The Borders of our Responsibility: Christian Ethics & Migration
6-week in person course hosted at First United Methodist Church of Lakeland in Lakeland, Florida. Tuesdays 6:30 PM ET - 8:00 PM ET from September 13 - October 18, 2022.
Description
The Hebrew Bible and Christian Scriptures attest our responsibilities to both neighbors and strangers. However, to practice these responsibilities today people of faith must engage complex questions about citizenship and alienage, love and justice, and the relationship between church and state.
Meant to be a prelude to responsible action, this course will explore the theological ethics of migration, attending the various goods that make claims on our responsibilities - and the lives that are caught between them.
Scholarships are available for this course, please email us at candlerfoundry@emory.edu for more information.
Instructor
Bryan Ellrod is the Postdoctoral Fellow in Leadership and Character in Pre-Law at Wake Forest University. His research engages questions of identity, membership, and responsibility at the intersections of law, religion, and politics. His dissertation, "Can These Bones Live," adopts the southwestern borderlands as a context for theological reflection, asking what it would mean to become neighbors to those who have lost their lives attempting to enter the United States through the Sonoran Desert. He holds a Ph.D., Th.M., and M.Div from Emory University and a B.A. from Florida Southern College. Ellrod resides in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with his wife, Courtney, and their border Collie, Ekko.
Continuing Education Units (CEUs)
Continuing Education Unit (CEU) are available for this course. There is a processing fee of $25.00, and an Award Letter will be issued once the course has been completed. Please add the CEU processing fee at checkout.
Recommended Materials/Readings
Christian ethicists have published a great deal of literature on the question of migration. The recommended readings are selected to present two contrasting approaches to thinking about the issue. It is my hope that in these readings, participants will find language that helps them articulate their own viewpoints in relation to the authors’ (and my own):
Amstutz, Mark. Just Immigration: American Policy in Christian Perspective (Grand Rapids: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017)
Rajendra, Tisha. Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2017)