Helen T. Boursier

Willful Ignorance (eBook, ePUB)

Overcoming the Limitations of (Christian) Love for Refugees Seeking Asylum

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Using ethnographic research, Willful Ignorance: Overcoming the Limitations of (Christian) Love for Refugees Seeking Asylum examines the attitudes of clergy and lay leaders regarding their (in)attention to racism as it intersects with the harsh reality of U.S. immigration policies and practices. This multi-faceted work begins with a reality check on the scope of forced migration and its intersection with the historical legacy of racism in America, including testimonies from displaced migrants and immigration advocates who help to alleviate state-inflicted suffering at the U.S.-Mexico border. Helen T. Boursier examines the rationales Christian leaders use to justify the local church's nominal response, including the discursive buffers and stall tactics they use to deflect their lack of preaching, teaching, leadership and/or ministry with displaced migrants who are their near neighbors. The Christian church's firm foundation to embody love as social justice provides a historical rebuttal, while case studies of congregations that offer displaced migrants compassionate hospitality model exemplary contemporary response. Closing with practical suggestions for how to begin building bridges with migrants, Boursier argues for a philosophy of religion that embraces resistance to racism and exclusion from asylum, through a missiology of compassion that exemplifies an ecclesiology of love.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks US
• Seitenzahl: 408
• Erscheinungstermin: 27. April 2022
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781793628275
• Artikelnr.: 63903420

Autorenporträt

Helen T. Boursier, PhD, is a public theologian, educator, author, activist, ordained minister, and artist who advocates for justice. She teaches gender studies; spirituality through a justice-informed lens to nursing and social work students; theology; and religious studies at the College of St. Scholastica. An ordained Presbyterian minister, she was a volunteer chaplain with displaced migrants at the US-Mexico border (2014-2022). Her books include Desperately Seeking Asylum: Testimonies of Trauma, Courage, and Love (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019); The Ethics of Hospitality: An Interfaith Response to U.S. Immigration Policies (Lexington Books, 2019); Art as Witness: A Practical Theology of Arts-Based Research (Lexington Books, 2021); Willful Ignorance: Overcoming the Limitations of (Christian) Love for Refugees Seeking Asylum (Lexington Books, 2022); and Precious Precarity: A Spirituality of Borders (forthcoming Fortress Press, 2024).

Inhaltsangabe

Prelude: A Quick Review of Southern Border Headlines News (2016-2020)
Section One: Setting the Context: Humanitarian Crisis and the (Silent)
Church
1. America's Legacy of Racism: Black and Brown Migration in Historical
Perspective
2. Reality Check: Exclusion from Asylum at the US-Mexico Border (2016-2020)
3. The Intensified Suffering of Migrant Children
4. Willful Ignorance and the Christian Church's Silence on the Human Rights
Violations at the US-Mexico Border
5. Discursive Buffers and Stall Tactics: Framing Leadership Excuses to
'Sound' Better
Section Two: Historical Rebuttal: The Church's Foundation in Social Justice
6. The Church's Firm Foundation in its Historical Witness to Social Justice
7. Mixing Religion with Politics: The Medieval Period through the
Enlightenment
8. Global Events Influence Love-Informed Justice Theology-Twentieth Century
Forward
9. Intersectionality of Diverse Voices Endorse the Church's Engagement in
Social Justice
Section Three: Building Bridges and Preparing for Res