Abstract
A key thesis of this essay is that exploration of the construct of structural violence—especially as iterated in Johan Galtung’s notion of the triangle of violence—can help elucidate the theological concept of systemic or social sin, and thereby help Christians generate a more adequate ethical response to issues and dilemmas in immigration debates in the U.S. today. The notion of structural evil and sin can proffer insight into the reality of complex webs and entanglements in structural violence that enshrouds the lives and journeys of unauthorized Latino/a immigrants into the United States, and into the role of U.S. citizens in perpetuating such violence. Structural violence, seen theologically as social sin, is a conceptual key to “critical seeing” of political, social, legal, and economic structures and policies that drive forced economic immigration in the first place, and also to exposing the moral oblivion and blindness that thwarts the church from offering hospitality and justice to unauthorized immigrants. I argue that because structural violence originates in the vastly unequal distribution of power and privilege among human agents, which systematically advantages elite power brokers at the expense of people on the lowest rungs of society, then repentance from structural violence must entail collective efforts toward redistributing power, and ensuring more equitable access to resources needed for human flourishing. The primary practice and discipline dedicated to this radical task is faith-based community organizing.
Highlights
I write this essay from the vantage point of feminist practical theology which takes as its starting point and critical principle the liberation, wellbeing, and equitable flourishing of women and their children and families, with particular concern for those relegated to invisibility and immiseration on the lowest rungs of society
This essay is guided by a methodology that unfolds through four interrelated phases: (1) firsthand immersion in concrete social reality where there is expressed pain and suffering related to unauthorized immigration into the U.S.; (2) description, analysis, and interpretation of what is going on—with efforts to unmask policies and ideologies that drive unauthorized immigration and produce injustice and suffering; (3) theological interpretation of unjust social reality and structural violence; (4) formulation and enactment of ecclesial response aimed at effective redress of immediate needs, as well as collective engagement in solution-based strategies aimed for structural transformation, in deep solidarity with the people most adversely affected by the structural sin of unjust and chaotic immigration practices and policies
As with North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), proponents of Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) promised that the deal would bring economic prosperity to the region, decrease violence, and reduce immigration to the U.S But similar to what happened in Mexico, Central American family farmers—who constitute a significant portion of the workforce— were unable to compete with highly subsidized U.S agribusiness, and were displaced, uprooted, and forced into the migrant stream
Summary
I write this essay from the vantage point of feminist practical theology which takes as its starting point and critical principle the liberation, wellbeing, and equitable flourishing of women and their children and families, with particular concern for those relegated to invisibility and immiseration on the lowest rungs of society. The commitment and focus of emancipatory feminist practical theology is not on unbelievers of history, but rather on the nonpersons, the nonsubjects who have been denied voice and say-so in the institutions that shape their daily lives In this perspective, Christian faith converts, “becoming a praxis of solidarity with those who suffer and working for the transformation of human agency and social structures” As with NAFTA, proponents of CAFTA promised that the deal would bring economic prosperity to the region, decrease violence, and reduce immigration to the U.S But similar to what happened in Mexico, Central American family farmers—who constitute a significant portion of the workforce— were unable to compete with highly subsidized U.S agribusiness, and were displaced, uprooted, and forced into the migrant stream. The right to stay home, the right to not migrate, has become a grassroots social movement that envisions a world wherein migration is not forced by the violence of poverty, exploitation by transnational corporations, and environmental destruction (BACON, 2013, p. 278)
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