Neighbors
Summary
This is One Million Neighbors, a new limited series that tells a largely forgotten story: how, in the 1970s, faith communities across the United States—especially in places like Minneapolis–St. Paul—mobilized to resettle more than one million Southeast Asian refugees in the face of widespread hostility. This episode traces the stark contrast between that history and our current moment, where immigrants are once again cast as threats. It’s a story of contradiction, courage, and possibility—one that challenges us to reconsider what faith has been, what it is now, and what it could be again.
By now, many Americans are used to hearing a certain kind of Christian rhetoric about immigration—one that frames mass deportations, strict border enforcement, and exclusion as matters of righteousness, justice, and divine order. In this episode, we begin with those voices, the ones insisting that faith demands removal, suspicion, and allegiance to state power. But we also ask a deeper question: how did we get here? How did a tradition rooted in loving the stranger become, for many, a justification for expelling them? And what happens when that theology collides with real lives—like that of Chung Lee Scott Tao, a U.S. citizen violently detained in his own home during an ICE raid in the Twin Cities?
Straight White American Jesus
The flagship show examining Christian nationalism and democracy.
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