A few days ago I was listening to NPR's Up First podcast when they began to talk about the new policies at ICE ever since Trump came into office.[1] Now although it is perfectly legitimate for a country to deport foreigners who commit crimes within its borders, or even to be selective of what foreigners it lets in to begin with, what caught my attention regarding this episode was that “[i]mmigration enforcement will now be able to arrest migrants at sensitive locations like [...] churches.” Here we see how in spite of all the christian conservative façade of President Trump and the Republicans, in reality they continue to be nothing more than liberals. Sure, not the liberals of the last twenty years, but liberals nonetheless. Of course, it is possible that this form of liberalism is merely intuitive by this point (not directly willed or thought-out) since liberalism has been creeping into the depths of our culture for centuries now. Even so, it is important to remember why churches are to be considered sanctuaries where the Civil Authority has no jurisdiction.
It is part of both Christian and Jewish (and perhaps even pagan) tradition that the church (or temple) is a place of sanctuary precisely for those who have transgressed and seek reconciliation by appealing to that Authority above the Civil Authority and in which we are all united: the Church. The Church plays a special role here as a representative not only of God, but also of the People of God (and thus society) as a whole. So when the transgressor enters the church he does not - as our liberal conservative friends may think - flee from justice and the repercussions of his actions, but rather he heads straight towards the highest Judge. In doing so the transgressor both implicitly recognizes his guilt (that he did something unjust for which justice demands punishment) and actually puts himself at the mercy of the Church (i.e. society). This act of what is in essence a confession of guilt - and indeed, in the Catholic/Orthodox tradition this would go hand-in-hand with an actual Sacramental Confession - would also constitute an evidence of true repentance of the transgressor, for he seeks the Church not to flee just punishment, but to reconcile himself to society once more and beg for mercy. And here we are indeed practically obliged to reduce the punishment for the crime committed, since part of the purpose of punishment is precisely this medicinal purpose of reconciliation and correction of the guilty party[2] which has here already been satisfied by God's grace in the transgressor himself without the need of society's punishment to do so.
Yet, even so, perhaps the primary purpose of punishment “of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense”[3] has not be fulfilled and the criminal has still some punishment left to completely reconcile himself to society once more. It may be the liberal's fear that the transgressor may refuse such a punishment; or perhaps he truly does seek the sanctuary of the church for merely selfish reasons. What is misunderstood here is the degree to which the transgressor is at the mercy of society by taking sanctuary in the church. He cannot leave, for then he returns to the jurisdiction of the Civil Authority, but if he remains he is effectively imprisoned within the church and completely dependent on the charity of precisely that community whom he has transgressed for his basic necessities.
What this does is to give the transgressor a true Christian way of reconciling himself to the community instead of the transactional justice that we have today. Transgressors are given the opportunity to confess their crimes and, in so doing, demonstrate their repentance and correction: that they truly believe what they did was evil. Meanwhile, our transactional justice system cannot have this characteristic, for all transgressions are viewed as debts to be repaid, either in cash, time in prison, or (in the case of the death penalty) in blood. Whether or not the transgressor repents and recognizes his sin becomes a “personal matter,” while justice becomes a matter of cold calculation. Hardly something that resembles a society transformed by the light of Jesus Christ.
It is not, however, only the transgressor who benefits from these sanctuaries, but indeed also the aggrieved party, victim of his transgression. In the first place because the victim now has the explicit opportunity to practice one of the greatest of Christian virtues: mercy. And indeed, through this act of mercy, mercy itself becomes institutionalized such that society as a whole may become habituated to it. Secondly, it even serves to bring more closure and healing to the aggrieved, as in this manner the transgressor has not only recognized his crime as fact, but as evil. This compared to our transactional system in which the transgressor perhaps never even admits to the crime, much less to its evil nature. Instead the aggrieved must content themselves with a calculated recognition of facts summed up into a debt that is to be “paid back to society and the aggrieved parties.”
Do not misunderstand me, I do not think that NPR is thinking of this when they criticize the new ICE policy. My humble guess would be (as an avid listener) that they care little for that which is truly sacred, and only make reference to it when it suites their ideological motives. Nor, on the contrary, am I saying that for this reason (or many others like it) a Christian should never support Trump or the Republican Party; politics is a messy business and we must make due with what options we have. It is a reminder, rather, to all Christians that no party or politician of the current regime represents Christian values, but only that some may be better than others.