Q&A: Richard Land
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission talks about his new book, The Divided States of America?
Interview by Collin Hansen | posted 7/30/2007 08:26AM
Do evangelicals treat some political issues as black-and-white that should be
categorized as gray?
God may not have a position on the precise nature of the tax burden on the American people. But I believe he does have quite a specific position when it comes to his institution, holy matrimony. Now, I think there are some tax policies that work better than others in terms of results. The Bush tax cuts have produced more revenue for the government than Clinton's tax increases did. So the question has to be asked: Which economic system works? Do you really want to help poor people or just stick it to rich people?
How can evangelicals improve at translating Scriptural principles into law?
When Martin Luther King Jr. was in the Birmingham jail, he wrote that he was in that jail because he refused to obey an unjust law. It's an unjust law because it doesn't coincide with the moral law of God. To me that's making a moral argument.
It's more important now than it was in Lincoln's time or King's time. We live in a culture when more people are disconnected from any adequate understanding of biblical teaching.
You say that we are a nation blessed by God. Doesn't that lead to a destructive national pride?
A blessing by its definition is unmerited and undeserved. We can't take any credit for it. It certainly should be no occasion for pride. In fact, it's an occasion to obligation.
You write that we shouldn't work for legislation that proclaims America is a Christian nation. Why not?
For one thing, that reading of history is inaccurate. Having said that, we can win the argument I'm making. We can convince a significant majority of the American people to support government accommodation of religion and principled pluralism. You're not going to convince the American people to give a privileged position to Christianity.
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today.
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Related elsewhere:
The Divided States of America?
is available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.
Richard Land heads the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which highlighted his book on its site and radio program.
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