“The Southern Baptists have lost their collective minds and are now officially insane.”– Ross M.
On Wednesday, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution supporting government efforts to provide paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and pledged that churches work toward just treatment of people regardless of legal status, Baptist News reported.
White evangelicals, a category that includes many Southern Baptists, don’t generally take a positive position on undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. They are three times more likely to say “better border security” should be the focus of the immigration issue than they are to prioritize “creating a path to citizenship,” according to research by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Despite concerns that the resolution supported amnesty, Southern Baptist leaders defended a more open stance toward immigration.
“SBC is at a crucial decision point. The immigration crisis demands a Gospel response before a political response,” said Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler on Twitter.
Russell Moore, a seminary professor and pastor, tweeted along saying, “Our response to the immigrant communities in this country cannot be ‘You kids get off my lawn’ in Spanish.”
The text of the approved resolution reads, in part: