A Southern Baptist pastor in Tennessee who told his congregation of his concerns about President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging immigration crackdown has been labeled a woke Leftist by a far-right advocacy group.
Matt Crawford serves as senior pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn. He earned both the master of divinity degree and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is, by all accounts, a conservative Southern Baptist.
But not to William Wolfe and the staff of Center for Baptist Leadership, a group formed in 2024 to push the Southern Baptist Convention more to the right.
William Wolfe
Wolfe is a former Trump administration staffer and former intern to Southern Seminary President Al Mohler. He frequently uses his X account to post inflammatory statements of white supremacy, Christian supremacy and male supremacy. He famously took on Beth Moore by calling her “an ungodly, even demonic, influence on the SBC.”
Now, he’s singling out Crawford as evidence of a liberal drift in the SBC.
On Sunday, Jan. 26, Crawford gave a 3-minute statement to his congregation in suburban Memphis, acknowledging “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 the spirit of unity that our church has consistently been marked by.”
Then he contrasted his views with the executive orders being given from the White House by Trump on immigration.
“I think we all believe in the rule of law. I certainly do.”
“I think we all believe in the rule of law. I certainly do,” he said. “I don’t think we should have wide-open borders, 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.
“We all believe that violent criminals should not be allowed to remain here and terrorize innocent people. 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. I believe it’s too hard right now for good people to find that path that’s sometimes nearly impossible.”
He explained that in a previous pastorate in Florida, his home state, the church had a Spanish-language congregation led by a volunteer associate pastor who was undocumented.
“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,” he explained. “And that’s unfortunate. I think we need reform in that area.
“I don’t know the legal status of all of our people who come to Trinity en Espanol. 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. We are called to love and to help those in need.”
“I don’t think we’re called to police that as a church. We are called to love and to help those in need.”
Under Trump’s directive, federal immigration agents are now authorized to conduct raids at churches and schools, he noted.
“No one is being sheltered or kept here. I don’t like the idea (of the raids) and I think you probably agree,” he continued. “I don’t want people who come here to be ministered to and to hear the gospel to be afraid to come here. So I’m disappointed by that change. I hope we can believe both in the rule of law and feel we don’t want worship services disrupted by that.”
The next day, Wolfe and the Center for Baptist Leadership tore into Crawford’s message on social media.
The post claimed Crawford’s “progressive politicking was so offensive” that Tennessee state Sen. Brent Taylor walked out.
The post claimed the pastor preached against “reasonable immigration enforcement and the removal of criminal illegal aliens.” The critique even picked at the pastor’s use of the word “undocumented” rather than the MAGA-preferred term “illegal alien.”
Of Crawford’s illustration of the pastor of the Spanish-language congregation in Florida, the post declared: “If Crawford truly believed in the rule of law, his church should have reported that illegal alien removal. Failure to do so makes him complicit in law-breaking.”
The Center for Baptist Leadership then claimed Crawford misrepresented Trump’s executive order by saying “churches can now be targets of raids.”
Even though that’s exactly what happened at a Pentecostal church in Georgia about the same time Crawford was speaking Sunday, Wolfe’s post declares Trump’s order “aims to protect churches and schools from rapists and murderers.”
The man arrested at the Georgia church had not been charged with either rape or murder.
Wolfe’s post continued by praising Trump’s order, which said the president’s action “empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”
The social media critique ends with a call for Crawford to “make a public apology” for “bearing false witness against Trump … from the pulpit.”
Brent Leatherwood
Meanwhile, the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission joined a coalition of evangelical organizations in asking Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary nominee Kristi Noem to remember their commitment to religious liberty.
“We know of no evangelical church or school that has ever harbored a murderer from arrest.”
“We wish to assure you that we know of no evangelical church or school that has ever harbored a murderer from arrest, and we would be very surprised if this has ever occurred — but, in any case, DHS enforcement in such an unlikely circumstance would be permissible under the now-revoked (Biden-era) guidance,” the letter said.
“We believe that this guidance was prudent; it allowed immigration enforcement actions to occur in and around such sensitive locations with supervisory approval for compelling public safety reasons, but it provided the assurance that, under normal circumstances, DHS would refrain from disrupting church services, classroom settings or medical care.”
In a separate statement to Baptist Press, ERLC President Brent Leatherwood said: “No church that I’m aware of harbors criminal actors, whether they’re here legally or illegally, and no church leader wants that. President Trump is right to fix our broken immigration system — something we’ve long called for — but it must be done without turning churches into wards of the state or expecting pastors to ask for papers of people coming through their doors. The unintended impact of this change will be that many law-abiding immigrants will be fearful to attend our churches, and our central mission of gospel proclamation and biblical formation will be inhibited.”
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