Archive — church and state

“I don’t think ministers should endorse candidates. I don’t. I know that technically, legally people have the right to do it as private citizens, but … I have an obligation and a responsibility to try to minister to all Southern Baptists…”

“If you look at the Civil Rights Movement, if you look at the abolitionist movement, if you look at the labor reform movement, if you look at the child-labor reform movement, every major successful reform movement in our history has been significantly led, peopled, and supported by people of religious faith and, certainly, ministers being a significant portion of that number…”

I get emails from some folks saying,

“Dr. Land, have you endorsed Mitt Romney?”

I write back and say,

“No. Thank you for asking. Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. A lot of it’s wrong. If you have any questions, email us, call us, write to us. Give us an opportunity to clarify the record.”

“…I’m running for president, not pastor, not theologian. Talk to my church if you want to know what my church believes on these issues. I would ask you to evaluate me on my record. It’s clear that the constitution says there is no religious tests for office and I think the American people would resent the media trying to impose one…”

“It seems to me that those three models are really competing for ascendancy all over the world. In its extreme form, you have the sort of theocratic model like the Iranians where all women have to wear Muslim head coverings. Then you have the French model which is sort of the extreme on the other side that says you cannot wear Muslim head coverings and go to public school. It is sort of the supreme value of the French state (they have actually said this) is secularism.

Whereas, in America in Muskogee, Oklahoma, (in about as deep in red state country as you can get) they have concluded that Muslim girls may or may not wear their head scarves to school depending on the Muslim girls and their parents’ preference. That is pluralism…”

“I think when we say that America is a Christian nation, as a Baptist, I find that phrase problematic because, for me, a Christian is someone who is in a regenerate state, someone who has had a born-again experience with the Lord Jesus Christ. So the idea of a Christian nation, it seems to me, is at odds with my understanding of what a Christian is. Now, a nation that is being guided and directed by Judeo-Christian values is another thing…”