Hugo Magallanes reminds us that the gospel is offensive

Hugo Magallanes, Associate Dean of Perkins School of Theology and professor of Christianity and Culture, joins us today to discuss how he weaves the subject of immigration into his academic work.

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason:
Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I am your host, George Mason. And this immigration series that we've talked about as being a human story and wanted to humanize the subject of it, actually. We've come toward the conclusion now, and I'm delighted to invite our final guest in this series, Dr. Hugo Magallanes. He is the associate dean and professor of Christianity and culture at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. And Hugo, it's so wonderful to have you with us. Thank you for being here.

Hugo Magallanes:
Thank you so much, Dr. Mason, it's an honor and privilege to be part of this conversation, and I'm looking forward to our conversations and discussions and greetings to your audience as well. Thank you for all you do.

George Mason:
Well, you're very welcome. So as an academic, you approach this, of course, from a perspective that is both academic, but it's also personal to you, being a person of Latin descent also. And so I know that you've written about this, you teach it, and the question of culture and immigration, it's just woven into everything you do. So while we have had different people working, or talking with us about this subject, from the nonprofit perspective, the advocacy roles, from congregational perspectives and that sort of thing, how do you approach this subject with your students and integrate it in your academic work?

Hugo Magallanes:
Thank you for that great question, and absolutely it is very personal to me in many ways. I grew up just across the border from El Paso, Texas, and some of my early memories as a child, I remember going to school with my parents and our journey was just along the river. And often I would see families, complete families going across the border and walking and trying to figure out a way to get to the US. I was on this side of the border, of course. Then later on in my life, many of my classmates in elementary school, both of my parents are school teachers, and in talking to them, I found out that their parents, they were living with grandma or grandpa, because their parents were in the US and they were sending money. So they were my close friends. And I was always curious about their family dynamics and how these things would work.

Hugo Magallanes:
Later on, many years later, I had the opportunity to serve in a Planting to Churches in the US. I was fresh out of college and ready to serve the world for Jesus Christ. And then I was appointed to serve in this congregation. And to my surprise, I was expecting, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I thought that it was going to be a normal congregation in the sense that you were there, and the congregation is already established. These were migrant workers, and the great majority of them were undocumented. So when I was serving as a pastor and trying to reach out to them, I encountered many, many ethical dilemmas.

Hugo Magallanes:
I can name a number of examples in which I found myself. And so, in response to that situation, that pastoral situation, what I did is, my education, even though it was a fantastic one, did not address some of the concerns and dilemmas that I was facing. You are talking about the human aspect of this. It is one thing to look at immigration and a debate from an academic perspective, from a political perspective, but when you get to see the persons face to face, when you see and you hear their stories and you see their suffering, your perspective changes. And so you begin to see and understand the reasons, for example, I still remember a three year old that walked through the desert with his parents, and had to drink perfume to survive. And so it's just, you get to hear those stories.

Hugo Magallanes:
And then in my college years, I had an interesting perspective, the way the Bible should be read and how things should be interpreted, but encountering this congregation made me think and rethink and push me to think and consider ethical ways to address the situations that I was facing. So for me, it's not just an academic subject, you are absolutely right. It's part of my own life and my upbringing, not only because of my cultural background, because of my pastoral experience. And so when I teach it, and when I try to talk to people about this, is in fact the chapter that I was telling you a little while ago that I wrote. I'm not trying to convince persons. You and I know us pastors that when you encounter certain persons, they are very ingrained in their position, and it's difficult to persuade them, it's difficult for them to change their mind. So sometimes what I ask them is, have you had the chance to have a conversation with a person that has gone through the whole process? Have you talked to them? And to me that's very important.

George Mason:
Right. I was struck by earlier you were talking about being on the other side of the border, growing up, and seeing people walking across the river. The idea of crossing a river, to go into a land that holds promise, is filled with symbolism, isn't it?

Hugo Magallanes:
Absolutely.

George Mason:
For those of us who have a biblical background, that language is very suggestive and our [hymnity 00:05:47] is often filled with that, the idea of crossing the river into the promised land and how that also suggests even crossing from death to life eternal. So when you think about imagery like that, and you then try to wrestle as a pastor and theologian with this challenge, how do you use the biblical imagery and resources to inform you?

