Christian Duty, Borders, and the Integrity of a People

For many Christians today, there is a growing sense that something is deeply off in the way modern churches speak about nations, borders, culture, and compassion. We are told — often by very loud voices in clerical collars — that the Gospel demands a borderless world, that “loving our neighbour” means dissolving nations, ignoring national identity, and welcoming endless waves of migration with no thought for sustainability, order, or the integrity of a people.

If you raise concerns, you are told that you are cold-hearted, unloving, or unchristian. Some will even accuse you of moral failure for believing nations should exist.

But here is the simple truth:

This borderless ideology is not Christianity. It is not biblical. It is not historic.

It is political globalism dressed up in Christian language.

When we place these modern ideas beside Scripture, the contrast is jarring. The Bible is not vague on this topic. It does not mumble or whisper. It speaks clearly, repeatedly, and forcefully:

God created nations. God assigned borders. God structured the world into peoples.

God expects us to care for our own before we attempt to manage the globe.

This is not cruelty. This is order. This is not hatred. This is wisdom. This is not isolation. This is stewardship.

And above all — this is Scripture.

God Himself Established Nations

The modern idea that borders are some kind of arbitrary human invention is the opposite of biblical teaching. Scripture tells us plainly that national boundaries are part of God’s creative design for humanity.

“From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the boundaries of their lands.”— Acts 17:26

God did not merely allow nations to form. He determined them. He assigned their times and their boundaries.

In other words, borders are not man’s pride —they are God’s Providence.

To maintain borders is not sinful. To enforce borders is not unloving. To value the integrity of a people is not immoral.

It is recognising the order God Himself designed for human life.

If God wanted one borderless humanity, He would not have created distinct nations or set their boundaries. He would not have structured Scripture around Israel, Judah, Moab, Egypt, Assyria, and dozens of others. He certainly would not have rebuked nations for abandoning their identity or absorbing practices that destroyed their faith.

Yet many churches now preach a gospel that contradicts God’s clear design.

Babel: When God Himself Stopped Early Globalism

To understand how seriously God takes nations, borders, and cultural distinctions, we must return to one of the most foundational moments in Scripture: the Tower of Babel.

Before Babel, humanity had one language, one united cultural system, and one global project. They sought to unify themselves under a single human authority, building a tower “reaching to the heavens” (Genesis 11:4). This was more than architecture — it was rebellious globalism, humanity attempting to form one power, one system, one people, without God.

And what did God do?

He opposed it.

“Come, let Us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand one another.”— Genesis 11:7

God Himself mixed their languages, scattered their peoples, and stopped the very thing modern globalists dream of — a single borderless humanity under one human authority.

The reason is simple:

Total human unity under a human system leads to total human rebellion.

A borderless world without God becomes a world controlled by man — and man quickly becomes a tyrant.

At Babel, God said No. He defended diversity of nations. He personally created cultural separation. He Himself enforced borders and dispersion.

So when Christians uncritically embrace modern borderless ideology, they are not aligning with Scripture. They are aligning with the very project God stopped.

Christian Duty Begins with One’s Own

The Bible is profoundly ordered in its teaching about moral responsibility. Love is not vague or diffused. It is structured. It is prioritised. It begins at home.

“If anyone does not provide for his own, he has denied the faith.”— 1 Timothy 5:8

Notice: his own. His household. His community. His people.

The idea that Christian virtue requires neglecting one’s family, neighbourhood, or nation in favour of distant strangers is not righteousness — it is abandonment.

You cannot love the world if you neglect the place God has planted you.

You cannot serve the globe if you have betrayed your own household.

You cannot engage in international mercy while ignoring local responsibility.

Biblical love moves outward in circles: family → community → nation → world.

Modern ideology reverses this entirely, telling Christians to focus first on the distant and only secondly — if at all — on their own.

This is not compassion. It is disorder.

True Hospitality Is Personal, Not Political

One of the most misused biblical concepts in modern border debates is “welcoming the stranger.” Many pastors speak as though this command requires nations to remove borders or governments to import millions of new people at will.

But in Scripture, hospitality is personal, not bureaucratic.

Abraham did not invite caravans of nations to resettle en masse. The New Testament Church did not abolish Roman borders.

Hospitality meant individual acts of kindness to actual people encountered personally, usually travellers, refugees, or foreigners already present within the land.

It was never a political mechanism for national dissolution.

The modern Church has replaced mercy with policy and called it Christlike. But Christlike mercy is personal, not ideological.

When governments use Scripture to justify uncontrolled migration, they are not quoting the Bible — they are misusing it.

The Bible Warns Against Losing Identity

Throughout Scripture, God repeatedly warns Israel that if they abandon their identity, merge uncritically with foreign cultures, or dissolve their distinctiveness, they will lose the faith that sustains them.

From Moses…

“You are a people holy to the LORD your God…Do not intermarry with them, for they will turn your children away from following Me.”— Deuteronomy 7:3–4

…to Ezra…

“The holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands.”— Ezra 9:2

…to Nehemiah…

“I rebuked them and cursed them…because their children could not speak the language of Judah.”— Nehemiah 13:24–25

The concern is not ethnic hatred — Scripture prohibits that (Exodus 22:21). The concern is the loss of the worship, culture, and covenant that define God’s people.

When a people loses its identity, it loses the faith that gave it life.

The same principle applies broadly: a nation without identity will soon be a nation without a soul.

Christ Worked in Order

Even Jesus demonstrated ordered responsibility in His ministry. He did not begin with the global mission first.

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”— Matthew 15:24

Christ’s earthly ministry had structure: first Israel, then the nations.

Only after establishing the faith within His own people did the Gospel expand outward through the Great Commission.

Universal mission grows from stability, not self-erasure.

The modern idea that Christianity requires a nation to sacrifice itself to help others contradicts the very pattern of Christ.

What Many Modern Bishops Are Actually Promoting

Many church leaders today speak passionately about compassion, unity, openness, and global brotherhood. These are good words. They sound biblical. They appeal to Christian conscience.

But beneath the language lies a very different ideology:

• borderless global humanitarianism

• the dilution of inherited identity

• the replacement of real culture with abstract “global values”

• a push toward one humanity under one system

This is not Christianity. This is globalism baptised in religious vocabulary.

It takes the virtues of Christian love and disconnects them from the order that makes love meaningful.

A house with no walls is not hospitable — it is vulnerable. A nation with no borders is not compassionate — it is collapsing. A Church with no identity is not unified — it is undefined.

Christian love does not require national suicide.

Real Christian Love Has Structure

Biblical Christianity is strong, rooted, responsible, and ordered.

It:

• cares for the local before the distant

• welcomes the stranger without dissolving the household

• helps others without abandoning its own people

• practises mercy without surrendering identity

• honours God’s created borders rather than erasing them

This is not exclusion. This is sanity. This is stewardship. This is obedience.

The early Church understood this. Most Christians throughout history understood this. Many modern leaders have forgotten it — or rejected it.

But God has not changed. His Word has not changed. His design has not changed.

Nations are not accidents. Borders are not sinful. Identity is not hatred. Order is not cruelty.

They are the structures through which Christian love can operate faithfully, responsibly, and effectively.

The world needs mercy — but mercy must be rooted in God’s order. The world needs compassion — but compassion must not destroy the people giving it. The world needs the Gospel — and the Gospel is carried by nations, not by a borderless political machine.

As Christians, our duty is to love within God’s design, not outside it.

And God’s design includes nations.