The Chief Weapon of the Sanctuary Movement

I heard the story from Don Mosley of Jubilee Partners in Comer, Georgia, and it has stayed with me.

During World War II a Norwegian pastor was called in to Gestapo headquarters. He was told to sit down in a chair across the desk from the German officer. Before the interrogation had even begun, the Gestapo chief took his Luger out of its holster and placed it on top of the desk between the pastor and himself.

Immediately the pastor reached into his satchel, pulled out his Bible, and placed it on the desk, right next to the German pistol. "Why did you do that?" the Gestapo officer demanded to know. The pastor replied, "You put your weapon out on the table, so I put my weapon out too."

That story came to mind as I spoke to the Sanctuary Symposium in Tucson, Arizona, in late January.

The scene was very dramatic. Sixteen leaders in the sanctuary movement had just been indicted, and 60 refugees had been arrested. A week earlier the conference had a few hundred registrations, but on this day Temple Emanu-El, the site of the Sanctuary Symposium, was overflowing with 1,300 people.

The government's case against the church workers was based on evidence obtained from infiltration, tape recordings from body bugs, and wire taps. To act against those offering sanctuary to refugees fleeing political tyranny and violence, government agents themselves had violated the sanctuary of the church. Everyone knew that, even as we spoke, there were agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the FBI, and other security forces in the audience with us, listening and recording.

After telling the story of the Norwegian pastor and the Gestapo officer, I raised my own Bible high in the air and said, "Let anyone who would care to take a picture of this, the chief weapon of the sanctuary movement."

Throughout the memorable days of the conference, which really felt more like a revival or rally than a symposium, I heard the Bible quoted again and again. In the courtroom those on trial repeatedly cited the words of Scripture in their defense. In these legal proceedings, the Bible couldn't be quickly put away after the swearing in.

John Fife, the indicted pastor of Southside United Presbyterian Church in Tucson, which was the first to open its doors and become a sanctuary church, told us of the intense Bible study and prayer that preceded his congregation's decision.

Virtually every other congregation that has become involved in providing sanctuary tells the same story. "I was a stranger," says Jesus in Matthew 25, "and you welcomed me." From the Old Testament to the New, providing hospitality and protection to the stranger and sojourner is a clear biblical imperative. When asked by a reporter how old the movement was, Jim Corbett, an Arizona rancher who began the underground railroad by taking Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees to safety, smiled and answered, "The sanctuary movement goes back 3,000 years."

But what began with simple compassion and Bible reading has come to confrontation. Compassion, it seems, has become illegal, and the firm biblical tradition upon which the sanctuary movement rests has come under attack by the U.S. government. The real problem the government has is that too many people are reading the Bible. Reading the Bible with your eyes wide open to the world around you will always get you into trouble.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine.