"I think there's huge consensus among Baptists that immigration is a serious issue and that the government has to get control over its borders. It offends Southern Baptists at the most basic level that the government is not doing the job. We believe in Romans 13, that God ordains civil government to punish those who break the law."
Meanwhile, in Nashville, Southern Baptist "church planter" Chuy Avila is working to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to those undocumented immigrants. Hitting the streets in Hispanic neighborhoods and stopping by construction sites, Avila approaches Hispanics with offers of help, rides to the doctor, advice on getting driver's licenses, information about English classes and a message of Jesus' love, he said.
Most lack proper visas but are drawn to Tennessee by construction jobs and agricultural work — and by word of mouth that there is less aggressive immigration enforcement here than in border states such as California, Texas and Arizona, he said.
Avila considers it his mission to minister to them. "When the Hispanic community decided to leave their country, family community and heritage, they lost everything to find a better way to live," he said. "The best way to find a better way to live is find the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is the only one who changes lives. My job is important to help them."
At Nueva Vida — or New Life — Baptist Church in east Nashville, three people gather for Wednesday night Bible study in Spanish. It's typical of the churches that Avila has started, a one-at-a-time evangelical effort that brings in mostly former Catholics who are drawn by the more participatory experience they can find in Baptist churches.
The church swells to 30 people on Sundays, and Avila expects it to keep growing with church members becoming disciples who will soon take the lead in bringing others into church.
In the past five years, Avila's outreach has nearly tripled the number of Hispanic Baptist churches in Tennessee, from 23 to 72. Each church averages 70-100 people, but some have as many as 300, he said. Last month, he was recognized by the Southern Baptist Convention as one of the top five missionaries in the country for his efforts.
Avila says there is "a lot of misunderstanding" among Southern Baptists about illegal immigration and a lot of discussion about it among the immigrants in the churches he's started. Avila says he does not publicly talk about his own feelings about the issue.
"We have been praying about it," he said. "We pray that God will be the last decision. We pray for lawmakers and Congress. We pray for the president. As Baptists, we believe in freedom of speech, but we do not use the pulpit to do political work."
Apart from Land, most other Southern Baptist leaders have been publicly silent on immigration. The organization issues resolutions on public policies after votes and motions from church representatives have been made. So far, there have been no such resolutions. Thousands of Southern Baptists, however, will gather in North Carolina in June for their annual meeting, where Baptists create agendas on policy issues.
Land says that he believes that there should be a guest-worker program with strict guidelines for those here illegally.
Immigrants who work, pay taxes and learn English should be allowed to apply for permanent legal status after a period of time, he said. Those who don't follow the rules should be deported, and their employers should face penalties as well, he said.
Land said a caller to his radio show last week identified himself as an illegal immigrant who became a Baptist and is now a lay preacher who owns a remodeling firm that employs 18 people.
"I think a good number would change their mind about illegal immigration" if they heard stories like this man's, Land said.
"Yes, they break the law but they do it in order to work. Our criminals in this country break the law in order not to."
"It would make you a felon for giving someone a cup of cold water in Jesus' name." So far, however, Southern Baptist clergy — who operate churches autonomously — have not weighed in publicly on the issue. In Nashville last month, a protest drew about 8,000 in support of immigrant rights.
Organizers with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition said that local clergy from the Catholic Church, Church of Christ and National Baptist Convention — a largely African-American denomination — turned out in support. But, said Stephen Fotopulos, the coalition's policy director, there was one key denomination missing.
Baptist critics say that a certain uneasiness among Southern Baptists about immigration is not surprising.
"There is a dichotomy within Baptist life between evangelizing minority groups and advocating a just society for them," said Robert Parham, director of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville.
The federal government’s failure to
secure the nation’s borders has sparked
“severe consternation” among many
Americans and precipitated the current
crisis over illegal immigration, Richard
Land said April 28 during a public
policy discussion at the Family Research
Center in Washington. He expressed
concern that there has been “more heat
than light” in the dialogue over this
issue.
Land, president of the Southern Baptist
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission,
was joined on the panel by Sen. Sam
Brownback, R.-Kan.; Rep. Tom Tancredo,
R.-Colo.; John O’Sullivan of the Hudson
Institute; Samuel Rodriguez Jr. of the
National Hispanic Christian Leadership
Conference; and others.
“We have a right to expect the
government to fulfill its divinely
ordained mandate to punish those who
break the laws and reward those who do
not,” Land said, citing Romans 13:1-7,
during a discussion of “Faith, Culture,
and Law in the Immigration Debate.”
Christians, he continued, also have a
“divinely mandated reason to act
redemptively and compassionately toward
those who are in need.”
If there is to be a national consensus
on the immigration crisis, it will flow
out of the “federal government
convincing the American people that it
is willing to commit whatever resources
necessary to secure our borders,” Land
said. That does not equate to a closing
of the borders, he said, but having
control over “who comes in, who goes
out.”
Rev. Richard Land, who heads the denomination's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, says Christians expect the U.S. border to be secured and immigration laws to be enforced. But he says they also believe that Christian charity must be extended to anyone in need. Land supports giving illegal immigrants six months to apply for "guest worker" status, undergo a criminal background check, agree to learn English and pay a fine plus back taxes.says those who don't should be deported, but those who do should be welcomed into American churches and helped on their road to citizenship.
"Romans 13 says that God ordained the civil magistrate to punish those who do wrong and to reward those who do that which is right," Land says. To let border crossing and other violations go unpunished "subverts the reason that God gave us government in the first place."
Land says he told President Bush at a meeting in March that he and other Baptists would support a guest-worker program, along with a legalization process that includes penalties, only if the federal government first "commits the resources necessary to control and secure our borders."
The Rev. Richard Land, the Southern Baptists' spokesman on social issues, probably typifies evangelical view.
