{"id":3489,"date":"2010-06-30T10:40:01","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T15:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=3489"},"modified":"2010-06-30T10:40:01","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T15:40:01","slug":"50-leaders-of-the-evangelical-generation-33-richard-land-lobbyist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/?p=3489","title":{"rendered":"50 leaders of the evangelical generation: #33 Richard Land. Lobbyist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0[I am working on a project that may become a book <\/span><\/a>on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]<\/em><\/p>\n

#33. <\/strong>\u00a0Richard Land. Lobbyist<\/em> \u00a0<\/strong>b.1946\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Conservative evangelicals are inclined to oppose East coast elite, Washington insider, Princeton-Oxford educated, career lobbyists. That is unless he\u2019s their lobbyist.<\/p>\n

Enter Richard Land, the chief Washington lobbyist of the Southern Baptist Convention and a key part of the fixed conservative set in the culture wars.\u00a0 Land has presented what he sees as Southern Baptist interests to policymakers and media for more than 20 years. Land is clear where the bulk of Southern Baptists will come down on most issues. But except for the convention resolution process once a year, there is really no mechanism for Land and the SBC agency he heads, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC)\u2014the official policy voice of the SBC\u2014to derive the SBC position. Land often develops his own position and builds support from key players in the denomination. He knows well what will sell in the SBC, which helps him steer clear of positions that would attract the ire of Baptists across the country.<\/p>\n

Land is a formidable public spokesman and culture warrior. \u201cPeople think they\u2019re going to be dealing with some bootstrap preacher,\u201d said Larry Eskridge, a the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College. \u201cBut he can match pedigree and training with the best of them.\u201d[1]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

He helped stop the 16-million-member SBC\u2019s \u00a0slide to the left in 1979, and he has a hand in most of its key policies, from its 1995 apology for having supported slavery, to its 1998 statement that wives should submit to the leadership of their devout husbands.<\/p>\n

While most ERLC positions are predictable\u2014most recently its stubborn opposition to even nuanced climate change legislation\u2014Land does occasionally surprise.<\/p>\n

In 1994, he was a signer of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document,\u00a0 not a popular expression of ecumenism in the SBC.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In 2010, Land announced the denomination\u2019s support for establishing a path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants. Land said that after borders are secure, there needs to be a way for them to pay back taxes, take a civics course and get in line with others seeking legal status. Similar to many ERLC positions, the reasoning on immigration is both spiritual and political.<\/p>\n

The spiritual: \u201cIt is love your neighbor, do unto others. This is a kingdom issue. They are disproportionately suffering because they are forced to remain in the shadows because of their illegal status.\u201d<\/p>\n

The political: \u201cHispanics are hard-wired to be social conservatives unless we drive them away. They are family oriented, religiously oriented and pro-marriage, pro-life \u2026 tailor-made to be social conservatives.\u201d[2]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Land\u2019s positions are not always the winning ones within the convention. In 2010, he took a hard line on responses to the Gulf oil spill; one writer called him the \u201cdrummer in the right-wing parade of blame\u201d of the the environmental movement and the Obama administration, while treating British Petroleum gently.[3]<\/span><\/a> A more balanced resolution for SBC action passed overwhelmingly at the 2010 convention and although Land later expressed his support, he privately sought to undermine it at the committee level.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Land, who Time magazine called \u201cGod\u2019s Lobbyist,\u201d exercises great power because of his intellect and persuasive skills, but also because of his ability to choose his tactics as a SBC powerhouse\u2014either leading (in times when he has deep personal convictions) or following (when he can claim to be only a spokesman for the denomination).<\/p>\n

\u00a0He\u2019s done both with great effectiveness in a generation of public evangelical engagement in the halls of power.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Time magazine<\/a>, January 30, 2005,<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[2]<\/span><\/a> Tennessean.com, June 8, 2010<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/span><\/a> http:\/\/baptistplanet.wordpress.com\/2010\/06\/12\/richard-lands-misanalysis-of-the-deepwater-horizon-catastrophe\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?] #33. \u00a0Richard Land. Lobbyist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,13,10,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-conservative","category-jim","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stonescryout.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}