Hugo Magallanes:
Yeah, excellent question as well. Absolutely, the image of crossing borders and crossing the river and going to the Promised Land, is very prominent in biblical narratives, of course. The interesting thing here and reflecting later on in my life is, we are in Texas. Many persons would say that they never crossed the border. The border and the river crossed them. The boundary were defined by political decisions. But nevertheless, what you mentioned is true. And one of the things that sometimes it is important for us as pastors, Christian pastors, is to think and consider this idea of the promised land, that everything is nice and wonderful in the US, has a number of interesting implications and ways to understand that. One thing that we often forget, some of us Christians will often forget, is that the idea of being stranger in a land comes from God.

Hugo Magallanes:
When God is talking to the people of Israel, God is the owner and they are the foreigners. And so God is inviting people to come into God's land. And by doing that, God becomes the host and the others become the guest. And later on in the biblical narrative, you may remember this. God clearly explicitly tells the people of Israel, because you were foreigners in my land, you should be kind, and you should be welcoming. You should offer hospitality to others because that's my church character. That's who I am. I welcome you into my land, and now you should do the same. Be holy, because I am holy means be hospitable, because I welcome you when you were no people, you were nobody. I welcome you into my land and made your people out of you. Yeah.

George Mason:
Yeah. That raises a question for me too though, about this idea of what is God's land to begin with? The Selma says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. And while we talk about God's land in biblical terms being the promised land, we never actually, part of the whole idea of Israel is to break this notion of regional gods, to say that there is no such thing as gods of nations that should be respected as different gods, but there is one God overall the nations. And so when we think about this idea of borders to begin with and whether a nation is proud of itself and its own identity, as if it has a right to exist over against with a border against someone else, it's hard to find, for me, in searching scripture, how to think about this idea of the rights of nations and borders. How do you wrestle with that?

Hugo Magallanes:
Well, absolutely. And that's an excellent observation and I agree with you a 100%, throughout the biblical narrative, both in the Old Testament and New Testament, the motive of all nations, from the very beginning, the calling of Abraham, you'll be a blessing to all nations, not just one nation, but all the nations, I think this image that God is God of all nations. And then you have it in the book of Revelation, when all nations, from all countries, from all ethnicities will come together. So this ideology, the borders, is a human recent construction. My father-in-law's father was a Methodist preacher, and he planted churches on both sides of the river, Mexico and the US. And back then, the border was just a line drawn on the sand. He went back and forth. His appointment from the Methodist Church, went to both places.

Hugo Magallanes:
So these ideas of projection and Christian nationalism is a more recent development and is far away from what God is trying to say in the Old Testament. From the very beginning, as I said, the calling of Abraham, the idea that all the nations, even Christ when he goes to the temple. My house of prayer should be called a house of prayer, for who? For all the nations, not just for one particular. Even though you have a prominent story about Israel and the role of Israel is important, nevertheless it is always the emphasis that is for all the nations.

George Mason:
And I think people would probably be interested to know that the language of nations in the Bible, it is not equivalent to the notion of the existing nation state today, that we experience. Nations really means more like ethnic groups, more like, in fact, ethno is the word for nations. And so this idea that we are peoples of different nations doesn't mean we are Americans versus Mexicans versus Canadians versus Guatemalans. No, it's more about these ethno-linguistic groups that have a sense of cultural identity and common language and customs and these sorts of things. But those may exist across borders as intact ethnic groups. Right?

Hugo Magallanes:
Correct. Correct. Yeah, absolutely. My good friend historian, Justo Gonzalez, he's written fantastic books. He provides an interesting analogy talking about what you are describing quite well in terms of the origins of this words. He says, let's think about our Christian journey as our employment. We are getting ready to retirement. And retirement is our life together in paradise with God celebrating this fantastic banquet. So, that's what you want to do, that's your ultimate goal to get to a retirement and celebrating paradise, and you know that in that particular place, you are going to be, let's say, we're going to move to Japan and enjoy a fantastic time together. So all your life you are trying to learn Japanese because you know that's what you retire. So if you bring this, if you understand that all nations and all cultures and all different groups are going to be together at the end of the day, why don't we start rehearsing now?

Hugo Magallanes:
If you and I are going to retire, and we know that we're going to live in a different country, the very least thing that we can do is to learn the language and to learn the customs and the culture. Why is it that we as Christians, we engaged into these endless debates instead of practicing where we spend eternity, living with people from all different backgrounds, from all different ethnic groups. And if that's our eternal destiny, why don't we begin rehearsing here and now? Even in here in the US, when it's sometimes quite difficult to embrace this type of practicing character.

