today; rather, it is simply to demonstrate that the text of Matthew 2 simply cannot be used to justify the dissolution of modern geopolitical borders.

Second, and importantly, Joseph, Mary, and the Lord Jesus retained their national identity and returned home when the threat was gone. Joseph was not a “paperwork Egyptian.” Mary did not campaign about North Africa proclaiming that Egypt was now “just an idea.” Jesus did not become Egyptian simply by touching its magic sands. And as soon as they learned that Herod was dead, they returned to Israel (Matt. 2:19–21). Far from arguing for the fluidity of national identity or belonging, the case of Jesus’s flight to Egypt demonstrates, if anything, that asylum by its nature is ordinarily meant to be temporary and provisional.

Further, and crucially, Jesus’s return to Israel was crucial to maintain his messianic identity. Our Lord was the consummate Torah-keeping Jew whose mission was to live in Israel’s land, keep Israel’s law, suffer Israel’s judgment on the cross, and be raised victorious as Israel’s—and the world’s—king. Had Jesus been anything less—a hyphenated Israelite, if you will—he could not have properly completed this calling. Of course, this observation is by no means to be taken as roundabout way of condemning all forms of immigration or assimilation; instead, it is simply meant to demonstrate that those who claim Christ as a paragon of modern permissive immigration policy have far overplayed their hand.

The question is not so much whether Jesus was a refugee; in a technical sense, he briefly was one as a child. The question is what this does and does not signify.

The More Pressing Issue

That care should be offered to sojourners is easy to demonstrate from Scripture. God is a God who sees those who are on the fringes of society (Gen. 16:13), including the exile and outcast. Faithful Christians can and should adopt strategies to love the foreigner in their midst by treating them justly, meeting physical needs where necessary and appropriate, and proclaiming the gospel to them. Such ministries can be developed without reliance upon arguments from Matthew 2.

What is often forgotten in immigration discussions is that national borders are ordained by God (Genesis 10, Deut. 32:8, Acts 17:26) and they accord with natural law (Deut. 19:14, 27:17; Prov. 22:28, 23:10–11). It is incumbent on the church to be a light and witness to whomever the Lord sovereignly places within her sphere of influence. At the same time, it is also the case that civil magistrates are ordained to serve the temporal good of their people, which includes the task of maintaining relative order and social cohesion for the people over whom they have been appointed—and none other (2 Sam. 23:3–4, Prov. 29:4, Rom. 13:1–4, 1 Peter 2:13–14). In this context, the pervasive ascendancy of foreign persons and the subjugation of the indigenous population is biblically a sign not of blessing but national chastisement (Deut. 28:43–44).

American Christians in the present hour must learn to walk faithfully in the civil sphere while chewing the ecclesiastical gum of compassion for the unreached. We can certainly do both at the same time. This requires clearer categories than many evangelicals have been willing to use. Far too often, immigration debates are framed only in terms of personal charity, as though the civic and spiritual realms were interchangeable. But Scripture never collapses these spheres. The call of the church to welcome sinners to Christ is an intrinsic good; the task of the magistrate to guard the social order is a relative good tied to his office. One cannot simply import the commands of the Great Commission into the responsibilities of the civil ruler.

So while the church should rejoice that many who arrive here in the United States may now hear the gospel for the first time, that spiritual opportunity does not itself justify the national disorder that makes it possible. To welcome the stranger spiritually does not obligate a nation to dissolve the responsibilities God has assigned to civil authorities. Furthermore, national disorder can weaken the witness and stability of local churches. Consider the disproportionately high amount of church buildings in France and Berlin that are vandalized or set on fire in areas marked by high Muslim immigration.^[8] Consider how unpunished sexual crimes against girls by immigrants in Ireland and Great Britain affects the resources and focus of the churches there.^[9] Again, national disorder due to a government’s failure can inhibit the mission of the church. Yes, the Lord may use even our national instability for his saving purposes, but that does not mean Christians should celebrate or accelerate the conditions that invite such instability. The task, then, is twofold. The church must remain steadfast in her mission—preaching Christ to every person God brings across her path. And citizens, including Christian citizens, must labor for just policies that preserve peace, protect the innocent, and maintain a coherent people capable of fulfilling their own rightful duties.

