Faith in the voter's booth

I interviewed Land briefly at last year’s convention annual meeting in San Antonio and had been to previous news conferences where the president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission held sway. I had always enjoyed talking to him because he doesn’t mince words nor does he appear to hesitate to speak exactly what’s on his mind (every reporter’s dream come true!).   

So when I asked him to explain his general message to Southern Baptist these days I shouldn’t have been surprised that it was so simple and direct:

Register to vote.

Find out where you need to go vote.

Become informed about the candidates and …

Vote.

Land said that is the essence of his message — and he implores his audience of evangelicals (Land said one in three Oklahomans is a baptized member of a Southern Baptist church) to vote according to their Judeo-Christian value system.

The message is getting through, he said.

Land said Americans see the necessity of the seperation of church and state — a point emphasized by the country’s founding fathers. Americans don’t want government-sponsored faith, but they do want people of all faiths to have an opportunity to make their point in the public square, Land added.

He predicted that this will be borne out come the presidential election in November.