George Mason:
Yes. Wow. What an interesting observation, and this flies in the face of this missions' movement and the church growth strategy that a generation ago was prominent in the terms of, they called it the homogeneous church approach. And that is that, people who are alike will gather together and they will help grow churches. So we should have only as much as possible people who are very much alike and you can keep breaking that down demographically until the end of time. But it really flies into the face of the Pentecost spirit and the imagery that Justo was sharing with you about that, doesn't it?

Hugo Magallanes:
Oh, absolutely, absolutely without a doubt. And you don't have to have an academic degree, or any academic degree for that matter, to understand that naturally, our natural inclination is to associate with persons that look like us. But God is trying to break the mold from the very beginning, from the day of Pentecost. Go into all the ends of the earth, go to Samaria, go to your enemies, and just keep expanding the circle, and even in the gospels. One of the exercises that I sometimes I used to ask my students to do, is to read the four gospels and to begin a list of all the persons that Jesus intentionally seeks after, that he wants to have that dinner. And if you look at them, they're not the typical person that you would associate with. And that is the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Again, I'll go back to Justo's illustration.

Hugo Magallanes:
Why is it so difficult for us to embrace that character, to embrace that lifestyle, or welcoming people that are radically different from us, being intentional, all of us have 24 hours every day. How do we spend the time together? How do we use the stewardship of our time? In this article, in this chapter that I wrote, again, it's difficult to change a person's mind, particularly when they're committed and affiliated with certain political ideologies. But again, I would ask them, just sit down and have a conversation with a person that is radically different from you, listen to their story, don't question it, just listen to what they have to say and I think that's going to help us understand not only their journey, but more importantly, it will help us understand who God is and how God works in this world.

George Mason:
You are a United Methodist Theologian and Seminary administrator, and you wrote that particular piece on a Wesleyan perspective about immigration. What distinguishes the Wesley perspective among Christians and how might we understand how to look at this challenge of immigration from a Wesleyan view?

Hugo Magallanes:
Thank you for asking that question. I think that's an important question. Again here, I'm speaking from a Methodist Wesleyan perspective. For us, Wesleyan Armenians, Wesleyan Methodist, we believe that image of God is imprinted in every single human being, regardless of their condition, regardless of the legal status, we truly believe that everyone, every single human being has the image of God imprinted in them. And if that's our key principle, George, the question is, what does that do in terms of our treatment of dignity and respect? Yes, you may have laws, and you may have different ways of thinking, but you cannot deny that the image of God is present, and I can go a step further.

Hugo Magallanes:
For example, I think the Bible is clear and I can make an argument that, we have instructions even from Jesus, in terms of how do we treat the enemies. Many years ago, you may remember this, proposition 187 in California, was suggesting that all immigrants, all undocumented immigrants, they were not supposed to receive any healthcare or education. That was a move that would make these undocumented persons worse than a combatant enemy in a war zone, because by the Geneva Convention, we are required to provide aid even to the enemy that is wounded. And there are some laws and some politicians out there that they want to treat undocumented persons worse than an enemy.

Hugo Magallanes:
And to those persons, I just simply ask them, do you see the image of God in this person? Is God present in their journey? And if that is the case, I think that's quite unique for us, Methodist, to understand, even in the worst of cases, you can think of the worst person that you can think and that has done tremendous crimes, even in those persons, the image of God is present, and we should have some dignity and respect in treating those persons.

George Mason:
In your tradition, there is a strong social justice aspect to the Christian faith. And certainly at Perkins, this is a major emphasis in the training of clergy. And so when we look at an issue like this, yes, there's a pastoral question that you first treat the person as a human being, but then there is also the larger structural matter of how to relate to the laws themselves and to the people who are making and enforcing those laws. And this is, I think, something that is difficult for some laypeople to fully accept about our calling, is that, there's an assumption, I think, by many Christians in the pew that pastors, theologians should be primarily respectful of the laws that they have been given by God and that society requires laws in order to have civilization and order and a fair playing field and all of that.

