Immigration Rhetoric

Some Hispanic evangelical leaders recently urged politicians and others to tone down the rhetoric concerning immigration. Derrick Harkins, pastor of Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, argued that some of the rhetoric works to "dehumanize and endanger others." He added:

The speech that is destructive and inflammatory and hateful is absolutely counterintuitive. ... Wherever we are in the spectrum of this, we do not have the right to speak in ways that marginalize.

Amen! We must be careful to avoid inflammatory rhetoric even when we are passionate about an issue. We must not allow our positions to matter more than the people we disagree with. I dealt with some problems with Christian discourse on immigration in a recent Ethics Daily column entitled "Immigration IS a Social Issue."