The Ethics of Hospitality: An Interfaith Response to US Immigration Policies

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Set against an ethical-theological-philosophical framework of the role of love in the Abrahamic tradition (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity), The Ethics of Hospitality highlights the personal witness of refugee families seeking asylum from the Northern Triangle in Central America to the U.S. Their heart-wrenching stories include why they fled their homelands, their experiences along the arduous overland journey, and their inhospitable reception when they arrived to the U.S. and requested asylum. It includes an overview of the systemic connections between the U.S. and the violence which catapults these families to seek safety. The voices of the families join the witness of interreligious volunteers of greater San Antonio who assist the refugee families in diverse capacities and who testify to the mutual blessing they receive when love of God, expressed as love of neighbor, becomes central to the immigration conversation. Ultimately, the proposal is that the interreligious community has the privilege and responsibility to respond in love with refugees seeking asylum, while also leading the outcry in the public square for their radical welcome.

Reviews

The Ethics of Hospitality is a worthwhile and timely read. Boursiers provision of an inside look at the experiences of refugees in detention facilities at the border makes the book truly valuable for both academic and non-academic audiences. It would also make a great choice for seminary students in graduate level courses on immigration. * Reading Religion *
This book of a volunteer chaplain with refugee families seeking asylum, is a must reading in these anti-immigrant political times and presidential hate-mongering. Helen Boursiers The Ethics of Hospitality, argues for a radical hospitality and welcoming of the strange Other as an expression of our love of God. I highly recommend it! -- Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, Krister Stendahl Professor, Harvard Divinity School
Helen Boursier has written a memorable and timely book with equal doses of scholars erudition and pastors passion. Drawing from her ministry as detention facility chaplain serving asylum seekers, Boursier brings the haunting testimonies of their fight for survival and dignity into dialogue with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theological visions of love and hospitality. Engaging Bonhoeffer, Derrida, Soelle, Rabbi Sacksamong other seminal theological voicesin light of interfaith volunteer practices of welcome at the Greyhound bus station in San Antonio, TX, offers a spiritually, ethically, and pastorally grounded gateway into the monumental challenges that forced migration poses locally and globally. This book will break hearts and transform minds to enable grasping the enormity of migrant predicaments but also to celebrate their faith and empower their hope through the spiritual practice of radical hospitality in action. Boursiers book is an exceptionally helpful resource not only for theologians but also for college and seminary students as well as all those in our diverse communities of faith who seek theological encouragement for embodied witnessing to the radical love of God that transcends even the most dehumanizing borders. -- Kristine Suna-Koro, Xavier University, author of In Counterpoint: Postcoloniality, Diaspora, and Sacramental Theology

Rev. Dr. Helen Boursier is called to be our witness to the profound suffering of refugee families who find themselves lost among us. In her quest for justice, Dr. Boursier is tasked with protecting their stories while telling their truths. Her descriptions are authentic capturing the fear, pain and sorrow, as well as the deep faith and hope of these families displaced from home and persecuted here.

In her most recent work, we follow Rev. Boursier meeting at the intersection of passion and intellect as she asks and answers the question why should we care and what can we do.

Dr. Boursier's views are at once informed by her love of God and her belief that people will care about and for the strangers who find themselves as victims in a world gone awry.

Rev. Boursier asks us to replace hostility with hospitality and to welcome asylum seekers with compassion and love. From my almost fifty years of experience with this vulnerable population, I know the challenges of doing this and the difference it makes one person at a time.

Rev. Boursier has written an important book made even more so by these dehumanizing political times.

-- Hope M. Frye, executive director of Project Lifeline, lead attorney at Flores Monitoring

Helen Boursier invites our theologies and philosophies to journey from our heads to our hands and lips by putting the voices and experiences of thousands of displaced people into our hearts. An Ethics of Hospitality: An Interfaith Response to US Immigration Policy is a must-read for anyone who takes seriously the moral imperatives of hospitality in the Abrahamic faiths sacred texts.



After this book a reader can no longer respond to the challenges of border security without factoring love into the solutions. As Boursiers scholarship and insight demonstrate, doing otherwise risks ones own humanity and leaves any claim one might make to loving God little more than an empty claim. This book clearly articulates the reasons so many progressive people of faith oppose current U.S immigration policy.

-- Bill Lyons, Conference Minister for the United Church of Christ

Author Bio

Helen T. Boursier is professor at College of St. Scholastica.