SBC Pastor Criticizes Trump's Immigration Policy and Conservative Senator Walks Out

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I just watched Pastor Matt Crawford at Trinity Baptist Church in Cordova, Tennessee, go off on President Trump's immigration policies.

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This guy, who's with the Southern Baptist Convention, didn't hold back on his criticism of the roundups.

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But here's the kicker. Senator Brent Taylor was in the House, and guess what? He got up and walked right out during the sermon.

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Multiple sources confirm this to KWAM, but Senator Taylor isn't saying a word. Check out the video for yourself.

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It's a real eye -opener on where some religious leaders stand versus conservative politicians when it comes to immigration.

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I want to stop before we begin our service and just talk briefly with you about something that's a little bit sensitive.

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Some of us may have different opinions on this. Some of us may have strong opinions on this, and I ask you to consider it with love and grace and the spirit of unity that our church has consistently been marked by.

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It has to do with this issue of what's going on with immigration in our country right now and some of the actions that are being taken.

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I think we all believe in the rule of law. I certainly do. I don't think we should have wide -open borders.

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But I do believe that immigration is a major part of what has made this country so great. It's a major part of our history.

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We all believe that violent criminals should not be allowed to remain here and terrorize innocent people.

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We can agree on that. I do think that there are many good people here who are undocumented who would like a path to legality.

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I believe it's too hard right now for good people to find that path.

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It's sometimes nearly impossible. When I was in Florida, we had a

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Hispanic congregation there at my first church where I was a senior pastor, and there was our associate pastor.

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He was not on the payroll, but he served as a volunteer there as an associate pastor, and he was not documented.

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He had been here from Costa Rica for 10 or 11 years and wanted to be legal, and it was very hard for him to get there, and that's unfortunate.

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I think we need reform in that area. I don't know the legal status of all of our people who come to Trinity in Espanol.

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I don't know the legal status of all of our people who come to ESL. I don't think we're called to police that as a church.

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That's the government's job. We are called to love and to help those in need. It's been announced that now churches can be targets of raids.

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No one is being sheltered or kept here. But I don't like the idea, and I think you probably agree, that worship service could be disrupted by a raid.

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I don't want people who come here to be ministered to and to hear the gospel to be afraid to come here.

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So I'm disappointed by that change. I hope that we can believe both in the rule of law and feel that we don't want worship services disrupted by that.

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I hope that me saying that doesn't anger you. But I wanted to address that. Hopefully we can talk about things with unity and nuance and even differences of opinion because it's on the hearts of some of our people.

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Elizabeth Richards is going to pray about it during our intercessory prayer time. So I hope that we can give each other grace if we disagree on the details there.

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Be a unified church because the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ is so important.