Immigration Paper

VisionNetwork publishes short papers on a regular basis, and has just produced by written by Dr Andrew Butcher & Dr George Wieland. Butcher is the Director of Policy and Research at the Asia New Zealand Foundation, and Wieland is a lecturer in New Testament at Carey College, NZ.

The Introduction states:

Immigration has played a significant role in the making of New Zealand. However, the growth in immigration from Asia since the mid-1980s onwards has significantly altered the ethnic composition of New Zealand society. This has, in turn, presented significant challenges for how New Zealanders respond to these changes, for how socially cohesive New Zealand is and could become, and for how churches in New Zealand respond to these changes as reflected in their congregations and parishes.

This paper seeks to identify and address some of these challenges as well as present implications and actions for the way forward. To begin, this paper provides a brief overview of immigrants and immigration policy in New Zealand. This is followed by a discussion of immigration and immigrants in the Bible. To conclude, we discuss the implications for Christian attitudes towards immigrants and immigration today.

The paper is available online here.