Immigration Reform and Southern Baptists

Jim Galloway at the AJC:

It comes as something of a surprise to learn that one of the most prominent voices pushing a bipartisan deal on immigration — and urging more cautious rhetoric when discussing it — belongs to an institution of the solid Southern right.

Richard Land is president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It is through his Nashville offices that the nation’s largest Protestant denomination engages Washington.

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Among active Southern Baptists, he said, “there’s clearly a consensus behind comprehensive immigration reform that secures the border first — and then lays out a compassionate, just pathway to earning citizenship or legal status.”

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“We bear some responsibility for the fact that we haven’t enforced our own laws for the last 24 years,” he said. “And we’ve had these two conflicting signs up at the border — ‘No trespassing’ and ‘Help wanted.’”

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The public policy chief noted that Southern Baptists ignored interior voices who urged the denomination to support African-Americans and the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

Had Baptists listened, he said, “we wouldn’t have had to have gone back and apologize to them.

“And I don’t want to come back here 15 years from now and apologize to Hispanics. It’s a kingdom issue,” Land said.

Read the rest here.