Evangelicals and Immigration: Fault Lines Among the Faithful

202 Pages·2019·2.05 MB·English

by  Lyman A. Kellstedt

EVANGELICALS AND
IMMIGRATION
Fault Lines Among the Faithful
RUTH M. MELKONIAN-HOOVER
AND LYMAN A. KELLSTEDT
Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy
Series Editor
Mark J. Rozell
Schar School of Policy and Government
George Mason University
Arlington, VA, USA
This series originated under the co-editorship of the late Ted Jelen and Mark J. Rozell.
A generation ago, many social scientists regarded religion as an anachronism, whose
social, economic, and political importance would inevitably wane and disappear in
the face of the inexorable forces of modernity. Of course, nothing of the sort has
occurred; indeed, the public role of religion is resurgent in US domestic politics, in
other nations, and in the international arena. Today, religion is widely acknowledged
to be a key variable in candidate nominations, platforms, and elections; it is recog-
nized as a major influence on domestic and foreign policies. National religious move-
ments as diverse as the Christian Right in the United States and the Taliban in
Afghanistan are important factors in the internal politics of particular nations.
Moreover, such transnational religious actors as Al-Qaida, Falun Gong, and the
Vatican have had important effects on the politics and policies of nations around
the world. Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy serves a growing niche in
the discipline of political science. This subfield has proliferated rapidly during the
past two decades, and has generated an enormous amount of scholarly studies and
journalistic coverage. Five years ago, the journal Politics and Religion was created; in
addition, works relating to religion and politics have been the subject of many articles
in more general academic journals. The number of books and monographs on reli-
gion and politics has increased tremendously. In the past, many social scientists dis-
missed religion as a key variable in politics and government. This series casts a broad
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ence, including American Politics, Public Policy, Public Law, Comparative Politics,
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public role of religion. “Religion” is construed broadly to include public opinion,
religious institutions, and the legal frameworks under which religious politics are
practiced. The “dependent variable” in which we are interested is politics, defined
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tives, provided that the approaches taken are intellectually rigorous. The series does
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the private or personal consequences of religious belief and behavior, such as personal
happiness, mental health, or family dysfunction, should seek other outlets for their
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on the relationship between the sacred and the political in contemporary societies.
More information about this series at
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Ruth M. Melkonian-Hoover
Lyman A. Kellstedt
Evangelicals
and Immigration
Fault Lines Among the Faithful
Ruth M. Melkonian-Hoover Lyman A. Kellstedt
Gordon College Wheaton College
Wenham, MA, USA Wheaton, IL, USA
Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy
ISBN 978-3-319-98085-0 ISBN 978-3-319-98086-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98086-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952639
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This book is dedicated to Ruth’s parents, Ellen Bartholdy
and Levon Diran Melkonian
And to Bud’s grandchildren, Abigail and Elizabeth Kellstedt
and Grace and Nathan Ramirez
who have inspired us to ask anew each day what it looks like to follow the
command to … “to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength,
and mind, and our neighbors as ourselves” (Luke 10:27).
Acknowledgments
We have so many wonderful people to thank for helping us bring this
book to publication.
We have been both interested in and concerned about this subject all
our lives as Christians, scholars, Americans, and the children and grand-
children of immigrants.
Bud comes from a very political family. His grandfather built the home
of William Jennings Bryan in Lincoln, Nebraska; the site is now a state
park. His father was a supporter of lost causes—Harold Stassen for presi-
dent among others. His mother had an insatiable curiosity—“Buddy,
who is going to win the Iowa Caucus?” is a specific cherished memory
that is oft repeated. His brother, Jim, became an elected official at the age
of 34. His sister, Piney, a college professor, was known campus-wide for
her political stances. His son, Paul, is also a political scientist and not shy
about expounding his views. And, finally, his daughter, Anne, is a psy-
chotherapist who tries to keep our crazy family operating while regularly
informing her neighbors of her political views via yard signs.
Ruth appreciates growing up in a home where her family watched the
news together, read the daily newspaper, and discussed and debated world
politics. It was a gift to see her parents, people of faith who immigrated
to the United States from different countries, and who identified with
different political parties, agreeably disagree.
vii
viii Acknowledgments
Bud thanks John Green, Jim Guth, and Corwin Smidt (three col-
leagues in “The Gang of Four”) for inspiration and assistance in our joint
efforts to understand religion and politics. He is also grateful for the work
of other scholars in this subfield (in particular, the Religion and Politics
section of the discipline) who are too many to mention. Bud is also
