The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission enjoyed an “eventful year,” president Richard Land told ERLC trustees Sept. 12, noting significant developments that Land said should please religious conservatives.
Richard LandLand said the confirmation of two new strict-constructionist, original-intent Supreme Court justices was greatly aided and assisted by social issues groups in Washington, including the Southern Baptist ethics and religious liberty entity.
“People in Washington, D.C., understand that the difference between the ERLC and other social groups is that we have boots on the ground,” Land said. “We have churches in virtually every community in the U.S., and we have people in those churches who are deeply concerned about these issues and who are already activated on these issues and who are just waiting to be pointed in the right direction.”
Land said there was wisdom in having the SBC entity’s main office in Nashville, not in D.C. “You need to have an anchor outside the Beltway,” Land said. “The Beltway is surrounded on all sides by reality. Washington is an exciting place in many ways, but it is not the real world.”
“With Southern Baptists providing pressure, the ground has shifted in an important direction, and to our advantage, when it comes to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Land told the trustees during their annual two-day meeting in Nashville, Tenn.
“The fact we now have John Roberts as chief justice is an enormous shift in our direction,” Land continued, noting a welcome sign was Roberts’ assertion during his confirmation hearings that as a justice on the high court the Constitution is his client and that he promised to follow what it says.
“His humility, as opposed to judicial hubris, is sorely needed in our federal judiciary,” Land added, noting that Roberts is 33 years younger than the man he succeeded as chief justice, William Rehnquist.
Land also praised the nomination and confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito, noting that the jurist replaced Sandra Day O’Connor – a swing vote – on the court.
While the Supreme Court lacks a conservative majority, Land said it is a decidedly more favorable place for conservatives with four right-leaning justices, four liberal justices and one swing vote, Anthony Kennedy. “Yet Justice Kennedy swings the wrong way on many issues that are important to people in this room, the moral and social issues,” Land lamented.
Land said when the nation’s highest court hears the case involving the partial-birth abortion ban, he is hopeful the court will find the ban constitutional, especially since the last time such a case came before the court, it was O’Connor voting to allow the late-term abortions to continue and Kennedy indicating his support of the ban. Yet Land doesn’t expect Kennedy to support “more severe restrictions on abortion.”
Land said conservatives are within “striking distance” of being able to make significant changes on the court, noting that there are two left-leaning justices who may leave the court in the near term. “These are changes that will undo a half century of judicial activism in the U.S.,” he added.
Land acknowledged complaints by religious and other social conservatives that the Bush administration is not pushing conservatives’ agenda hard enough. Land’s response: “We should not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
“Have we gotten all we wanted over the last few years? No. But we have made significant gains,” Land said, adding that some of the gains “will take the liberals a long time to undo.”
The future looks bright, he suggested, noting, “We are living in a century that is increasingly in America a century of religion.” He noted that a survey, conducted by Gallup and analyzed by Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, underscored the fact that one’s view of God informs one’s values and politics.
Not only the survey’s findings, but also the survey’s prominent placement in USA TODAY is telling, Land said. “It is rare that any story about religion makes it to the section above the fold on the front page in a large circulation newspaper,” he noted.
Americans’ religious pursuits are “not a hobby,” Land said. “We are living in a country that is becoming more religious rather than less.
“I see many more signs to be encouraged than I do signs to be discouraged,” Land said, citing as an example his selection for membership on the Council on Foreign Relations.
Land said the council, a nonpartisan think tank that seeks to better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other governments, is seeking to broaden its scope by having more evangelicals involved in its deliberations.
SBC president Frank Page spoke to trustees Sept. 11 during a dinner on the eve of the board’s meetings. Page affirmed the work of the ERLC and underscored the importance of a vibrant Cooperative Program for support of SBC causes. Page, who was elected president during the 2006 SBC annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C., is pastor of First Baptist Church of Taylors.
In other business, trustees:
– Elected Hal Lane of Greenwood, S.C., as trustee chairman and Jim Brown of Olive Branch, Miss., as vice chairman. Penna Dexter of Plano, Tex., was elected secretary of the board. Lane, now in his second stint as an ERLC trustee, said his earlier service was during “some of the most tumultuous history of the Southern Baptist Convention and of this commission’s history as well.” Lane’s first service as trustee began in 1986, during the period when the convention’s “conservative resurgence” helped move the leadership of what is now the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission back to the right. Lane was on the search committee that brought Land to head the commission.
– named President George W. Bush as the 2006 recipient of the John Leland Religious Liberty Award. The issue of soul freedom is a passionate conviction of Bush, Land said. George W. Bush’s second inaugural address was a hymn to religious freedom, Land added, saying the President is a “champion of soul freedom as enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution.” Bush hasn’t kept his feelings on this issue to himself, Land said, recounting that the President personally raised this issue with the leaders of China and Russia.
– Awarded Ted Stone the ERLC’s Richard D. Land Distinguished Service Award. Land said he was shocked at Ted Stone’s sudden death July 16 during his fourth walk across America. While Stone’s younger life was ravaged by the use of illicit drugs, he was an “absolutely tireless witness to the power of the gospel to overcome drug addiction.”
“Stone single-handedly raised the Southern Baptist Convention’s consciousness on this issue,” Land said.
– Expressed strong opposition to the use of beverage alcohol by unanimously adopting a trustee-initiated motion in which trustees individually indicated they do not “partake” of alcohol.