HOUSTON — The Rev. John W. Bowie knows it is hard to sell the people in his neighborhood on the idea that they should support changing immigration laws to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. His church lies in one of the oldest black settlements in the city, where unemployment is high and many people see immigrants as competitors for jobs. Yet there he was in the pulpit at True Light Missionary Baptist Church on the Fourth of July, with a full choir behind him, urging his flock to support an overhaul of immigration laws that “lets the undocumented come out of the shadows.” …. All over Houston, in an unusual display of ecumenical solidarity on an explosive issue, scores of pastors, priests, rabbis and ministers used their sermons on Independence Day to promote the cause of fixing a broken immigration system.
I’ll be the first to admit that much of what I write these days is not kind to Christians and modern Christianity. From where I sit, the hypocrisy and intolerance inherent in far too many Christians these days makes for a target-rich environment. To be fair, I also recognize that some Christians actually DO endeavor to live their beliefs, and so I feel compelled to recognize outstanding examples of Christians doing the right things for the right reasons.
Immigration is a difficult issue to grapple with, especially in a place like Houston, where Whites constitute barely half the population, and 25% of residents were born outside the US. One the one hand, you have Conservative White Republicans who focus on illegal immigration and the threat they perceive therein. On the other hand, you have non-Whites, a large number of whom came to the US from somewhere else. Even that distinction is simplistic, though, which only serves to highlight how complicated immigration is in Texas in general and Houston in particular.
Whether or not the collective efforts of Houston’s clergy to get their parishioners to think about immigration in human terms instead of merely dispassionate law and order remains to be seen. Whether minds will be changed is another thing altogether. In the final analysis, though, just getting people to see things differently and views illegal immigrants as people first would be progress.
In the meantime, I applaud Houston’s clergy for taking it upon themselves to openly discuss immigration in their sermons this past Sunday. Perhaps if more of today’s Christians could act accordingly, I’d see my way clear to having a much more positive view of modern Christianity. I think that would be a very good thing, and a win-win situation for all of us. ‘Course, I’d have to find another whipping boy…but I think I’d gladly figure something out in pretty short order.
