On Thursday, the board of the National Association of Evangelicals endorsed without dissent a resolution that urges comprehensive immigration reform by the U.S. government. The resolution summarizes the biblical principles that should guide the needed change, but it stops short of endorsing any specific policy proposal. Read the Religion News Service coverage elsewhere on our site, and the resolution itself.

Presenters for the Capitol Hill press conference that followed the vote on the resolution included NAE president Leith Anderson (who reminded those present that Jesus was a refugee), national director of the Vineyard USA Berten Waggoner, president of Elim Fellowship Ronald Burgio, and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) Samuel Rodriguez.

The NHCLC serves 15 million Hispanic Christians and is an affiliate organization of the National Association of Evangelicals.

I asked Sam a copy of his press conference statement to share with CT's readers:

On behalf of our 25,434 churches, we commend and applaud today’s resolution by our sister organization, the N.A.E. This is, without a doubt, a tipping point. We can no longer state that immigration reform stands as a Latino, immigrant or partisan issue. Today’s resolution conveys a collective message on behalf of the Evangelical community that at the end of the day immigration reform is a matter of justice firmly grounded on biblical truth.

Moreover, this resolution embodies the spirit of a message declaring that comprehensive immigration reform stems neither from the agenda of the donkey nor from the agenda of the elephant but rather from the agenda of the Lamb.

Correspondingly, we stand obligated to respond to the challenge before us. Can we reconcile Leviticus 19 and Romans 13? Can we repudiate xenophobic and nativist rhetoric, push back on the extremes from both left and right and converge around the nexus of the Center Cross where righteousness meets justice, border security reconciles with compassion and common sense marries common ground?

Let us be clear: we humbly encourage Congress to finally pass and sign into law legislation that will protect our borders, put an end to all illegal immigration, create a market-driven guest worker program and facilitate avenues by which the millions of families already in America that lack legal status can assimilate fully into our society.

Our desire is for every immigrant in America to become a productive citizen, demonstrate proficiency in the English vernacular, embrace the core values of the American idea and realize the American Dream.

To that end, I humbly pray, in the name of justice, in the name of righteousness, in the name of the Divine, let us pass comprehensive immigration reform. By doing so we will protect our borders, protect all our families, protect our values and then and only then can we protect the American Dream.

Posted by David Neff at October 9, 2009 | Comments (25)

For all of the debate surrounding the Senate immigration bill, pro and con, you might think the bill had some chance of solving America's illegal immigration issue. Not so much, says an editorial in this week's edition of The Economist.

Among other problems, The Economist points out, rightly, that no one outside of the airline industry benefits from the bill's "tortuous and vindictive" stipulation that would require illegal immigrants to return home for an interview as part of the legalization process. Combine that with a points system that favors highly skilled immigrants and a guest worker program scaled down to 200,000 annually, and you have a new system guaranteed to get little buy-in from the illegal immigrants it seeks to bring out of the shadows.

Of course, the bill does include a host of security initiatives. This is likely to please many evangelicals, who have polled consistently higher than the general population in opposing a path to legalization. Personally, I suspect we're on the wrong side on this issue -- I agree with The Economist's leader, which says that deporting 12 million illegal immigrants is "impossible, economically illiterate, and morally wrong." But that's beside the point. The real problem is that in the midst of the compromise and give-and-take that all legislation must endure in order to get passed, America may get stuck with a bill that accomplishes nothing.

Christians will continue to disagree on immigration, no doubt. But perhaps we can agree on the need to rework the current Senate bill into something that has stands a chance of success.

Posted by Madison Trammel at May 30, 2007 | Comments (13)

I just received an email from Arlene Sanchez Walsh, associate professor of Latino church studies at Haggard School of Theology (Azusa Pacific University). Like me, she doubts Pew's conclusion that otherwise acculturated Latinos may resist worshiping with non-Latinos. As she writes:

The study claims that Latinos are staying in ethnic churches and contributing to a unique ethnic resilience in American religious life. They don't account for generational differences, though. They do mention that even English-speaking Latinos prefer to be in ethnic churches, but when you see the nationality breakdown, Latinos with very deep roots in the U.S. -- such as Puerto Ricans and Mexicans -- rank pretty low compared to newer immigrants (Dominicans, Central Americans, etc.) among whom generational changes have not been as long lasting. Though Pew states that ethnic churches are not merely products of immigration or residental housing patterns, the numbers I mentioned above would give rise to the common-sense reality that Latino immigrants, especially of the first and second generation, prefer Spanish Mass and tend to live in areas that are Latino. You have to look at third and fourth generations to get at a larger picture of acculturation.

Arlene's point is significant, especially during the current national debate on immigration reform, in which some claim that Hispanics represent a cultural threat because they refuse to learn English and integrate into American society. While a surface look at Pew's findings on Hispanic churches could support such a view, as Arlene points out, a deeper look seems to reveal a pattern of gradual acculturation much like that of previous immigrant groups. Time will tell, but we should be careful about reading nativist fears into the Pew study.

Posted by Madison Trammel at April 25, 2007 | Comments (3)

For observers of the Latino religious community, this morning's study released by the Pew Hispanic Project will hold few surprises. The survey of 4,600 U.S. Latinos found, among other things, that:

* Renewalist Christianity (including both Pentecostal and charismatic beliefs and practices) is more common among Latinos than non-Latinos.

* More than half of Latino Roman Catholics identify themselves as charismatics, a fact that is already changing the face of U.S. Catholicism and could have even greater impact as the country's Hispanic population continues to boom. (Already, about a third of U.S. Catholics are Hispanic.)

* Nearly two-thirds of Latinos worship in ethnic congregations, though not always in Spanish-speaking congregations.

* Latinos' political affiliation is up for grabs (with Protestants tending to be Republicans and Catholics tending to be Democrats) but most agree that religious values guide their political views and that politicians should express faith more often and openly, not less.

As I said, nothing too shocking. Pew emphasizes Latinos' commitment to charismatic faith and tendency to worship in ethnic enclaves as its most significant findings. No doubt both can be explained partly through demographics: About 62 percent of Hispanic adults in the U.S. are foreign-born. The strength of renewalist faith among Latino immigrants clearly reflects the explosive growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America and elsewhere throughout the global South (watch for our July cover story for more on this point). On the other hand, the tendency of Hispanics to worship with other Hispanics may change quite a bit as the Latino population assimilates. If Latino experience mirrors that of other immigrant groups, second- and third-generation Latinos will almost certainly find the home country-orientation of their parents' and grandparents' churches to be an uncomfortable fit.

I've asked a couple of Latino Christian leaders for their thoughts on the study, so we'll likely have more to post later.

Posted by Madison Trammel at April 25, 2007 | Comments (2)