George Mason:
But part of what we wrestle with as ministers, clergy, is that all laws are not necessarily conformed to the moral law, or to what we sense to be God's will for the world. And so some of the work that we have to do, is actually difficult because it is more about challenging the political powers and the laws as they are written, to get them changed, to get more humane enforcement or application of those laws. And when you think about the work you do in the classroom, what conversations do you have to have with students about these tensions?

Hugo Magallanes:
That is a fantastic question and one that we tend to address in, I do teach a class that is called Church and Social Context, but I also teach Moral Theology Christian Ethics. And before I answer the question, I'm going to refer to a couple of examples in scripture that provide perhaps certain parameters as in response of our responsibility in relationship to the laws and the state. You know the story well, Rahab, she lied blatantly to protect the spies. And what happens to her? She is blessed by God and she ends up in the genealogy of Jesus. And then you have the midwives that saved the life of Moses. There was a specific love from the state, from the empire, given to all the persons of the subjects in that particular arena and they disobey. And because of their disobedience, Moses is born and he delivers the people of Israel out of Egypt.

Hugo Magallanes:
So you have a number of instances. Abraham says she is not my wife, she's my sister. And then that turns out to be a blessing, Jacob and Esau, and I keep going and going. So, what I'm suggesting is exactly what you are describing, that we have a moral obligation that is higher, we have a higher calling that our faithfulness and our loyalty and beauty is to represent God's principles, God's reign here on earth. And sometimes they align with God, the laws of the land align with God, and sometimes they don't. In one of the dramatic, drastic cases that I present in class, I asked my students to transport themselves to Germany during World War II in the worst of the cases. It is against the law to protect Jews. And many Christians were faithful and you know the stories and they protect them, but what would a pastor do under those circumstances?

Hugo Magallanes:
And we can come back to the US, what would a pastor do during this labor years of the civil rights movement? What is our role as Christians when we have this dilemmas that we face in terms of, should we obey the state or should we obey the law of God? Certainly, going back to your questioning and from the Methodist perspective in the chapter that I wrote, Wesley himself, he was subscribed to a more Cantium understanding, ontological understanding where the law and the duty of ours, our duty is to fulfill the law and to be obedient. But then he has this experience in Aldersgate, he encounters God in a personal way. And then he says, no, I think what is important here is to please God and to reflect God's character and to love God and to love neighbor.

Hugo Magallanes:
And I think he would say, the story in the gospel says, what is the main principle? What is the main law? To love God and to love neighbor. He said, well, I think he would interpret this, yes, to love God is easy, but instead of saying, the second command is this, to love your neighbor, he would say the first commandment is love God. And another way to say that is, love your neighbor as yourself. So you cannot say that you love God and that you're obedient to God when you cannot love the persons that are close to you. And again, this love implies respect and treating them with dignity, in the conversations that I've been suggesting all along. Yes, you are entitled to your position, you're entitled to have this political understandings, but at end of the day, go down, meet them where they are and hear the stories, begin to see the human aspect of this conversation.

George Mason:
In fact, laws are supposed to be a way of protecting human dignity and of making it possible for everyone to participate in a flourishing society. And when those laws are written and enforced in such a way as they deny that privilege to some and favor others, then they are actually not functioning in the way God's intention for law is meant. So, then the question is, how do people of faith address that? And sometimes it means that we have to speak boldly against public policies, politicians who advance those policies, because we are defending life and the image of God in every person. And this makes us somewhat unpopular, I think, with people who are so committed to, whether they know it or not, a defense of national identity, of the connection between their Christian faith and nationalism. And it becomes very, very difficult for us to break through.

George Mason:
But I guess, Hugo, this is part of what I consider how we're called to carry the cross. I think sometimes ministers are shy to do so because it will cause suffering, but consider the suffering of migrants and what they're going through. And so there's lots of reason for us to shift our behavior if we are focusing on those who are suffering rather than protecting those of us who are not.

Hugo Magallanes:
Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's thinking about popular culture and our state of the country and our society. I think you're right. I think many ministers, they want to be more popular and they want to attract more people. And it's easier to do that when you don't engage in these conversations, you preach what people want to hear and you affirm things that they already believe, well, that's easy. And in our society, I've been thinking about this for quite some time now, some of us are concerned about being offensive and some of us are concerned about not being offensive enough. I think the gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive, is political in nature, but you're absolutely right, we need to consider the suffering of migrants and immigrants, but at the same time, we need to consider the suffering of Jesus Christ.

