Invoking fellow Southern Baptists in his rebuke of Donald Trump a total of seven times, Russell Moore strongly sent the message that those in his denomination agree with his assessment that the president’s executive order temporarily halting immigration from hostile nations is morally objectionable.
In a letter to Donald Trump, which he also sent to majority leaders in both the House and Senate and published in the Washington Post this morning, Moore used his position as president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission to imply that Southern Baptists monolithically condemn the recent executive order.
First invoking a June 2016 resolution by SBC messengers that calls for compassion toward Refugees, Moore writes, “Southern Baptist churches throughout the United States lead the way in carrying out this calling.” The resolution in question, however, does not explicitly condemn applying common sense to the vetting process for Muslims hailing from nations prone to terrorism, who have used refugee status to carry out actions against citizens of the United States.
After tacitly comparing the President’s decision to not allowing Jews refugee status while fleeing the Third Reich, Moore reluctantly points out that the aforementioned resolution, calls for the government to “implement the strictest security measures possible in the refugee screening and selection process,” but doesn’t affirm the executive branch for doing precisely that last Friday. Instead, Moore claims that “refugees are already the most vetted category of immigrants,” implying that no further scrutiny or evaluation of our immigration policy is needed.
Moore continues to speaks for Southern Baptists, writing “…we have concerns about the Executive Order’s consequences,” citing a Southern Baptist lawmaker who opposed the President’s decision, before citing Ed Stetzer’s socially progressive article also lamenting the enforcement of United States immigration law. Rather than citing statistics regarding the potential harm posed to American citizens (and crimes already committed against Americans) by those of refugee status, Moore invokes the concern for Southern Baptist missionaries living in majority-Muslim nations who might face reprisals.
Moore, who has come under fire for signing an amicus brief demanding the federal government usurp a New Jersey township’s local authority and force them to allow the building of a Mosque despite their standard and non-prejudicial zoning ordinances, closed his rebuke of Trump by asking him that his policies not discriminate against Muslims, but rather, “affirm your administration’s commitment to religious freedom and the inalienable human dignity of persecuted people whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Yazidi or other.”
Moore, who serves on George Soros’ Evangelical Immigration Table, has called a border wall a “golden calf” and called Jesus an “illegal immigrant,” did not speak of his concern for Christians in America, who may be put at risk by radicalized Muslims who are not being properly vetted, and ended by again invoking as moral authority the will of Southern Baptists, writing “Southern Baptists know that our responsibility is to care for and serve refugees here in the United States and around the world, and we remain committed to that mission.”
If you are a Southern Baptist, do you agree with Russell Moore invoking your name in his rebuke of President Trump’s immigration policy?
Comment below.
For more information, read “Why Evangelical Leaders Should Shut Up About Immigration.”
