Churches Lobbying for Liberalized Immigration?

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Is the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) determined to follow the sadly calamitous example of the National Council of Churches (NCC) in ignoring its own churches’ members and prioritizing politics over Gospel?

Last week, the NAE’s board affirmed a new policy statement urging liberalized U.S. immigration laws. NAE President Leith Anderson immediately testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee broadcasting this stance. Here’s Jeff Walton’s article. Liberal New York Senator Chuck Schumer hailed the NAE’s new position, which is in sync with his own. But is the NAE really speaking for the 20 million evangelicals it claims to represent?

The NAE, increasingly part of the Evangelical Left, seems to want to follow the NCC in no longer striving to speak for church members but instead speaking to church members, and adopting political stances that aim for secular publicity.  Some call this prophetic. But we would call it irresponsible and ultimately ruinous to the NAE’s ability accurately to represent evangelicals.

Neither the Bible nor Christian tradition provides explicit policy guidance about correct immigration laws. Christians have a wide range of opinions and disagree about what policies best would best achieve justice. The NAE used to focus on issues on which evangelicals agree and to which Christian tradition speaks fairly directly, such as defending marriage, opposing unrestricted abortion, and speaking in defense of persecuted Christians, while also defending free religious practice in America, such as voluntary school prayer and the display of religious symbols.

A new generation of liberal evangelical activists wants to disassociate from these old issues that attract unfavorable publicity and which are uncomfortably countercultural. These evangelical elites want to focus on advocacy that wins favorable publicity and applause from secular media and elites. In recent years, the NAE has focused on environmentalism, opposing U.S. “torture” practices, and is now pushing for liberalized immigration. Next, the NAE wants to focus on U.S. nuclear disarmament.

Is the NAE significantly different from the NCC now? Was this the dream of the NAE’s founders, who wanted an evangelical alternative to the NCC?

On another front, please read Jeff Walton’s coverage of the latest anti-Israel Sabeel conference, supported by many churches. The audience of church activists actually applauded a speaker urging the dissolution of Israel. And, naturally, another speaker accused Israel’s supporters of “genocidal theologies.”  Here’s that article.

Sabeel’s chief, who is an Anglican priest, actually claimed that Islamist persecution of Christians in the Middle East is not a problem. Only Israel is the problem. More credibly, Church of England Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who is ethnically Pakistani, recently visited Washington, D.C. and continued to courageously warn of radical Islam’s influence. Faith McDonnell’s reported about his speech on attempts to force Shariahcompliant finance on the U.S.  Read here.

Bishop Nazir-Ali had to leave Pakistan years ago because of Islamist threats against him and his family. The pattern was recently repeated in his new country of Great Britain where, incredibly, Islamist coercion is growing. He recently resigned as Bishop of Rochester to work full-time as an advocate for persecuted Christians and other victims of Islamist intolerance.

Please pray for Bishop Nazir-Ali and all who suffer for Christ’s sake. May that which the bishop and other Pakistani Christians have endured never come to this country!

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