21 Stranger Claims is about the Bible and immigration. It's an argument for hospitality. The force of the teaching in Scripture is usually overlooked, and it can be a shock. The book is addressed primarily to people who identify themselves as "conservative" both politically and religiously. On immigration, you have to choose: conservative politics and conservative religion do not fit together. Scripture demands, over and over, that people who seek to know and love God must welcome strangers. 21 Stranger Claims is a piece of a larger work in progress. The larger work, McGivney's Guests, emerges from conversations among Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal and service organization. McGivney's Guests explores the teaching and practice of hospitality in: (1)the Old Testament, (2)the New Testament, (3)the writing the Fathers of the Church, (4)three American saints who worked with immigrants, (5)the formal teaching of the Catholic Church about immigration, (6)the letter of the American and Mexican bishops, writing jointly in "Strangers No Longer," and (7)the practice and public position of the Knights of Columbus. The book is set up as 21 claims or assertions to be argued. The claims are made clearly and simply, in about 500 words each. Examples: "Moses did not describe the evil of Egypt as genocide or treachery, but as inhospitality. Welcome strangers, because - remember! - you too once were a stranger in a strange land. (Exodus)." The texts that lead to the claims are provided, including - for example - the whole story of Gibea, a story that is not well known but which illuminates other stories (Sodom, Exodus, Babylonian exile). And there is some additional commentary, such as the meaning of the gesture of brushing the dust from your feet (these barbarians don't understand the basics of hospitality). The claims are made based on texts throughout the Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, and the History and Wisdom books. The teaching in Scripture about hospitality is everywhere. Once you see it, you can't un-see it. And once you see it, you find it everywhere - the blessings, the promises, the joys, the challenges. The lordship of Jesus is not a matter of swords and power and pomp; his lordship is more about making us welcome in the courts of the Lord, a guest at his feast, where it's hard to explain who is host and who is guest, hard to be sort out who is serving and who is served. The life of the Lord is a life of love: of course hospitality and welcome are central! Of course! The book is serious, with original scholarship, but the ideas are accessible and the tone is informal: "Central or not, we can overlook hospitality. Indeed, as a culture, we have overlooked it, especially recently. The stranger at the door is God: perhaps we knew that once, but we forgot it. It's easy to mush it up and shove it aside, or to put it on a pedestal with other bits of irrelevant plaster, or box it up on a bumper sticker stuck where we can't see." The book is about ancient texts, but applies them to the cultural struggle today. From the conclusion: "First, the land is not ours. It is God's, and he offers it to his children - including us, but including others as well. Controlling the borders and protecting the society we have built makes sense. But the duty to protect is not the same as a right to exclude others arbitrarily - particularly when the culture you are protecting is deeply proud of its heritage of ... hospitality! "Second, charity is not a replacement for justice. Generosity is so precious! But when 5% of the people on God's green earth hold the richest continent, it is not generosity to let others share it. It's justice. "Third, the Lord's command to welcome strangers applies to nations. The forceful command to be hospitable is not directed to individuals, but to societies. Hospitality is not a personal matter, or not only personal. It has a social dimension - national, international."
About the Author: John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe has been a peace and pro-life activist for many years. Time magazine (and Joan Andrews) have called him the "father of the rescue movement." He has written extensively about nonviolence (for), and eugenics (against). He is currently working to build bridges between the left and the right wings of the Church; birds fly better with two wings. His publications include pamphlets and booklets that laid the foundation for pro-life nonviolence, especially "Peaceful Presence" (1978) and No Cheap Solutions (1984). He also wrote Emmanuel, Solidarity: God's Act and Our Response (2000) and Roots of Racism and Abortion: An Exploration of Eugenics (2001). He wrote about immigration in two previous books: Sign of the Crossing (2012), about immigration and Scripture; and Welcome! Date TBD (2012), 20 brief arguments for the Maryland Dream Act. He has published in numerous pro-life publications, and in America, Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, and the Women's Studies Encyclopedia. Stories about him have appeared in NY Times Magazine, Time, New Yorker. NY Times reporter Jim Risen and Kansas City Star reporter Judie Thomas, in their book Wrath of Angels, devoted a chapter to him: "Father of Rescue: John O'Keefe."