by Maureen Fiedler
What a difference an election makes when it comes to the Hispanic vote. As a bipartisan group of senators announce a set of principles for immigration reform, it is worth noting that there is something of a bipartisan religious agreement on this issue as well.
Take this brief exercise: Name all the issues you can think of on which conservative evangelical leaders agree with leaders of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, those of Eastern traditions and mainline Protestants. That should take about 10 seconds. But there is one issue: immigration reform. Because the scriptures are so clear about welcoming "the stranger and the alien," conservative evangelicals -- who rely heavily on scripture -- back immigration reform.
Here's what The Brody File on the Christian Broadcasting Network has to say:
Expect many conservative evangelical leaders to give strong support to some sort of bi-partisan comprehensive immigration solution. Don't be surprised at all if you see an immigration bill become law in President Obama's second term. Conservative evangelical leaders will play a major role in seeing whether the plan fails or succeeds. Dr. Richard Land and Rev. Sammy Rodriguez will be key to the process.
For the record, Dr. Land is with the Southern Baptist Convention and Rev. Rodriquez is the leader of the National Hispanic Evangelical movement.
Change on this issue may indeed be in the offing. And that is not something we can say very often these days.
