"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves." So warned Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. So came forth such false prophets recently at a press conference held on Capitol Hill.
The open-borders National Immigration Forum (NIF) organized the latest iteration of a smoke-and-mirrors PR assault aimed at fooling more and more evangelical groups and their members. The NIF sham intends to fool enough of the people for enough of the time into believing that evangelical America backs mass amnesty.
The NIF has long advocated for open borders, amnesty, and anti-rule-of-law immigration policies. Its current board includes representatives from the landscapers' lobby and the immigrant-heavy United Food and Commercial Workers Union. It has united the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Catholic Conference, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center, MALDEF, La Raza, and the AFL-CIO. NIF's leadership hails from regional immigrant advocacy groups, La Raza, and activist-oriented immigration law practices. NIF receives funding from George Soros's Open Society Institute.
More than 100 organizations and individuals have now joined with the open-borders NIF, the left-wing Sojourners, and an array of ethnic identity groups parading in Christian guise, trotting out a call for "moral courage" by Washington and endorsing mass amnesty. They have taken the name the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), clearly a project of the NIF.
Some of the normally politically conservative signatories had already sold out on the immigration issue — including the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, World Relief, and Liberty Counsel. These sellouts have now hoodwinked a lot of evangelical names that one might suspect would hesitate to sign up for a cause that puts them so far out of step with most of their supporters — especially because the Bible leaves the immigration policy particulars of nation-states to prudential judgment and the plainer principles of Scripture would lead the discerning Christian to err on the side of caution, where officially obligating their fellow citizens with the costs and burdens of foreign lawbreakers is concerned.
What are they shills for? Sojourners president Jim Wallis hinted at it to USA Today: "Big things don't change in Washington first. Big things change in Washington last." Hence, the PR campaign involves "person-to-person outreach and media buys in Colorado and Florida". There are church-based propaganda initiatives camouflaged as workshops and "Bible studies". For example, one church is holding a six-week event that will cover:
- The History of Immigration in the United States
- Immigration in NC - Understanding our Newest Immigrant Neighbors
- Developing Your Moral Voice in Immigration and Diversity
- Stranger to Neighbor Storytelling Workshop
- Understanding Secure Communities and the DREAM Act
- Strategies for Voicing Your Value and Taking Action
These initiatives are pushing "a path to citizenship" for the illegal-alien population. But EIT is doing so using the most manipulatory methods of modern poll-tested messaging. This scheme derives from a word-twisting tutorial memo from the self-proclaimed "centrist" D.C. group, Third Way. But Third Way is hardly in the political center. It's personnel come steeped by such political "moderates" as Al Gore, Andrew Cuomo, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton.
The wording of EIT's "principles" amounts to a rhetorical Rorshach test — vague enough to mean whatever you want it to mean. In other words, the EIT "principles" are intended to deceive.
Now knowing that EIT's "principles" actually amount to manipulatory tactics (some might use the term propagandistic), here is how they read:
- 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 to taxpayers
- Establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents
The truth, though, is that what the six EIT criteria say isn't what they mean. They mean everything — and nothing — by design.
Who are some of the new amnesty advocates now party to this ruse? Focus on the Family. Prison Fellowship. Regent University. The editor of Christianity Today magazine. Rev. Max Lucado. Their signing onto EIT indicates that a number of those for whom many of us may have had respect lack discernment and wisdom. They misunderstand fundamental biblical principles that relate to the public square, particularly matters of public policy (the area of society to which I have been called).
While some of their hearts might be in the right place, their heads sure aren't. Such a bone-headed move as this undermines any confidence one might have had in the signatories' ability to love the Lord with all their minds or to apply the "sound mind" principle (see II Timothy 1:7). There's also the fact that this PR blitz is little more than a dog-and-pony show, with the new signatories (coming out of more traditional evangelical circles) the willing dogs and ponies to NIF, the ringmaster.
That is, these people and entities are obtuse enough to allow themselves to be pawns — pawns of Soros-backed people and organizations who share nothing of and are hostile toward their core beliefs. Making common cause "strange bedfellows" for practical political reasons is one thing; giving your faith-based imprimatur and willfully risking to mislead one's fellow believers is quite another.