Conclusion

In the end, Matthew 2 calls us to trust God’s providence, not to hijack the Messiah’s infancy for policy sloganeering. Christ’s temporary flight to Egypt fulfilled prophecy and secured our redemption; it did not offer a blueprint for immigration legislation. The church must show compassion, the state must exercise prudence, and Christians must keep those obligations distinct. Only then can we honor both the integrity of the nations God has ordained and the mission of the gospel he has entrusted to his people.

Since 2021, the U.S. has admitted approximately 211,000 immigrants and refugees from Muslim-majority countries, as green card approvals and refugee admissions have rebounded following the lifting of travel bans and prior restrictions—a growing trend virtually without precedent in the U.S.’s past. This figure does not account for undocumented immigration (for which reliable estimates are unavailable), but it remains clear that the nation’s demographic landscape continues to shift in ways that have significant cultural and missiological implications.

In the community surrounding evangelical missions efforts, it has become commonplace to state that missions “is no longer ‘from the West to the rest’; it’s from everywhere to everywhere.” This statement has some merit. Not only is global Christianity exploding in growth outside the West, but global migration shifts are increasingly challenging missiologists’ assumptions about where exactly the mission field lies. Often, it is nestled into pockets of our own communities in the U.S., where migrant communities settle and cluster.

How are Christians in general, and Baptists in particular, to respond? A spectrum of options present themselves, ranging from strict, fearful isolationism to the radical response of fully open borders—globalist progressivism’s view of all immigration as an unmitigated good. As with most issues of political and theological import, ditches exist on both sides: on the right, the ditch of calloused, inhospitable xenophobia will cause believers to recoil from the task of cross-cultural evangelism. Consider that from 1993 to 2018, American evangelicalism witnessed a dramatic 25-point drop in the percentage of those who agreed with the statement, “Every Christian has a responsibility to share their faith.” Evangelism, it seems, has fallen on hard times. On the left, there is the ditch of leveling all cultural and religious differences in the name of ‘multiculturalism.’ Such leveling replaces robust articulations of the Christian faith as public truth with abstracted liberal ideals, which attempt to unite deracinated human communities around secular commitments.

The ERLC’s Advocacy for Islam

Caught up in this mix are controversies from recent years concerning the ERLC’s defense of mosque construction, such as its 2016 decision to join a legal brief advocating for a New Jersey Islamic center’s right to build a mosque. Russell Moore and the ERLC argued that the Baptist commitment to religious liberty requires equal treatment of non-Christian religions, even as critics pointed out that such advocacy only aids the spread of Islam while failing to secure the same protections for Christians facing persecution at home and abroad.

Over the last several decades, mainstream evangelical missiology has also demonstrated its inability to tap into natural theology and political theology (and other such disciplines) to account for changing cultural forces. Voices in missions have rightly recognized that, in the cause of Christ, death is ultimately gain (Phil. 1:21); but it does not thus follow that the undermining or dissolution of Christian influence and culture are also “gain” in the grand scheme of world evangelization. Nonetheless, there are many who seem to believe this. Rather than addressing this problem, some have retreated to emotionally freighted rhetoric—such as the wrongheaded refrain that “Jesus was an illegal immigrant”—to impel the laity to take action in some way presumably aligned with left-wing goals rather than with simple evangelism or financial generosity.

Despite this contentious terrain, a faithful, biblical, and historically Christian response to Islamic immigration confidently maintains both missionary zeal and civic order. A faithful Christian approach requires careful consideration of first principles and consultation of the whole counsel of Scripture. Following this approach, we can derive four conclusions.

1. The American church has a missionary obligation towards migrants, including those of an Islamic background, in their midst.

The Apostle Paul spoke freely of his gospel ministry in terms such as “obligation” (Rom. 1:14) and “necessity” (1 Cor. 9:16). The implications of this speech, though unsettling, are unavoidable. Though modern believers do not share Paul’s particular apostolic calling or office, we too are under obligation to make the saving gospel of Jesus Christ known to those who have never heard it (Rom. 10:14–17, 15:20–21).

