Evangelicals can assist immigrants

By WILLIAM McKENZIE
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
The more the Rev. Carl Anderson talked, the more it struck me that integrating immigrants into states like Texas could become the new cultural front for evangelicals. And how that could help immigrants and America.
For four years, Dr. Anderson's Trinity Fellowship Church in Richardson, Texas, has been working with Plano Bible Chapel to deal with the needs of immigrants living in nearby apartments.
A Trinity member became burdened by the "ethnic struggle" he saw in the complex he owned, Dr. Anderson told me over the phone last week, and donated an apartment in which a student minister could live.
From there, a ministry has grown to help meet immigrants' spiritual needs and social struggles. The church runs clothing and food drives and conducts English classes for immigrants.
The operation has had a two-way effect, Dr. Anderson says. The new church planted in their community nurtures immigrants. And Trinity members come away with a different perspective.
For one thing, they see how hard these immigrants work. (So hard, Dr. Anderson says, the church has a difficult time figuring out when to have a service.) And Trinity members begin to develop a human connection with a problem that often exists only in the newspapers.
There's no doubt that evangelicals, who emphasize conversion experiences and a more literal reading of Scripture, are a powerful force. And some, like popular author and mega-church pastor Rick Warren, want this large slice of American Protestantism to reach beyond same-sex marriages and other traditionally conservative social issues. They want to engage the culture in different ways.
OK, here's how.
Some Americans worry their country will become unrecognizable if Washington allows in more immigrants and lets our estimated 12 million illegal immigrants earn citizenship over time. "We want Texans to be Texans," is the way one elderly Texan put it to me during the election season.
Changing America
That's fair, but let's be clear. Immigration will change America. It always has. When my Scottish ancestors came to Galveston in the 1880s, they were part of an immigrant wave that propelled America through the industrial revolution.
You can't have immigration and not see change. It's the kind of change that matters.
That's where assimilation comes in. If we get the Americanization part down, there's less reason to worry about immigration patterns.
Evangelicals are in a great place to work on this challenge, since many are politically conservative. They can show their fellow conservatives -- the loudest voices opposing guest workers and legalization -- how immigration doesn't have to be such a threat.
Evangelicals have a reason to reach out, too. The Bible teaches Christians to comfort strangers in a strange land.
Another evangelical I spoke with last week used the word "accompany" to describe what he and others can do. Daniel Carroll, who teaches at Denver Seminary, says immigrants face a big challenge in establishing their roots.
He would know. His mother was a Guatemalan immigrant; his paternal grandparents came from Ireland. He believes it takes time for immigrants to sort through who they are, much less understand the complexities of things like American law.
With this in mind, Dr. Carroll's evangelical seminary has launched a program to equip Hispanic church leaders in the Rockies. The initiative trains pastors and others who serve tiny, independent and evangelistic churches. For the immigrants, "the church becomes their community," Dr. Carroll says.
He says this phenomenon is happening around the country, although it's slow going and no one has the best model. But it's good to hear that evangelical churches are searching for ways to reach Latinos, who make up the majority of most new immigrants.
At a Knight Center seminar on immigration this month in Washington, Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza offered a frank admission: You can offer all the good economic reasons why America needs immigrants, but some people will never hear them because they can't get past the cultural part.
What would help them is seeing others help immigrants become part of the American mainstream. If evangelicals want to take that one, it's also a way they can broaden their agenda and benefit the culture.
William McKenzie is an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.