WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 7, 2018—Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said it’s time for elected leaders to provide a solution for Dreamers at today’s congressional press conference sponsored by World Relief.
“The Bible does not give us a specific list of bills that should be passed in the Senate or the House. But the Bible does tell us who to care about. And that’s to care about everyone that God cares about, including those who are invisible. We are here today to speak to the consciences of our elected leaders to say: do not make invisible our Dreamer neighbors and our refugee neighbors. As Christians, Dreamers are not some abstract category for us. Dreamers are in our churches. Dreamers are leading door-to-door evangelism efforts in our communities. Dreamers are the ones who are baptizing and teaching people to read in our communities. Dreamers are leading churches in the United States of America. When we see Dreamers in jeopardy we see all of us in jeopardy. What hurts one part of the body of Christ, hurts all of the body of Christ, so we should bear one another’s burdens.
“As we’re here, speaking not in favor of one bill over the other, we say to our elected leaders: do not simply kick this down the road. Do not ignore these people created in the image of God. Personal ambition or political calculation should never pave over the lives of people. And when we have children who have been brought here by their parents and now are facing in just a matter of weeks the possibility of being sent to countries they’ve never known, in many cases have never even visited, families potentially being torn apart, communities being torn apart, churches being torn apart, surely we can step up and address this. This is something the vast majority of American people agree on both the problem and solution so we urge our elected officials to listen to the conscience, have a conscience shaped by care for people and do the right thing.”
The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest Protestant denomination with more than 15.2 million members in over 46,000 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C.
