Evangelical Leaders Call for Immigration Reform

Washington, D.C., - More than 150 influential Evangelical Christians from across the country publicly endorsed a statement of principles on immigration reform at a press conference on Capitol Hill. 

Evangelical Leaders Meet in Washington to Mobilize Immigration Reform

“Its time to enact what we believe is a moral and biblical comparison to fix this broken system,” Sojourners Christian Ministry President Jim Wallis said.

The group, called The Evangelical Immigration Table, is made up of Evangelical leaders from a variety of denominations and calls for a bipartisan solution on immigration.

“The evangelical foundation table is diverse in its formation but it is unified in its biblically mandated vision to help create a better life for immigrants in America based on the principles that are stated in this immigration reform platform: respects the God-given dignity of every person, protects the unity of the immediate family, respects the rule of law, guarantees secure national borders, ensures fairness for taxpayers, and establishes a path for legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents,” Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land said.

According to Land, the Evangelical Christian vote is important to American elections. 

“82.3 million Americans self-identify themselves as ‘Evangelicals’ in the United States. That means, that we make up 26.3 percent of the population of our country and that’s the largest religious affiliation in the country, larger than both Catholics and main-line Protestants,” Land said, “According to exit poling, the largest single constituency that actually took the time to go out and vote in the 2010 elections, self-identified as Evangelicals, 29 percent of the people who voted.”

Wallis said in order to change immigration policy, American Evangelicals must band together.

“Big things don’t change in Washington first, they change in the nation’s capitol last,” Wallis said, “Things change when hearts and minds across the country change, things change when social movements begin, when people’s understandings change, when families rethink their values, when congregations examine their faith, and when nations are moved by moral contradictions.”

The Evangelical Immigration Table is urging “our nation’s leaders to work together with the American people to pass immigration reform that embodies these key principles and that will make our nation proud.”

“Today we’re making a prophetic announcement. Washington DC will change on this issue. Washington DC will enact comprehensive immigration reform because the people of God have come together to begin that change in their own lives and their own churches,” Wallis said.

Support for the Evangelical Immigration Table includes leaders from Evangelical groups such as World Relief, National Association of Evangelicals, Focus on the Family, and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

For more information visit: www.evangelicalimmigrationtable.com

2012 Election Top Issues and the Importance of Swing States

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the election less than five months away, it is becoming easier to predict for which candidate certain states will cast their electoral votes. However, in undecided states, such as Ohio, Wisconsin, and even Missouri, anything could happen. 

Former policy advisor to President Clinton and political theorist William Galston said in a recent live web chat that winning over swing states is crucial both for Romney and President Obama.

“There are three main baskets of states--one in the Midwest, another in the Southwest, the third in the "Rim South,” Galston said, “The first is the largest (Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania). In the SW, Colorado and Nevada are critical. The Obama campaign thinks it has a chance in Arizona; I don't. In the Rim South, Virginia looks pretty promising for Obama; North Carolina, much less so. Florida's 29 electoral votes will be hotly contested, as usual, and so will New Hampshire.”

Map From: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html

Galston said the campaigns will likely make some changes in the coming months, in efforts to sway independent voters and swing states.

“The Romney campaign has done a pretty good job of maintaining focus on the economy,” Galston said, “By contrast, the Obama campaign has been all over the map. They're spending their time appealing to specific groups (e.g., women, students) on narrow issues rather than making a broad appeal to the country. I expect them to shift course pretty soon.”

The economy is one of the most important issues in this election. Many voters are convinced that continuing Obama’s policies for four more years could be detrimental to the already suffering economy. President Obama will have to convince the American people that his policies still have the potential to improve the economy.

“(Obama) can't evade the issue, and at this point he can't affect the economy very much between now and November. So, he has to make the case that he's done the best that anyone could have done in very difficult circumstances,” Galston said.

Another hot issue in this election cycle is healthcare. Opponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or “ObamaCare,” argue that the individual mandate, which requires individuals to purchase health insurance, is unconstitutional. According to a recent poll by CBS News/New York Times, only 24 percent of Americans want the entire law upheld and most people want the Supreme Court to overturn the individual mandate.

Galston said the Supreme Court’s decisions about the ACA will help gauge the impact of the healthcare issue in the 2012 election. 

“We'll know before the end of this month,” Galston said, referring to when the Supreme Court will make its decision about the ACA’s constitutionality.

Aside from the economy and healthcare, other top issues in this election include immigration policy, national defense, and moral issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. The way voters decide on these issues, especially in swing states, will ultimately decide the next presidency and the future of the United States.  

Pastors and Christian Leaders Call for Faith-Based Voting This Presidential Election

WASHINGTON, D.C. – At a recent press conference on Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of religious and political leaders publically opposed the President’s recent announcement to support same-sex marriage.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins Opposes President Obama's Support of Same-Sex Marriage 

Senior Pastor at Hope Christian Church and Chairman of High Impact Leadership Coalition Harry Jackson said this is an issue that affects Christians across America.

“We are asking for a vote vertical movement,” Jackson said, “That we begin to vote our biblically-based values, that we lift up the values of the Christian faith and that we vote according to that, not just Democrat and Republican.”

Jackson, along with nine other major leaders, presented a letter to be sent to the president in response to his recent comments.

