Every few months since at least 2006, The New York Times takes time out from brow-beating Evangelicals to praise them for supporting amnesty for illegal aliens.
Most of the "Evangelicals" the Times cites are liberal frauds, far from "unlikely allies" in amnesty, as alleged. It is a specialty of the left to pose as something they're not in order to create the impression of a zeitgeist. The only one I haven't seen quoted yet is the ACLU's minister, Barry Lynn.
The Times keeps touting Evangelicals for Amnesty as evidence of a "shift," a "change of heart" and a "secret weapon." Breaking the same news story every two months since 2006 isn't a shift; it's propaganda.
Any Evangelical promoting the McCain-Rubio amnesty plan has the moral framework of Planned Parenthood. Like the abortion lobby, they have boundless compassion for the people they can see, but none for those they can't see.
One Evangelical after another told the Times that they no longer believe Americans should have control over who immigrates here on the basis of having met illegal aliens in their pews. The millions harmed by illegal immigration are left out of the equation. They don't go to church here.
Similarly, the pro-choice crowd is brimming with compassion for girls who have gotten pregnant by accident. They're in high school, their whole lives are ahead of them, it's one mistake! The babies don't count because they're out of sight.
The Rev. David Uth, head pastor of First Baptist Orlando, said that based on "the stories out there in the pews" from illegals who "have made friends and who have become close with people here," there was momentum in his church to "do something to address their needs."
Mr. Uth and his parishioners will never hear stories from the thousands of Americans killed every year by illegal aliens. They won't be sitting in the pews with those murdered and maimed in Boston last month by a conspiracy of immigrants.
They won't hear from hospitals and school systems in border states forced into bankruptcy because they have to provide free services to illegals. They won't chat with farmers and ranchers whose livestock and property are stolen or destroyed by illegal aliens.
Jay Crenshaw, a parishioner at First Baptist Orlando, told the Times that he was a conservative Christian, but his views had changed "as a result of personal encounters with immigrants in church." After a fellow parishioner was arrested for driving illegally, "Mr. Crenshaw said he realized that his friend, an active church member who was supporting his mother and a brother" -- by the way, so are you, readers! -- "could be deported."
(You know who else's views changed as a result of a personal encounter with an illegal alien? The 31-year-old mother allegedly shot to death by illegal immigrant Jose Zarate in Arizona earlier this year because she wouldn't allow the 25-year-old to date her 13-year-old daughter.)
Noting that he had "a lot of compassion," Crenshaw explained that once you have "walked with someone and put a face and family behind the immigration issue, it very much personalizes it."
Unfortunately for educated Europeans desperate to escape their collapsing socialist societies being overridden with Muslims, Mr. Crenshaw has not met them and therefore cannot "personalize" their troubles. They're barred from coming here, and he's fine with that.
This new Christian ethic of compassion-by-personal-encounter is also bad news for the millions of American blue-collar workers unable to find work because of the massive influx of unskilled immigrants.
And there will be no compassion for the tens of millions of Americans who will never see a dime of their promised Social Security payments, even as their taxes go through the roof, because Mr. Crenshaw's compassion requires that this country turn itself into the welfare ward of the world.
This is the same moral courage that allows some of these ministers to rain fire and brimstone on gays, while never getting around to criticizing divorce. They don't know any gays -- but they have lots of divorcees in their pews.
Principles do not vary depending on personal circumstances. But these so-called Evangelicals wouldn't know a principle unless it sat next to them in the pew.
Another Christian interviewed by the Times, Stewart Hall, also restricts his Christian compassion to those he can see. "It occurs to me," Hall said of the illegal immigrants in his church, "that if Jesus was sitting next to me, he would not care whether they were illegal or legal."
Would Jesus care if they were gay? Would he care if they'd had abortions? Because if that's the test for public policy, it's abortion-on-demand and gay marriage all around!
Moreover, it's not clear that Jesus wouldn't care how people came to this country. Did they come here in disobedience of the laws of God and of man? Was their first act on American soil to defy the law of the nation?
And why can't Jesus love them if they're back in Mexico? Does the Bible say that Christ died only for U.S. legal residents? Maybe that passage is buried in the Book of Malachi. (I never read that one carefully!)
Adopting a classic liberal trait, these Christians incapable of abstract thinking seem to believe that true compassion consists of giving away something that isn't theirs. They repeatedly cite the biblical passage about treating the stranger as you would yourself. But I note that they don't invite strangers to move into their houses, sleep in their beds, eat their food and have sex with their wives.
No, they demand that we transform our country into a bankrupt, Third World hellhole so that they can feel good about themselves. But every American has an interest in what kind of country this is. America isn't theirs to give away out of phony "Christian" compassion.