Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Sues Department of Homeland Security Over First Amendment. 

Paul Baxley, an Athens resident, is the executive coordinator for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which joined a lawsuit on Feb. 4, 2025, against the Department of Homeland Security for the revocation of sensitive location status in places of worship. 

Q: When you took over as executive coordinator in 2019, was immigration on the docket for you, or was this a recent development?

A: No, it was on our docket. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has existed for 35 years, and for all 35 years of our life, we have been appointing global missions personnel to serve among people experiencing global migration. The first year I was in this job, we were very active in using our voices to try to make really clear our conviction that scripture requires that Christians show hospitality to strangers. Jesus himself said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” So, this is not something we just found recently. 

Q: When you see these immigrants in your church, organization and in the programs in place for them, what characteristics and qualities do you see? 

A: So this is a really important question. Our experience in our denomination, in our congregations, with immigrants and refugees, is that overwhelmingly, they are people of incredible courage. Imagine the courage it takes to leave home and seek home somewhere else. And imagine the persistence that’s required to navigate the legal immigration processes that exist now. So, we don’t see immigrants and refugees as necessarily dangerous or necessarily violent, in fact, that’s not our experience at all. We now have leaders in our denomination who are native Spanish speakers and lead congregations from all over Latin America and Central America. Those people are amazing leaders in our midst because they teach us white American Christians a lot about courage, resilience and faith. So, our experience is that these people are sisters and brothers in Christ, people of courage, leaders among us and every bit as much as the rest of us worthy of love, grace and belonging. 

Q: Where do you believe the line between freedom of religion and criminal justice/public safety should be drawn?

A: The foundation of the lawsuit we’re involved in is the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. And we believe that taken together, the First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act say that houses of worship regardless of the faith tradition should be protected safe spaces unless there’s a really compelling government interest. So, what we’re asking for is not that there would never be law enforcement in a house of worship if there was a compelling need. We’re asking to put the rules back in place that existed before early January. And what those rules required was if someone wanted to come into a house of worship to conduct an operation, they had to get permission from the supervisor and a warrant from the judge. 

Q: Do you have anything you’d like to add?

A: I think some of what’s at stake here in this larger moment is whether we’re going to be a people who live like our political registration is our most important identity and whether we’re going to exclusively see people through that lens or not. When that kind of tribalism takes hold over people, really dangerous things happen.

Comments trimmed for length and clarity.