Deus Migrator—God the Migrant: Migration of Theology and Theology of Migration

Abstract

Our time, which has been dubbed “The Age of Migration,” demands a new way of doing theology (“Migration Theology”) and a new conceptualization of basic Christian beliefs (“Theology of Migration”). This essay begins with a survey of the American Catholic Church and eight migrations in the history of Christianity to show that without migration there would have been neither a US Catholic Church nor the emergence of Christianity as a world religion. “Migrantness” is therefore a mark of the church and of Christianity itself. The construction of a theology of migration, then, requires a method composed of three mediations: analytic, hermeneutic, and practical. Using this method, the author sketches a theology of God, Christ, Holy Spirit, eschatology, and Christian existence from the perspective of migration.