Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s latest proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States has sparked a media frenzy that includes input from Baptist leaders.
A Dec. 7 press release from Trump’s campaign said the candidate is “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore quickly responded, saying in a Dec. 7 blog post that “anyone who cares an iota about religious liberty” should denounce Trump’s “reckless, demagogic rhetoric.”
Moore, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission president, wrote that government has “a limited authority” and “cannot exalt itself as a lord over the conscience.”
On Dec. 8, Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, also issued a statement condemning Trump’s latest idea.
“Donald Trump’s proposal … is un-American, unworkable, counterproductive and embarrassing,” Walker said.
Franklin Graham, however, sided with the presidential candidate in saying U.S. borders should be closed to Muslim immigrants “until we can properly vet them or until the war with Islam is over.”
“During World War II we didn’t allow Japanese to immigrate to America, nor did we allow Germans. Why are we allowing Muslims now?” Graham said.
‘Exploiting fear’
Walker said Trump’s proposal is “exploiting popular fear and fanning pervasive anti-Muslim bigotry for political gain.”
Trump’s press release cited a Center for Security Policy (CSP) poll that surveyed 600 U.S. Muslims, according to CSP’s website, and found 25 percent believed “violence against Americans here in the United States can be justified as part of the global jihad.”
However, CSP has faced heavy criticism in recent years from the Southern Poverty Law Center and former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner, among others, for being “an extremist think-tank.”
Moore wrote, “Make no mistake. A government that can shut down mosques simply because they are mosques can shut down Bible studies because they are Bible studies. A government that can close the borders to all Muslims simply on the basis of their religious belief can do the same thing for evangelical Christians.” (TAB, BP, RNS, BNG)
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