Cultural commentator Albert Mohler says conservatives are mishandling the immigration issue by fixating on an internet rumor instead of addressing the real and urgent challenge an influx of immigrants can pose to a city.
“Quite frankly, conservatives are handling it incompetently,” Mohler said on his podcast The Briefing Monday, addressing claims from Republican nominee Donald Trump and his allies that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating dogs, cats, and pets. “There’s just a lack of truth, a lack of directness, a lack of candor of what’s going on here.”
Christians, he said, must “develop the instinct to source things -- that is to say, ‘Is this credible, is this truthful?’ We don’t want to base our judgment on something that’s not true.”
“There’s not a single police report to back that up, nor can anyone find a resident there in Springfield who says anything about their own pets suffering such a fate,” added Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The national debate over stolen pets, Mohler said, has distracted from the larger issue. Prior to the influx, Springfield had around 60,000 residents. Between 12,000 and 20,000 Haitian immigrants have settled in the city, looking for employment but also straining city resources.
“I’ll just state the obvious. There isn’t a city in the United States that could handle proportionately this kind of influx without severe problems, and when you’re looking at a clash of cultures you’re looking at a particularly acute problem,” Mohler said. “Everyone should have sympathy with this town. Everyone should have sympathy with all involved.”
The federal government, Mohler said, has “made decisions that have impacted Ohio and this local community beyond anything the community can handle.”
“My goal is to help Christians think about how to think about an issue like this and separate the truth from the absolute nonsense -- and frankly, there’s absolute nonsense just about everywhere you look,” he added.
Mohler reflected on his own childhood experience, growing up in Pompano Beach, Fla., in the 1970s as his family and their church ministered to Haitian refugees.
“What is the Christian responsibility? I think the Christians in my hometown responded appropriately by establishing a ministry and trying to reach out, but the culture clash -- I just want to say honestly -- was massive,” he said.
The majority population in Haiti, Mohler said, “is involved in some syncretism between Roman Catholicism and ancient practices of voodoo.”
The mainstream media, Mohler said, is wrong to ignore the core of the problem in Springfield. At the same time, Christians must make their arguments based on truth, he said.
“This can’t be sourced to anything a reasonable person would take as authoritative,” he said of the pet memes.
“We’re concerned not just here with the impact of a rather significant influx of refugees, in this case of Haitian identity in a small town in Ohio,” he said. “We’re also concerned for the Great Commission as to how to reach all those persons we can reach by our influence with the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Trump “needs to drop” the sensational claims and move on to the “issue of immigration,” Mohler said.
“On that issue, I will argue that Vice President Kamala Harris is extremely vulnerable. There are big arguments to be made,” Mohler said. “We need to be confronted with those arguments. Voters need to know what those arguments are.”
Photo Credit: ©Facebook/Albert Mohler
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.