Evangelical Christians prepare for ‘largest ever grassroots push on immigration’

[cbayer]

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/12/evangelical-christians-prepare-for-largest-ever-grassroots-push-on-immigration/



January 12th, 2013
10:00 PM ET
Evangelical Christians prepare for ‘largest ever grassroots push on immigration’
By Dan Merica, CNN

Washington (CNN) – When the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez talks about immigration, it is as someone who has witnessed the way a religious community is affected when a family is torn apart by deportation.

“It is personal for me,” Rodriguez said, describing deported friends and congregants as "lovely people. These are wonderful, God-fearing, family-loving people.”

Rodriguez, the head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, has a naturally boisterous voice that booms with authority. When he speaks about immigration, passion oozes out of every syllable. But his voice softens as he speaks of those close to him who have been deported: an associate pastor's wife, a friend from Sacramento, California, a well-known congregant - the list seems committed to memory.

Even as he relives the heartache, the pastor seems hopeful, if not optimistic.

more at link

[LeftishBrit]

1. Well...

I may be neither a religious believer nor a Bible expert, but it seems to me that there is a lot more in the Bible about those who mistreat immigrants than about gays and abortion.

'Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt' (Exodus).

'And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.' (Leviticus)

'I was a stranger, and ye took me not in...Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' (Gospel of St Matthew)

[skepticscott]

2. I would venture

that those admonitions were meant to apply to the treatment of travelers, and not so much to "immigrants" (to the extent that such a thing as we would understand it today even existed then). Important thing in the days before Motel 6.

[cbayer]

3. I think there is a theme of welcoming the stranger that the pro-immigration

evangelicals will be latching onto.

I am always glad to see the book used for good purposes rather than bad.