thankful for the assistance of many talented students during his tenure at
Wheaton College. We worked together and laughed together. They are
missed but not forgotten. Unfortunately, they are too many to list.
Ruth thanks Jim Skillen for being the one to ask her to write about
immigration in 2006 and Jo Kadeleck, who years ago challenged her to
share her work in book form. And she thanks her co-author Bud Kellstedt,
whose request and willingness to move forward as a team over these past
five years she’s found humbling and encouraging, particularly in a project
area that is complicated, heartrending, and polarizing.
At Palgrave Macmillan, we are grateful to Michelle Chen, Ted Jelen,
and Mark Rozell, who saw the need for this book and helped us formu-
late a good way forward. And we are grateful to John Stegner for his care-
ful editorial advice and patience. We mourn the loss of Ted Jelen, who
was a bright light and a notable scholar in the world of religion and poli-
tics for many decades. Ted and Bud were friends for decades; he is missed.
We owe a special thanks to a number of scholars willing to consult
with us at various stages of the research and to comment on various chap-
ters of this text even when shared in the roughest of drafts: Dennis
Hoover, Jim Guth, Corwin Smidt, Timothy Sherratt, and Steve Alter. We
are extremely grateful: all errors that remain are decidedly ours not theirs.
Ruth also thanks Gordon College and the Center for Faith and Inquiry
for funding sabbatical time and summer research efforts to facilitate this
project. And she thanks her supportive colleagues in the political science
department: Timothy Sherratt, Paul Brink, and Michael Jacobs. She is
likewise grateful to her indomitable TAs, whose research, transcriptions,
and encouragement over the last years have been indispensable. They
include Karin Christianson, Jessica Allen, Emily Gerard, Liz MacDavitt,
Rachel Ashley, Jacqueline Broberg, Jenny Hyde, Hannah VanderLaan,
Jaya Rastogi, India Boland, Abby Millard, Daniel Gray, Rebekah Rodrigues,
Marina Bueno, Annika Hellweg, Taylor Valci, and William Peña.
Acknowledgments ix
We are grateful to the various organizations that have undertaken for-
midable research in this area and have made their datasets freely available
to us to use and analyze: American National Election Studies (ANES),
The Henry Institute  Cooperative Clergy  Survey, Comprehensive
Congressional Election Study (CCES), General Social Surveys (GSS),
Pew Research Center, and the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
They bear no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclu-
sions reached based on analysis of their data.
Lastly, we cannot thank our spouses and families enough. They have
been utterly patient and supportive in this project. Char Kellstedt—
whose support, humor, strong religious faith, and passion for justice—
inspire Bud to no end. And Dennis Hoover—in addition to his mad
editing skills—his vision, faith, parenting skills, and partnership in mar-
riage have made this possible. And we are grateful for our children, Bud’s
grandchildren, and our parents, who have inspired us as we think on what
it means to do justice and love mercy when it comes to immigration.
Praise for Evangelicals and Immigration
“One of the many misunderstood aspects of contemporary immigration politics
is the role of religion – particularly evangelical Christianity. In this superb vol-
ume, Melkonian-Hoover and Kellstedt remedy that through rich historical
accounts, a nuanced understanding of American religion, and sophisticated
analyses of the “fault lines” that define evangelicalism’s variegated response to the
immigration debate. This is a must-read for anyone interested in religion, poli-
tics, and the enduring American debate about immigration.”
—Geoffrey Layman, Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame
“Too often in our political and spiritual discourse, highly complicated issues are
distilled into talking point form which can never fully capture the nuances, history,
and complexities required for a populace to reach genuinely informed conclusions.
In Evangelicals and Immigration: Fault Lines Among the Faithful, authors Melkonian-
Hoover and Kellstedt expertly synthesize scholarly research, expert interviews, and
personal stories that color in the gaps of what is perhaps the most consequential
issue of our time, namely the confluence of immigration and faith.”
—Samuel Rodriguez, President, National Hispanic Christian
Leadership Conference
“As carefully demonstrated by Melkonian-Hoover and Kellstedt’s Evangelicals
and Immigration: Fault Lines among the Faithful, American evangelical Christians
are often divided by questions of immigration policy, with marked divides
between ‘elites’ and those ‘in the pews,’ among evangelicals of different ethnici-
ties, and even within the minds of many individual evangelicals, who struggle
to reconcile their conflicted feelings on the topic. As a longtime advocate for
immigration policy changes, I found some of their findings encouraging and
others troubling—but all incredibly valuable. If ‘all truth is God’s truth,’ the
church needs not only normative arguments for how we should treat immi-
grants, grounded in biblical theology and missiology, but also this dispassionate
analysis of how we have treated them throughout history and the diverse ways
that evangelicals say they want their elected officials to respond today. I highly
recommend this fascinating, thoroughly readable book not just to academics,
but also to church leaders who want to better understand how their congrega-
tions are approaching this polarizing issue.”
—Matthew Soerens, US Director of Church Mobilization, World Relief
xi