Tag Archives: Ellis Island

A New Focus for My Essays: Letters from Exile

July 27th, 2025 | Dr. Charlie Self

Hello friends! It has been months since I have posted. This pause was deliberate. I wanted to let some time go by and see the consequences of the 2024 elections (It is plural because Americans elected thousands of public servants, not just a President) in the USA and some of the international leadership decisions in various places of conflict and change.

During this time, I have been busy editing and writing books, speaking and advising at several churches, and teaching my seminary students. I am very encouraged by the efforts of many, seeing communities flourish spiritually and socially, and my students from around the world are always an inspiration.

I am a co-author with Assemblies of God USA General Superintendent Doug Clay of a new book available in August 2025 entitled, 13: Leadership is More than Luck. We find life and leadership wisdom from each of the 13 General Superintendents that have led our Fellowship since 1914. We explore the historical and spiritual context of their time in office and find timeless wisdom from their ministries. This is not a sanitized hagiography that avoids the challenges of the day. These are real and remarkable leaders that can help us be more effective in our service to the Lord. Please take a look!

Starting with this essay, I will begin a long-running series I am calling, Letters from Exile. I am choosing this theme so that I can encourage discernment and thoughtfulness among my readers. Christians are always dual citizens of the kingdom of God and their particular location. Christianity, while influential in Americana and Western history, is a global faith that originated at the crossroads of the continents and now extends to all nations. I do appreciate the USA and the aspirational principles of our founders and framers. At the same time, no empire or nation will be perfect until the Day of the Lord.

In 1976, during the Bicentennial celebrations, I declared myself an exile. I could not agree with some of the conservative voices declaring the United States a chosen nation favored by God. I also vehemently dissented from voices on the Left that made America the moral equivalent of Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao Zedong’s China. Reading the Bible carefully, I discovered that God’s people – from the Jews in exile in Babylon in the 6^th century BC to all Christians across time and place – are called to flourish in in the places they are living, bringing spiritual and social good (Jeremiah 29; Philippians 2:12-16).

I do think the USA has been a force for good in history, as well as falling short of her ideals again and again. Our First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution, is unprecedented in history for the freedoms it espouses, especially the first sentence declaring complete freedom of conscience and religion. American ideals in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federalist Papers were subverted by our nation’s original sin: permitting the chattel slavery of African Americans. We did fight a Civil War to end slavery de jure (by law); however, it took another century to end unequal rights for Black Americans both de jure and de facto (the Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws of 1964 and 1965). We are still in need of greater reconciliation and redemption that ends racial tensions and opens doors for all to flourish.

Throughout our history we have been both hospitable and hostile to immigrants. While Ellis Island welcomed millions from the 1870s to 1914, Chinese Exclusion Acts were closing doors on immigration and severely restricting freedom for those in the USA. In the 1920s to 1940s, the USA closed its doors to Jews fleeing the antisemitism of Nazi Germany and other nations. We also opened the doors again after World War Two and supported the birth of the modern nation of Israel in the shadow of the Shoah.

Our nation, like each person we meet, is both beautiful and broken, with signs of grace and personal and systemic sins. In forthcoming essays, we will explore how to think deeply and act decisively in an age of outrage and reaction, ideological entrapment and social media anarchy.

I look forward to sharing ideas that may help us all become more thoughtful. We can be kind without compromise, tolerant without losing clarity, and hopeful in the midst of the helplessness so many feel. Thank you for your prayers, responses, and the seen and unseen good each of you bring to our world each day.

History and Hope: Renewing the American Promise Part Two: Toward Justice for All

July 17th, 2024 | Dr. Charlie Self

The American Experiment in virtue-based liberty is never done…we are always aspiring to live up to the noble values of our Founders and Framers. In Part One, we looked at our nation’s foundations, find much to thank God for…and much requiring repentance and realignment with truth. In this essay, we explore events from the 19^th century to the present as signs of blessing and judgment, with the hope that we can live more helpful and hopeful lives.

