When federal agents descended on Louisiana this month to pursue their aggressive deportation campaign, a group of Roman Catholic priests privately brought the Eucharist to the homes of immigrants too worried to step outside.
But Lewis Richerson, the pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, planned to take an opposite approach.
“I would not knowingly extend communion to an illegal immigrant who is visiting our church,” he said. “That person would be in sin by being in this country illegally, and Christians should obey the law of the land.”
Instead, the main way he would minister to them would be “to help them submit themselves to the authorities,” he said. “They should absolutely deport themselves.”
Mr. Richerson’s church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, with about 12.7 million members. For years, the denomination has supported immigration reforms, especially given its extensive missionary work and theological commitments to helping “the least of these,” as Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew.
But while Catholic bishops this year have repeatedly rebuked the Trump administration over its deportation actions, Southern Baptists are contending with an increasingly loud contingent in their ranks that, like Mr. Richerson, supports the immigration crackdown. Even as many rank-and-file churches continue to support immigrant ministries, signs of fracture are emerging.
In April, leaders of 13 Southern Baptist ethnic groups came together to ask the denomination’s leaders “to stand firm for religious liberty and speak on behalf of the immigrant and refugee,” and to request that the Trump administration consider penalties other than deportation.
At the Southern Baptists’ annual convention in June, the topic was largely absent. Delegates considered resolutions with positions on abortion, pornography and sports betting, not immigration.
But delegates also held a vote on dismantling the Southern Baptists’ public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which has spearheaded action on immigration for the convention.
The group narrowly survived, but its leader was effectively pushed out, and in September it broke ties with the Evangelical Immigration Table, a coalition of prominent evangelical groups that it helped start 13 years ago to focus on reform efforts, which had rankled the Baptists’ conservative wing. The acting president said the E.R.L.C. had decided to take a “more independent posture on our immigration-related work,” according to Baptist News Global.
The developments suggest a shift from the denomination’s annual meeting two years ago, when delegates approved a resolution imploring government leaders for “robust avenues” to support asylum claimants and “to create legal pathways to permanent status for immigrants who are in our communities by no fault of their own, prioritizing the unity of families.”
Gary Hollingsworth, the interim president of the E.R.L.C., declined an interview to discuss immigration.
Clint Pressley, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, also declined to comment, through a spokesman. Leaders of several Baptist associations in states including Georgia, Texas and Michigan did not respond to interview requests, nor did leaders of several ethnic Baptist groups.
Unlike Catholics, only a small share of Southern Baptists were born outside the United States or have one parent born outside the United States, according to the Pew Research Center — 43 percent for Catholics and just 8 percent for Southern Baptists. The share rises to 19 percent for evangelicals more broadly.
Many evangelical leaders have long emphasized care for the stranger and the dignity of the human person, ideals rooted in their commitment to the Bible. But the denomination has also taken a rightward turn in recent years, and some leaders privately worry that speaking out will cause backlash from the more conservative flank.
Groups like the Center for Baptist Leadership and Founders Ministries, which work to counter what they perceive as leftward drift including on immigration, have galvanized support on social media. In 2023, an insurgent right wing pushed delegates to purge women from church leadership.
Last year, delegates at the convention voted to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization; this year, they voted to work to overturn same-sex marriage.
Still, mission work is core to mainstream Southern Baptist identity.
In Oklahoma, Eric Costanzo, the pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church and an E.R.L.C. trustee, worried about Burmese people in his community. Earlier this month some had their citizenship ceremonies canceled when the Trump administration halted immigration processing for people from 19 countries, including Myanmar, he said.
“That is very disheartening because all of our Burmese neighbors, they are persecuted Christians,” Mr. Costanzo said. “We’ve seen Burmese families start over 20 churches in our city.”
Some pastors said the crackdowns were affecting their ministries.
Craig Tuck, the executive director of the Charleston Baptist Association in South Carolina, works with 76 Southern Baptist churches and helps run a community center for missionary and refugee work. Attendance at their English as a Second Language programs has dropped this year by nearly half, particularly among Hispanics.
“No church and no leader has said to me, I am fully in favor of how all the ICE agents are carrying it out,” he said.
Instead, he sees the biggest challenge as improving collaboration between like-minded Baptist entities.
Joel Rainey, who leads Covenant Church in Shepherdstown, W.Va., has helped start more than 100 churches in North America, and has been involved in mission work on five continents. His church is near a U.S. Customs and Border Protection training center.
“From my standpoint, as a pastor who deals with immigrants and also ministers to a lot of folks who work in our national security apparatus, the current situation is making it incredibly difficult for everybody,” he said. “It is woefully unfair, inhumane.”
Others are prioritizing other topics. David L. Allen, a professor at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, coaches pastors ranging from the leader of a 25-person church in Arkansas to the minister of a 25,000-person one in California. Pastors have asked him for advice on preaching about topics like transgender and sexuality issues, but not immigration, he said.
“The vast majority of Baptists, and I would certainly fall in this category, would be very strongly opposed to illegal immigration, and so they would be very supportive of the current administration’s strong steps in curbing illegal immigration,” he said.
Southern Baptists are overwhelmingly white and Republican, and they tend to support Mr. Trump’s broader agenda.
Mr. Richerson, the pastor who said he would deny communion to illegal immigrants, described his reasons as not only theological, but also economic.
“When rent prices in communities skyrocket because illegal immigrants are being housed, that is inhumane to taxpayers and poor American citizens,” he said.
In San Diego, Dale Huntington, the pastor of City Life Church, spoke about the immigrants who serve on the prayer team and bring food to his family when he is sick.
“I’m in a poor community of color, and there are times when they are disappointed in me for belonging to the Southern Baptist Church, because of what they hear,” he said.
But Southern Baptist churches across the country also donate to his church’s food pantry and support their mission work, Mr. Huntington said. He sees part of being Southern Baptist as working together across difference.
“Just because the loudest people are saying that they are not welcome doesn’t mean there isn’t a very large continent of churches out there that care deeply for those that are down and out,” he said.
Elizabeth Dias is The Times’s national religion correspondent, covering faith, politics and values.
The post Immigration Crackdown Creates Fault Lines Among Baptists appeared first on New York Times.