Hugo Magallanes:
He paid the price for being a voice in the desert, for preaching the good news. And for some people, it wasn't such a good news, it was bad news because he's going against the powers and the empire in proclaiming the news of Jesus Christ and embracing people that are left out by society. And by doing so they say, hey, we don't like this and he got crucified. So that is our example, our calling as ministers is a tough one, because we need to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and sometimes proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ is offensive to some persons. And as you say, sometimes we need to take it to the Square and to the political arena and to tell peer persons say, hey, how can you claim to be a Christian and what you are doing with this policies, with these laws is far away from embracing the dignity of all persons?

George Mason:
There's a loss in the Anglo-church itself, I think too, by our not being in relationship with people of Latin descent Christians who share the same faith as we say, but understand and read the Bible and experience the grace of God on a daily basis in ways that maybe we don't fully, in our experience of greater social and economic privilege. Would you think about the church that you know is vibrant and is experiencing the same gospel, say on the other side of the border, or of those who [inaudible 00:29:18] themselves among us? What is the experience of the Christian faith that we should hear and learn, that would actually be transformative for us if we were in relationship?

Hugo Magallanes:
That's a great question. Thank you so much for asking about this particular dynamic. Here, I think you and I discussed this before our time together, hospitality is a very important Christian tradition practice. And I want to go use that particular analogy, or that particular concept of hospitality, because I think it fits well what you are asking. Typically, those who are in power, those who have the positions of privileged, they love to be the host. They say, well, we welcome everybody, but we welcome them in our own terms, we welcome them and they have to adjust to what we like, and we welcome them and we don't want to change anything. Well, hospitality, according to the biblical tradition is reciprocal. For hospitality to work, the host must become the guest and the guest will become the host. So what we can learn from one another, that is an important concept and notion.

Hugo Magallanes:
Yes, we are two distinct different congregations and with different cultural points of views. And quite often in my work, in my experience as a pastor, there are some amazing hospitable Anglo-congregations that they want to change nothing. So, one of the things that we need to learn from one another is that this, even though the power differential is tremendous, how can we learn from one another? How can we bring this, the host becoming the guest and how can we learn from one another? I think from the Hispanic tradition, the church is, it has many things to offer. It's very vibrant in many ways, not only in terms of the cultural components, but the way that we understand the world, we're community oriented, is something that many Anglos tend to be very individualistic and see their faith as a personal decision for us it's more community based.

Hugo Magallanes:
Some Anglo-churches tend to be extremely concerned about the time in the service, for us it's more personal oriented, we come and go in the service. When does it start? When everybody gets here, when does it end? When everybody leaves. So there are a number of things that we can learn from one another. I'm not saying that one is better than the other. I served the last church that I pastored before I became a professor, I had to learn multiple expressions and I had to encounter and tell my congregation that we need to be sensitive to all the different groups that we had in our congregation. And we expanded certain things and we introduced different songs and different traditions. And at the end of the day, it was fantastic. But it takes a while for us to learn to engage in that reciprocal, mutually transformative relationship.

George Mason:
Well, I am delighted that we've had this chance to visit. I think, it's just helpful for us to hear that some of these complicated matters really are complicated more because we want to make them complicated. And if we wanted to boil it down to, what is the human thing to do? What is the thing that our faith calls us to do? Then, that takes the lead. And everything else becomes, okay, we can find a solution to this, if we don't start out by excusing our behavior by making it all so very complicated.

Hugo Magallanes:
You're absolutely right indeed. It's quite easy. I used a video, a documentary of people of Luxembourg, and a group of Huguenots in France, they welcome Jews, and they welcomed 5,000 of them during World War II. And one of the persons interviewed there asked the same question, why are you so surprised? This is what all Christians are supposed to do. Love God and love neighbor. It is so simple. Why do you get it so complicated? You don't need a task force. You don't need a committee. Just live your faith in the public arena. Love God and love neighbor. That is, that's the answer.

George Mason:
Well, we are all served better because of your leadership at Perkins and your teaching. And I thank you for joining us on Good God and look forward to our continuing ways of interacting.

Hugo Magallanes:
Thank you so much also for your contributions and your leadership here at Perkins as well. We appreciate that very much. And for your ministry and for your service, not only to your congregation, but to the large society and community at large. Thank you so much, George.

George Mason:
You're welcome. Thank you, Hugo.

Speaker 3:
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