Chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Richard Land has unimpeachable conservative credentials—both religious and political. Which makes his sharp break with Republican orthodoxy on immigration all the more notable.
As Molly Ball of The Atlantic reports, “Land and others on the Christian right part ways with some of their Republican brethren when it comes to immigration, and they have been increasingly vocal about their views on the issue, which they see as one of universal human dignity. “
Land doesn’t mince words about President Obama’s announcement last week that DHS would stop deporting young illegal immigrants. “I applaud it; I would have preferred Congress to have done it. I hope that Congress would applaud it and pass something very similar…. These are innocent people — 800,000 to 1 million young people who were brought here by their parents and often have no memory of their country of origin. They want to be here, they want to get educated, to be more productive citizens. They want to serve in the military. I’m trying to figure out, what’s the problem?”
“The country is ahead of its elected leaders on this issue. It’s time for the elected leaders to quit acting like politicians concerned about the next election and start acting like statesmen concerned about the next generation.”
And he’s backing up his words with action. Land is a key leader of the Evangelical Immigration Table, which is spearheading the effort to persuade evangelical Christians to support comprehensive immigration reform.
When the current fever of Republican extremist opposition to anything Democrats support does finally break, there’s a good chance that the “break” will come from conservative evangelical Christians on issues like immigration—in no small part because conservative evangelical Christians in the US are increasingly an immigrant community.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/