The decades before the Civil War (1861-1865) saw a nation divided over slavery, with the Compromises of 1820 and 1850 failing to appease of the passions of both abolitionists and advocates of slavery. The British and French preceded the USA in the abolition of slavery, even as Americans boasted about having a freer nation!

Tragedy and blessing: The Civil War officially started as a war for Confederate independence (Southern view) and a war to preserve the Union (Northern view). By late 1862 with the Emancipation Proclamation and early 1865, with the passing of the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery, President Lincoln and many others understood the war to be God’s providential judgement on three centuries of slavery. More soldiers were killed and wounded in this war that all other wars combined. The 14^th and 15^th Amendments, passed in 1868 and 1870, enshrined citizenship and voting rights for all people.

Tragedy: beginning in 1876 and lasting until 1964, segregation and second-class citizenship for African Americans and other minorities became normalized. African-Americans were the most impacted, while other minorities felt the sting if prejudice through restrictive immigration and outright bans from whole arenas of society.

Blessing: Full equality and voting rights for women were promoted by Abigail Adams and others in the 1780s and 1790s but fell on deaf ears until the late 19^th century. Suffragette movements (often led by married women of solid Christian faith) gained ground in particular states before 1900. Finally in 1920, full voting rights were enshrined in the 19^th Amendment. It would take several more decades and court decisions to allow full equality for employment and property rights.

Blessing and tragedy: Many Americans boast that we are a “land of immigrants” and that the Statue of Liberty welcomes all (legally). And there is much to celebrate as we think of the millions coming through Ellis Island in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. We are indeed a wonderful “salad bowl” (Historian Carl Degler) of diverse ethnicities and traditions. While we celebrate Ellis Island in New York and appreciate the opportunities afforded to so many, we must also lament the oppression of Angel Island in California and the severe restrictions placed on Asian (especially Chines) immigrants from the 1870s to the 1940s. The open doors of previous decades shut harshly after World War I.

We closed our doors to Jewish immigration and capitulated to severe antisemitism from the 1920s to the1940s, only changing course after seeing the full evidence of the Holocaust.

Blessing: After World War II, the momentum for civil and voting rights for all was unstoppable, though only in 1965 were full rights established. The movement led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was one of our last moments of unified advocacy with people from all backgrounds ready to help cash, “the promissory note” of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

The past six decades are their own unique narrative, with bright moments of divine life and tragic moments subverting the values and visions of the Founders. May we delight in the providential progress of our history and humbly continue the journey toward justice so all can flourish.

Thankful: The Complex Tapestry of American History

November 24th, 2020 | Dr. Charlie Self

The United States of America is – like every person we meet and any nation we study – beautiful and broken. Her history is filled with saints and sinners, imperial oppression and unprecedented liberty. As we gather around tables and express our gratitude to God and each other, here are some paradoxical facts that are part of our historical tapestry:

The First Thanksgiving was celebrated in Plymouth with genuinely cordial relations with the local tribes. The Pilgrims owed their survival to Squanto and others that helped them gather, harvest, and hunt well.
Just before the Pilgrims came ashore (1620), the colony of Virginia began importing African slaves for work in the tobacco fields (1619), inaugurating a history that only a Civil War and later Civil Rights Movement would change.
Maryland and Pennsylvania were colonial havens for Roman Catholics and Quakers respectively, and both colonies promoted freedom of religion.
Meanwhile in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, religious dissenters such as Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams were exiled or punished severely into the 1690s.
The Methodists prohibited members from owning slaves as of 1757; alas, a century later this dynamic tradition was divided in to Northern and Southern branches…as were almost all denominations.
Ellis Island processed millions of immigrants in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Though many faced prejudices and obstacles assimilating into a very White and Protestant America, within a few generations, most of their descendants were celebrating the opportunities the New World had to offer.
At the same time immigrants were gazing happily at the Statue of Liberty upon their arrival in the USA, millions of Native Americans and African Americans faced continued oppression, prejudice, and legal barriers to full inclusion into American society.

The USA continues as an experiment in virtue-based liberty, with a history of hospitality and generosity as well as nativism and xenophobia. As we rightly give thanks, let’s rededicate ourselves to building a land of access, equity, and opportunity for all.