Arizona's misstep illustrates the divide between Christian denominations

The last thing economically strapped Arizona needed was a national debacle over its new immigration law, but the action now seems to be the flash point in the long-running debate on the issue.

My wife and I were in Arizona when the new, controversial law was passed. We own a second home there—and pay property taxes—because we have family in Arizona's beautiful West Valley; we like the area very much. We watched the debate up-close and couldn't believe what was happening. Now back in Texas where we live most of the year, we feel embarrassed by Arizona's misguided action.

Sadly, we also have a good idea of the roots of the issue.

The law looks not only vindictive against all Hispanics, but it smacks of revenge being taken out on innocent people over the messed-up financial situation the state has managed to get itself into. Arizona—like California, Florida, Michigan and some other states who led us into the Great Recession—is in dire circumstances. Anger over the financial mess oozes on top of the hot desert sands. Home prices there have plummeted to unbelievable depths. The majority of the mortgage-holders in the state are underwater. The state's unemployment rate is high. The state's legislature is struggling to figure out what to do with all the red ink. Its largest city, Phoenix, in January laid off about 10 percent of its police and fire departments as well as cut even more drastically other city services—merely a benchmark for what other smaller cities and counties in the state are doing.

Economic misery often produces cockeyed behavior—regrettably often directed at innocent bystanders. This new law clearly is in that league.

The amazing thing about Arizona's new immigration law is how it appears to be dividing the religious community. The National Council of Churches and its affiliated mainline denominations have turned out swinging at the law. The NCC has called the law unChristian, immoral, and probably illegal. The Evangelical denominations for the most part so far have remained silent on the Arizona debacle.

Native-born U.S. Hispanics we know are boiling about the new Arizona law. Their anger is not limited to their denominational affiliations. Just because they may look Hispanic, they now will be forced—in Arizona at least—to carry on them proof of their citizenship.

Foot-dragging on this issue by Evangelical and other church leaders could drive a huge wedge between them and the rapidly growing Hispanic population in this country.

The next time I travel to Arizona, I personally plan to carry my Native American documents along with my U.S. citizenship documents. If asked to prove my nationality (which is very unlikely since I have no Hispanic heritage), I will show my Native American papers and then ask the nationality of the interrogator. Unless he or she also is a Native American, I will ask whether his or her ancestors were really, truly legal when they intruded on this land. Many people conveniently forget that except for Native Americans, all other Americans are descendants of people who may not always have had the proper legal papers to enter this country. Many of the first Americans certainly didn't ask permission of the people who already lived here then.

I hope Arizona's leaders not only quickly return to their senses and repeal the law but that the attitude they have displayed toward the whole Hispanic community doesn't turn out to be contagious in the rest of the Great Recession-riddled country. The last thing America needs to do right now is to alienate its Hispanic population, its neighbor to the South, and the rest of us who do not want to see our Hispanic friends mistreated.

After snickering at others, SBC now faces its own decline

During the 1970s when the so-called Mainline Christian denominations began their incredible shrinking act, Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics looked on with puzzled amusement, because both America's Roman Catholic Church and America's largest Protestant denomination were growing at robust speeds.

Thanks to their opposition to birth control (practiced by some RC's but not by all), and rampant immigration of people from south of the U.S. border (who were predominantly RC's), the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. knew the two trends would bode well for its future and keep it growing in numbers and influence.

Because they perceived themselves as an evangelistic denomination reaching out in all directions for new converts, Southern Baptists believed their future to be one of unstoppable growth. Somehow they believed they were immune to the realities that were engulfing other Protestant groups around them. Some even scoffed about the Episcopalians, United Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians and their loss of evangelistic fervor.

Now four decades later—in the first decade of the 21st century—Roman Catholics continue to grow (as do U.S. immigration woes and many Roman Catholic families), but Southern Baptists are for the first time since the Great Depression reporting their first membership decline after several years of declining baptism rates. The situation was predictable and inevitable but is proving to be very painful for the SBC. 

This SBC nosedive may be just a blip in history (as some convention leaders are trying desperately to forecast), but it also has the potential to turn into a major rout and thus an embarrassing headache for the denomination.

At the annual Southern Baptist Convention Tuesday and Wednesday in Indianapolis, the topic is likely to spawn much attention and probably a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing. The Washington Post reported recently that Convention President Frank S. Page said that without decisive action soon, the number of SBC churches could decline significantly by 2030.

Watch out for glib explanations about the decline. Expect a lot of pep-rally talk about evangelism but little focus on the underlying issues.

What has caused the problem?

1. Birth control. Smaller families mean fewer children to baptize. Like all Protestant denominations, Southern Baptists have faced this problem all along. The numbers are just now catching up with them.

2. Roll-cleaning. Southern Baptist leaders for years have joked about their 16-million member denomination that is really about 10-million strong at best.  During the 1970s and 1980s Southern Baptists failed to follow the trend of major roll-cleaning, which resulted in the Mainline denominations arriving at more realistic—and honest—numbers. Once Southern Baptists realized their rolls were not accurate, they failed to develop a comprehensive policy to quietly let the air out of their numbers and slow the denomination's growth while baptism rates were at historical highs. Now with some church rolls so obviously overstated and some actually getting a much-needed cleansing, Southern Baptists face the double whammy that makes the situation all the more painful.

3.  A graying Southern Baptist population. Like the rest of America, Southern Baptists are statistically growing older. That means more people with gray hair, the group least likely to reach out to win new converts, particularly among ethnic and minority groups that are growing so fast. 

4. Failure to spot—and work against—the flight of young blacks to the Muslim faith. Since 1970, Islam has grown dramatically in the United States. Some of it has been the immigrants from Muslim countries. A sizable chunk of the growth, however,  is from converts made in prisons, where young black males are disproportionally represented and in African-American neighborhoods where Southern Baptist churches are too few. The chapter, "Wrong (or Right?)-Way Corrigans" in my new book, Witness to the Truth, explains this development further.

5. Too many refugees from other denominations.  Some SBC churches are packed to the rafters with members who did not grow up Southern Baptist but instead sprang from the exodus in the Mainline denominations over liberalism. Consequently these new members, who kept the growth going during the 1980s and 1990s, did not experience the evangelistic training that was so much a part of the denomination earlier. As the exodus from the mainline denominations levels off and actually begins to stop, these new Southern Baptists may not even know the importance of sharing their faith with others.

6. A house divided against itself. Read the questionnaire Baptist Press recently published with answers from the six SBC presidential candidates and you'll quickly note the large numbers of areas in which Southern Baptists are battling. Some of the fractures are deep and dangerous divides for the denomination. I discuss this more thoroughly in the chapter, "Reborn Again!", in Witness to the Truth.

This year's convention will be filled with calls for renewed evangelism efforts and plans for overcoming the quagmire. Most ideas are not new. Anybody remember former SBC President Bobby Welch's goal of reaching 1 million baptisms in a year? I have yet to see anything from anybody this year that hasn't been proposed previously or in a different wrapper or that addresses head-on the issues above that are pulling down the denomination's roll numbers.

Steering the rough waters ahead for the Southern Baptist Convention is going to take some mighty creative leadership and not just pep-rally talk.