Today leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention will join the Catholic Bishop of Brownsville in Texas to visit two facilities for migrant children. Dr. Russell Moore, the President of the ERLC, will join Dr. Ronnie Floyd, President of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Jim Richards, Executive Director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas on the tours. The faith leaders will visit facilities in McAllen and San Antonio and hold press conferences after each visit.
Although this is not the first time evangelical and Catholic leaders have worked together on this particular issue—the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops held a joint press call with the Evangelical Immigration Table earlier this year and then together met with members of Congress in March—it is significant to see the Southern Baptists unite with Catholics around this issue. The fight for commonsense immigration reform has led Christians across the political and theological spectrum to put aside historic differences to work together. Dr. Moore is one of the heads of the Evangelical Immigration Table, a group that includes Sojourners, the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Bread for the World, and Liberty Counsel. The Table advocates for commonsense immigration reform based on Biblical teaching on how to welcome and treat the “strangers” in our midst.
Juliet Vedral is press secretary for Sojourners.
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