Today’s Good News: New Sanctuary Movement Energizes Religious Left
Rev. Frank Alton of Los Angeles says: “The New Sanctuary Movement [sheltering undocumented people in churches] is a light in the darkness, water in the desert. We need to model what it means not just to give the minimum but to treat immigrants like citizens and love them like we love ourselves.”TIME magazine features a story about the new sanctuary movement ( see full story here) and it sounds very promising. Right now it is very small, but both the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ are getting behind it.  Organizers have received calls from hundreds of congregations wanting to get involved. The movement is, of course, based on the sanctuary movement of the 1980s, when congregations risking arrest by harboring Central American political refugees helped change public opinion in their favor.
There are, of course, many Latino evangelical Christians, and they are looking for support from their brethren on immigrants’ rights. Says the Rev. Walter Contreras, a leader in the 1,200-member Network of Hispanic Pastors of Southern California: “We’ve always been on board with [Anglo] Evangelicals. How can they not be on board with an issue that means so much to us? Focus on the Family–how can you not focus on our families, which are being divided by deportations?”
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