Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's 20th Anniversary

Fleda and I enjoyed the Annual Assembly in Tampa. It was a great time of reconnecting with old friends, attending meetings, and thinking about the history of the Fellowship. It felt right to celebrate how we came together 20 years ago.

I am glad I was there in Atlanta in 1990 for the first meeting of what we named the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991. There were three thousand of us. Our views on how the Bible ought to be interpreted, women in ministry, and theological education had been shut out of the Southern Baptist Convention. We were pastors, laymen and women, seminary presidents, missionaries, and seminary professors. We were determined to do something new.

One of the highlights of the meeting for Fleda and me was seeing and hearing the Moderator of The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship speak at a special CBF birthday party on Wednesday night. She is Christy McMillin-Goodwin, the Minister of Education at Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Fleda taught her in preschool Sunday School in Columbia, SC when I was the pastor of Greenlawn Baptist Church. Christy spoke of how her parents drove past other churches to be part of one where there was thoughtfulness and openness to God’s leadership in new directions. I baptized Christy when she accepted Christ as a young girl. Now she is an amazingly gifted and faithful leader in her church and in the national organization of CBF. Talk about a blessing. We saw the results of respecting the Spiritual gifts and abilities of women and of not putting limits on their role in church.

Our Language in the Immigration Debate

Have you ever thought about how the term “illegal aliens” indicates a prejudice against people who are in this country without documentation. To speak of people as “illegal” is to imply that they are out to do something to us. To call them “alien” sounds like they are totally different from us. Sometimes we talk about “aliens from outer space.”

Miguel De La Torre, in his book Trails of Hope and Terror, uses the terms "undocumented," "undocumented immigrants" and "migrants." He says, “Language discloses one's moral perspective and frames the political debate. Using the word "illegals" or the phrase "illegal immigrant" paints unauthorized or undocumented people as criminals. It's uncertain when our society started affixing the concept of criminality to Hispanic immigrants.

“What is certain is that our society does not affix illegality or criminality to other people who break the law. For example, we do not refer to those who break the speed limit as ‘illegals.’ When alumni break the ban on drinking alcohol on campus before and during college football games, we don't call them ‘illegals’ or ‘illegal alumni.’ Are jaywalkers, golf betters and underage drinkers called ‘illegals’?”

I heard a man who is half Guatemalan talk about the fact that there are many undocumented workers in America who are our fellow Christians. We need to think of them as our fellow human beings instead of thinking of them as an alien hoard that is pouring across the border. They love their families. They love their children. They want to find hope for their lives.

I know that we have an important debate going on in our nation as to what to do about people who are here without proper legal documents. I am asking us to think of them as human beings and know that many, many of them are Christians.

And I am asking us to let our thinking be shaped by the Bible and not exclusively by television and political debate. Here is what the Bible has to say in Leviticus 19: 33-34. “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”