Islam today, as it has since the seventh century, presents a vexing case for Christians. The Qur’an seems to demonstrate some awareness—albeit fragmented and distorted—of the Christian claims surrounding the substitutionary death of Christ (Sura 4:157–158), Jesus’ identity as the divine Son (Surah 6:101), and the nature of God as Trinity (Surah 5:73) so as to refute these doctrines. However, it is not valid to conclude that all Muslims, by virtue of their religion’s dogmas, have already heard the claims of the gospel message and consciously rejected it. Rather, it is frequently the case, especially outside of the Western world, that what little notion of Christian teaching Muslims have is inaccurate and incomplete. Statistically, less than 15 percent of Muslims are likely to even have so much as a Christian friend. Muslims, then, should be regarded as subjects for evangelization and not merely as cultural or political enemies of the project of Christendom.

In this vein, we can in one sense recognize the hand of God in bringing so many scores of Islamic migrants into evangelistic striking distance of evangelical Christians in the U.S. Of course, whatsoever comes to pass is included within divine providence (Isa. 46:9–10; Eph. 1:11). Nevertheless, God exercises particular care in superintending the movements of peoples and their access to special revelation (Acts 17:26–28). So too, in the present case, Christians in the U.S. should not be slack in their collective missionary obligation to those Muslim neighbors whom God has sovereignly located within their sphere of influence. Rather, Christians should pray and labor towards their salvation.

2. Immigration is not always to be regarded as an unmitigated good.

Americans today—Christian and unbelieving alike—have been catechized in the sensibilities of the liberal international order such that statements like “The U.S. is a nation of immigrants” carry almost creedal status. This oversimplification fails to account for both the unique status of America’s forbears as settlers (and not just immigrants) as well as the distinct Anglo-Protestant character of the tradition in which U.S. customs and laws were conceived. Yet the rhetorical force of these multicultural shibboleths is difficult to overcome.

Contrary to these modern orthodoxies, immigration as a concept is morally neutral: context and circumstance render it a good or ill relative to other factors. In Scripture as well, instances of immigration may be portrayed as positive—such as in the case of Ruth, who willingly and respectfully assimilated to her host country’s culture and embraced true religion (Ruth 1:16)—or negative—such as the threatened covenant curse whereby sojourners would arise and overtake native Israelites in the land (Deut. 28:43–44).

Evangelistic ends brought about through the means of immigration, while vastly significant to the Christian and to the mission of the church, are but one consideration to be weighed in determining whether a pattern of immigration is helpful or harmful to the peoples involved. The duty of civil magistrates is to tend to the public good,[1] and therefore government officials must consider all the factors relevant to the public good in assessing and enforcing immigration policy.

1. Banner of Truth Trust, The Baptist Confession of Faith 1689 (Pocket Puritans) (Banner of Truth, 2012), 99.

3. Neither the Great Commission nor the transcultural nature of the invisible church overthrow principles of natural law and prudence affecting national policy.

Those acquainted with the direction of discourse in the evangelical and Reformed communities through recent years are quite familiar with the many debates over Christian reconstructionism, theonomy and, more recently, Christian nationalism in its various forms. In each case, the schools of thought which are more inclined to assert a greater role for the church in shaping society and law are accused of collapsing the role of the state into the sphere of the church. Yet in a dramatic, ironic reversal, it appears that progressive voices in the immigration debate have become the new “Christian nationalists.” Today, it is not uncommon to hear Micah 6:8, Matthew 7:12, or the parable of the Good Samaritan in the mouths of politicians attempting to mount a moral case for open borders. Increasingly, the question facing American Christians seems not to be whether Christian sensibilities will dictate public opinion and shape policy but which vision of Christianity will.

This leftist ‘Christian nationalism’ reveals a desire to subsume national policy into a certain vision of an ostensibly Christian ethical frame advocating openness, tolerance, and egalitarianism. This impulse to collapse one sphere into another is, ironically, as unstable and insidious as secularists imagine Christian conservative culture warriors to be. In truth, the biblical data regarding the global missionary mandate of the church (Matt. 28:19–20; Acts 1:8), the transnational makeup of God’s new covenant people (Rev. 5:9; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:14–19), and God’s distinct compassion towards the sojourner and oppressed (Ex. 22:21; Deut. 10:18–19; Ps. 146:9) in no way contradict the equally rich, thick body of biblical teaching and Christian thought regarding the sovereignty of states.