“We believe that biblical marriage should be maintained and protected. So, we’re here to make a declaration that we are for biblical marriage,” Jackson said, “We have a letter that we are sending to President Obama. We want to know whether he is going to use the bully pulpit of the presidential office to absolutely erase the image of biblical marriage from the face of the earth. Voters need to know whether they have a friend or, in a sense, an enemy to an institution that God has ordained. Some of us have taken his statements as a declaration of political war against the institution of marriage.”

Jackson said Obama’s support for same-sex marriage will likely have political consequences in the upcoming election.

“We don’t really know what the intent of the president is, except that we know that it is not just an isolated incident, some further action will follow,” Jackson said.

Pastor and Chairman of Renewing American Leadership Jim Garlow called the president’s statement a “redefinition of marriage.”

“Which one is unimportant, father or mother? By his redefinition, one will have to go,” Garlow said, “Is your wife so unimportant, sir, that she can be replaced by simply any other male, or is there value in having one man and one woman, a father and a mother?”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said the issue of same-sex marriage is moral, not only political.

“We (Christians) can no longer stay in the shadows. We are no longer going to allow politicians to take issues and make them political and tell us to keep our hands off,” Perkins said, “These are first and foremost moral issues.”

Perkins also said the President’s “redefinition of marriage” will affect the education of future generations.

“This issue is not just about whether or not two people have an affinity for one another. No law restricts anyone from living together or entering into a contractual relationship for property or other matters,” Perkins said, “But that’s not what this is really about. This is about what our children are going to be taught in elementary school. It is about stepping in between a parent and a child and imposing a new morality, or absence there of, among our children. If we think this will have no ramifications for children in the future, we are foolish.”

The group also announced their support for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he is planning to repeal. Perkins said DOMA helps protect the definition of traditional marriage.

“DOMA not only defines marriage for purposes of federal law, but DOMA is also the thin line of protection for those 30 states that have enshrined the definition of marriage in their constitution and the other dozen states that have it in their statutes,” Perkins said, “Without DOMA, Massachusetts, Iowa, could impose their definition by a rogue judge on that other state. DOMA is essential for the state that exercises the right to define marriage, or preserve that definition.”

This campaign for traditional marriage will continue in the months leading up to the election through faith-based voting initiatives. 

“On June 1^st, we are beginning a ‘Righteousness and Justice Fast.’ Forty days, fasting, we’re calling for churches all around America to fast for the moral healing of our nation,” Jackson said, “We are asking for 100,000 plus churches to preach a message on Father’s Day that focuses on marriage and that a declaration affirming biblical marriage to be read.”

For more information about this issue, visit the Family Research Council Website at www.frc.org 

True American Patriotism, Merely a Memory

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Anti-American protests and movements continue to rage across the United States, diminishing the strength of American patriotism.

“Help us Occupy! End the Wars, Save Trillions.” Occupy Wall Street participants carry signs that call for a division of the people. They promote socialism and condemn the foundational system of American economics, “Capitalism Doesn’t Work.” The occupiers do not call for a unified action from the American people and they certainly do not call for a stronger sense of patriotism.

Years of anti-American movements and actions within our borders have caused true American pride to become a rarity. It is a feeling many Americans only feel on the 4^th of July or Memorial Day. It is a sentiment that has been stuffed inside the walls of museums and locked inside the pages of history textbooks.

The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. is home to an exhibit called “The Priceof Freedom: Americans at War.” The name alone is enough to evoke a feeling of pride in the heart of even the most apathetic American. As visitors walk through the walls of this exhibit, they are taken back to a time when all Americans stood together, back to a time when most citizens would gladly die for their country.

Edwin Townsend remembers that time. As he walked through the hallway of the exhibit, his mind was in a different place, a different time. He said being in the museum helps him remember what it was like to be an American more than 50 years ago.

“When Pearl Harbor was bombed, on December 7th 1941, the next day, the young men couldn’t wait to go sign up to join the Army, the Navy, or the Marine Corps,” Townsend said. “It was entirely different then, than in recent years.”

The posters in the protected glass cases on the wall read, “Want Action? Join U.S. Marine Corps,” and, “United We Are Strong! United We Will Win.” They called for exactly what Townsend described: service and dedication to this country. They called for participation and unity. They called for pride in America.

In contrast, an Occupy Wall Street sign on the streets of New York reads, “Only the dead have seen an end to war.” It is a pessimistic message that marginalizes the strength and courage of the members of the United States Military.

Townsend said when he was a boy, everyone supported the troops and everyone had confidence in the strength of our nation.

“Patriotism was very popular. Everybody was supporting our country. Everybody worked and sacrificed,” he said. “We had food rationing and gasoline rationing. We had to keep our lights low at night.”

“Do With Less – So They’ll Have Enough! Rationing Gives You Your Fair Share.” This poster in the museum illustrates the American people’s willingness to be selfless for the good of the country.

This kind of noble devotion to the United States has all but died off, along with the brave men and women who fought to keep it alive.

“Patriotism as exhibited before and during World War II, I don’t think we’ll ever see that again,” Townsend said.

With the continual decline of American support from its own people, Townsend’s prediction will be unfortunately accurate. The messages of American pride and patriotism that hang on the wall of The National Museum of American History will be nothing more than ancient artifacts and forgotten ideas.

One sign on the wall boldly promises that “Americans Will Always Fight for Liberty.” In the 1940s, Americans believed that pledge without a doubt in their minds. Today, Americans can only hope and pray that these words remain true for years to come.