Strangers In Our Midst

How should Western democracies respond to the many millions of people who want to settle in their societies? Economists and human rights advocates tend to downplay the considerable cultural and demographic impact of immigration on host societies. Seeking to balance the rights of immigrants with the legitimate concerns of citizens, Strangers in Our Midst brings a bracing dose of realism to this debate. David Miller defends the right of democratic states to control their borders and decide upon the future size, shape, and cultural make-up of their populations. “A cool dissection of some of the main moral issues surrounding immigration and worth reading for its introductory chapter alone. Moreover, unlike many progressive intellectuals, Miller gives due weight to the rights and preferences of existing citizens and does not believe an immigrant has an automatic right to enter a country...Full of balanced judgments and tragic dilemmas.” —David Goodhart, Evening Standard “A lean and judicious defense of national interest...In Miller’s view, controlling immigration is one way for a country to control its public expenditures, and such control is essential to democracy.” —Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker

How should Western democracies respond to the many millions of people who want to settle in their societies? Economists and human rights advocates tend to downplay the considerable cultural and demographic impact of immigration on host societies. Seeking to balance the rights of immigrants with the legitimate concerns of citizens, Strangers in Our Midst brings a bracing dose of realism to this debate. David Miller defends the right of democratic states to control their borders and decide upon the future size, shape, and cultural make-up of their populations. “A cool dissection of some of the main moral issues surrounding immigration and worth reading for its introductory chapter alone. Moreover, unlike many progressive intellectuals, Miller gives due weight to the rights and preferences of existing citizens and does not believe an immigrant has an automatic right to enter a country...Full of balanced judgments and tragic dilemmas.” —David Goodhart, Evening Standard “A lean and judicious defense of national interest...In Miller’s view, controlling immigration is one way for a country to control its public expenditures, and such control is essential to democracy.” —Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker

"The Strangers in Our Midst tells the story of how American evangelicals have responded to refugees and immigrants - ranging from the Cuban refugee influx in the 1960s, to the Southeast Asian refugees in the 1980s, to undocumented immigrants from Latin America in the 1990s and 2000s. Evangelical Christians have been a pillar of US immigration and refugee policy since the end of World War II in two key ways: by acting as refugee sponsors and by offering legalization assistance to undocumented immigrants. They developed an elaborate evangelical theology of hospitality, which emphasized scriptural commands to "welcome the stranger." Initially, evangelicals did not distinguish between legal immigrants and refugees and "illegal," undocumented immigrants. However, a growing anti-immigrant consensus in American society at large and their political alignment with the Republican Party caused them to shed their welcoming approach to immigrants in the 1990s. Evangelicals were now divided in their stances on immigration, as conservative evangelicals viewed only legal immigrants as deserving of their aid, while progressive evangelicals-led by their Latinx coreligionists-emphasized the need for Christians to help all immigrants. In the twenty-first century, a group of Latinx evangelical leaders resurrected and reshaped the evangelical theology of hospitality in an effort to turn the tide in the evangelical debate on immigration. The results are mixed: Unprecedented numbers of evangelicals favor a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Yet as the 2016 presidential election showed, this preference had no impact on their political choices"--

World Relief staffers Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang move beyond the rhetoric to offer a Christian response to immigration. With careful historical understanding and thoughtful policy analysis, they debunk myths about immigration, show the limits of the current immigration system, and offer concrete ways for you to welcome and minister to your immigrant neighbors.

Contemporary efforts to treat sex offenders are rooted in the post-Second World War era, in which an unshakable faith in science convinced many Canadian parents that pedophilia could be cured. Strangers in Our Midst explores the popularization of the notion of sexual deviancy as a way of understanding sexual behaviour, the emergence in Canada of legislation directed at sex offenders, and the evolution of treatment programs in Ontario. Popular discourses regarding sexual deviancy, legislative action against sex criminals, and the implementation of treatment programs for sex offenders have been widely attributed to a reactionary, conservative moral panic over changing sex and gender roles after the Second World War. Elise Chenier challenges this assumption, arguing that, in Canada, advocates of sex-offender treatment were actually liberal progressives. Drawing on previously unexamined sources, including medical reports, government commissions, prison files, and interviews with key figures, Strangers in Our Midst offers an original critical analysis of the rise of sexological thinking in Canada, and shows how what was conceived as a humane alternative to traditional punishment could be put into practice in inhumane ways.

Most American Christians think that helping immigrants is a good idea in theory, but few actually get involved in the ministry of welcome because they feel afraid, concerned, or overwhelmed by busyness. Loving the Stranger addresses these fears in an understanding way, answers these concerns in a way that will resonate regardless of people's political convictions, and lays out simple ways to begin welcoming immigrants in the midst of our busy lives by simply welcoming them into our lives.

"This book attempts a general history of the anti-foreign spirit that I have defined as nativism. It tries to show how American nativism evolved its own distinctive patterns, how it has ebbed and flowed under the pressure of successive impulses in American history, how it has fared at every social level and in every section where it left a mark, and how it has passed into action. Fundamentally, this remains a study of public opinion, but I have sought to follow the movement of opinion wherever it led, relating it to political pressures, social organization, economic changes, and intellectual interests."--from the Preface, taken from back cover.

This book presents a historical overview of the free Negro in Virginia, from the mid-eighteenth century through the Civil War, along with the physical and historical background of Amherst County. The original edition preserved a wealth of information on n

Do states have the right to prevent potential immigrants from crossing their borders, or should people have the freedom to migrate and settle wherever they wish? Christopher Heath Wellman and Phillip Cole develop and defend opposing answers to this timely and important question. Appealing to the right to freedom of association, Wellman contends that legitimate states have broad discretion to exclude potential immigrants, even those who desperately seek to enter. Against this, Cole argues that the commitment to the moral equality of all human beings - which legitimate states can be expected to hold - means national borders must be open: equal respect requires equal access, both to territory and membership; and that the idea of open borders is less radical than it seems when we consider how many territorial and community boundaries have this open nature. In addition to engaging with each other's arguments, Wellman and Cole address a range of central questions and prominent positions on this topic. The authors therefore provide a critical overview of the major contributions to the ethics of migration, as well as developing original, provocative positions of their own.

Designed for both ordained and lay ministers at the diocesan and parish levels, this document challenges us to prepare to receive newcomers with a genuine spirit of welcome.