Scripture—as well as reason—both teach us not to steal (Ex. 20:15; Eph. 4:28), not to move or negate property boundaries (Deut. 19:14; Prov. 22:28), and not to look favorably upon cultural influences that are spiritually corrosive with respect to true worship (Deut. 7:3-6; 2 Cor. 6:14–17). These truths exist in harmony alongside everything Scripture also teaches regarding love for one’s neighbor (Lev.19:18; Luke 10:25–37) without the slightest hint of contradiction. If Scripture does not treat these issues as being in tension, neither should we. Rather, as with any doctrinal synthesis, we should embrace the full range of biblical teaching, applying matters of compassion and mercy to individual conduct and the church’s mission, while reserving matters of justice and law for the civil magistrate under God’s authority (Rom. 13:1–4; 1 Pet. 2:13–14).

4. The objective of evangelizing Muslims does not entail the degradation of public Christianity; rather, robust, public Christianity should be understood as a blessing in the cause of missions.

To return to a point made in the introduction, modern missions thought is, unfortunately, awash in a sea of sentimentality. We rightly turn to the words of the New Testament concerning the infinite worth of Christ and the value of missionary martyrdom to rouse us from our sloth and rally us into the cause of the Great Commission. But when we fail to make proper category distinctions, we often carry this to the invalid conclusion that anything and everything suffered by Christianity at a cultural, civil, or institutional level is necessarily a good to be prayed for and rejoiced in. It is this line of thinking that is wont to make such statements as, “Persecution purges the church, so I’m praying for more of it in America.” Were we to follow this logic to its full conclusion, we might conclude that it is righteous for me to beat my neighbor so that the pain can teach him to treasure Christ more than his physical welfare(!). A similar mentality applauds the apparent downfall of Christian influence in the broader culture. We may rightly identify this mindset as a gross form of pietistic masochism. It is correct in recognizing the way God sovereignly utilizes suffering to his good ends (Gen. 50:20); it fails to consider that suffering qua suffering is not a good but is an evil, and that love includes praying and laboring for good and not evil to befall one’s neighbor (Rom. 13:10).

Turning to the issue of immigration, this means we must distinguish between private and public persons. Private persons are called by Christ to love their neighbor sacrificially, turn the other cheek when wronged, and, if called upon, lose their lives in making Christ known. Public persons, by contrast, are obligated to act in the interest of those to whose trust they are held.

Making these category distinctions help us know what to “do” with Islam in the west today. We can love and evangelize Muslims without ceding that the public square must be a religiously neutral marketplace of ideas. We can relate respectfully to our Muslim neighbors without running aground of the sort of chronological snobbery that, motivated by modern standards of inclusivity and tolerance, dismisses Christian military figures and heads of state in past ages who wielded the sword in defense of Christianized populations against persecuting and plundering pagans. Or, as providence may have it, we can express concern over the increasing hegemony of Islam in places like the U.K. without thereby losing our missionary compassion or giving way to sinful contempt.

What’s more, distinguishing between the private and public domains also allows us to see the great good that a robust, public Christianity bearing influence on a nation’s customs and laws can serve in the cause of cross-cultural mission. Healthy, cohesive Christian-influenced nations acting in their own sanctified self-interest can preserve the conditions of geopolitical peace needed to sustain missionary sending. Healthy, cohesive Christian-influenced nations can maintain a social environment fertile to the influence of the church, resulting, on whole, in more knowledge of revealed truth, more genuine conversions, and more individuals likely to hear and embrace an overseas calling. Healthy, cohesive Christian-influenced nations can act in the interest of Christian communities around the world under the oppressive veil of political Islam, providing temporal blessing to the people of God and weakening the public influence of false religion.

Conclusion

The fissure between conservatives—rediscovering principles of historic Christian political theology and, at times, tempted to wane in their missionary fervor—and progressives—using Scripture as a thin veil for open borders and erosion of national sovereignty—is ever widening. Moreover, this fault line runs through the evangelical church in America, and not least of all through the Southern Baptist Convention in particular. The need of the hour is a resounding commitment to the Great Commission and a refusal to accept (much less lobby for) ill-fated government schemes and programs as viable replacements for the type of compassion only Christ’s church can provide. Returning to Scripture and the great tradition of Christian reflection, we can both make disciples of the nations—yes, including Islamic ones—while applying God’s wisdom in natural and special revelation to effect policies to strengthen our nation in particular. A strong vision for a Christian-influenced American nation is the friend, not the enemy, of faithful missionary efforts on the part of American churches. May evangelical Christians, and Southern Baptists in particular, model sober thinking and action in these critical matters.