I’ve always said a nation without borders isn’t a nation, it’s a yard sale. Anyone can stroll in, grab what they want, and stroll back out. Hang all the flags you want, blast the national anthem on repeat, but if the gates are open and there’s no one at the checkpoint, it’s not your country anymore—it’s a tourist destination for opportunists.

And what baffles me is how many professing Christians understand this from a political perspective, but go full open-borders activist when it comes to the Church and defining her doctrinal borders.

Politically, they’ll cheer when ICE hauls off cartel-linked illegals in the dead of night. But, spiritually, they’ll hand the pulpit to a flaming prosperity pimp or even a Roman Catholic priest because “we’re all in the family of God.”

We’ve watched this in real time. ICE releases a press report about arresting violent foreign nationals—murderers, traffickers, drug runners—and leftists, joined by a chorus of other low-IQ citizens, melt down on social media.

“Cruel!” they cry. “Inhumane!” Never mind that these aren’t innocent Girl Scouts, they’re enemy combatants.

Now back to the Church, where the same people who understand just how foolish this open borders circus is, here they are handing their pulpits and platforms over to doctrinal illegals.

When it comes to Christian doctrine, justification is the Church’s border wall. It’s the unmovable, steel-and-concrete line that says, “No one enters unless they understand salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the Scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone.” In a nutshell, that is the confessional “path to citizenship” and regeneration is your swearing in. You don’t get citizenship without it.

Tear that wall down and you’ve basically handed the keys to Rome, Bethel, Hillsong, and every rainbow-flag-waving mainline bishop who thinks Galatians is just “Paul’s outdated opinion.”

And I’ve personally seen it happen. The same way cartel smugglers slip across a border because politicians won’t fund a fence, prosperity hucksters like T.D. Jakes and Mike Todd get platformed because spineless evangelical leaders won’t draw a doctrinal line. It’s how major Southern Baptist churches can get away with platforming false teachers like Steven Furtick.

Because our leaders don’t care about our borders. And before you know it, they’re all “brothers in Christ”—never mind that their gospel is laced with works, mysticism, and the theological equivalent of fentanyl.

We have sleeper agents in the Church, and I don’t mean tin-foil hat conspiracy theories. I’m talking about Tim Keller’s proteges who’ll preach justification by faith on Sunday and “find common ground” with Catholic cardinals on Monday.

I’m talking about The Gospel Coalition’s endless parade of unity-at-all-costs articles, where defending the Reformation is treated like an optional elective for cranky old white guys.

I’m talking about SBC ERLC leaders who’ll share a stage with a priest and call it “missional,” the same way politicians call sanctuary cities “compassionate.”

History isn’t vague on this. The early church let a few works-righteousness vendors slip past the guard shack and within centuries, Rome was running the business, selling indulgences like tourist visas. The Reformers built the wall back with fire and steel, but modern evangelicals are standing there with crowbars, removing bricks “to make the place more inviting.”

But inviting to whom? To the theological cartels running human souls like product?

Look at politics. When Trump-Noem’s ICE team rounds up cartel-linked illegals, the left howls about “ripping families apart” while ignoring the minor detail that these “families” are smuggling meth, fentanyl, and human cargo. Spiritually, the same thing happens when a good pastor warns against partnering with Rome, Bethel, or the prosperity mafia. The mob gasps, “That’s not loving!”

I’ve seen entire churches and ministries turn into sanctuary cities for heresy. Once you grant “amnesty” to one false gospel, you can’t stop the flood. The border is gone. Your immigration policy is a shoulder shrug. Suddenly, your worship is peppered with Bethel lyrics and Matt Maher, your conferences feature panel discussions with people who deny penal substitution, and your small groups are reading devotionals by Catholic mystics because “we can learn something from everyone.” That’s not unity, that’s a border invasion.

The invaders always bring their own laws. Politically, they import the customs and systems of the place they fled. In the Church, they import the theology they refuse to abandon—salvation plus sacraments, grace plus works, Christ plus human merit. Doctrines that look enough like Christianity to deceive some, even the elect (if that were possible), but under the hood, the whole engine is counterfeit.

Once justification stops being the wall, the culture inside the Church becomes indistinguishable from the world outside it. Hymns get swapped for smoke-machine singalongs. Sermons shrink to 20-minute self-esteem pep talks. The Lord’s Supper becomes a magic trick. The pulpit becomes a revolving door for any celebrity who can fog a mirror and smile. And by the time anyone notices, the language is different, the laws are rewritten, and the old guard has been quietly escorted to the curb as “divisive.”

A Church that won’t defend its borders shouldn’t act surprised when it wakes up to find itself under foreign rule. And no, the takeover won’t look like tanks rolling down Main Street. It’ll look like pastors posing for selfies with nuns, authors selling unity as a brand, and conferences where the only heresy left is actually calling anything heresy.