June 17, 2002
Land warns of cloning, commends 'true Baptists' in Texas
___By Elizabeth Young
___Arizona Portraits
___ST. LOUIS--Cloning is the most critical issue of the day, Richard Land told messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting June 12.
___"At stake is whether man will be as God created him or will we allow man to play God ... and clone humans for profit," the president of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission declared during his agency's report. "We are whistling past the graveyard if we don't think God is going to rain judgment on a civilization that allows an abomination like that."
___Land referred to a bill sponsored by Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Mary Landrieu, D-La., that was scheduled to be debated the next week in the Senate. The bill would ban all human cloning. Another proposed bill would allow limited cloning up to a certain stage of gestation. Land quipped that the latter bill, known as the Kennedy/Feinstein/Harkin bill, "you know is bad by its name."
___Land encouraged messengers to call their senators, asking them to vote for the Brownback bill and telling them the ERLC will be reporting how they vote. "That's called participatory democracy," he said.
___While God can't be reduced to "mere party," he said, "God was anti-slavery, and God is pro-life."
___God cares about how citizens vote, Land said. If Laura Schlessinger were running for office, promising to raise taxes but stating she opposed abortion, and a Southern Baptist from Tennessee were opposing her, promising to cut taxes by half but not opposing abortion, Land said he would "vote against my pocketbook and for life."
___"All great movements of God start with God's people getting right with God," Land said.
___As a baby boomer who grew up in the 1960s, Land said he had seen a "radical cultural shift" in America, seeing it "slide as far to the left as it can possibly slide." However, he said, culture can slide "as far the other way, if we ... are truly about our Father's business."
___Loren Hutchinson of First Baptist Church in Lee's Summit, Mo., questioned the ERLC's response to a motion he made at the 2001 SBC annual meeting opposing governmental faith-based ministry plans.
___"The response fell short of what we believe as Southern Baptists," he said. He asked how the ERLC reconciles Article 17 of the Baptist Faith & Message, which addresses religious liberty and the separation of church and state, with "support of legislation that would give taxes to private schools."
___Land replied that "under certain circumstances" the ERLC is not opposed to President Bush's faith-based program. However, he added, the ERLC recommends "that Baptist churches not take the money, because sooner or later, with government shekels come government shackles."
___In the same way, he said, churches shouldn't be prohibited from endorsing political candidates, but the ERLC believes Southern Baptist churches shouldn't endorse candidates.
___"The separation of church and state was never intended to mean the separation of morality from public policy," Land said.
___The ERLC president praised the passage of the Clergy Housing Allowance Clarification Act by Congress last month, stating he was "delighted" with how the SBC Annuity Board, Executive Committee and ERLC worked together for its adoption. "Now we need to get the Senate Judiciary Committee to quit obstructing justice and approve the judges President Bush has nominated, so the courts won't overturn the act," he said.
___Land also expressed thanks to "the real Southern Baptists of Texas," who took a special offering for Southern Baptist Convention agencies that received reduced allocations in the Baptist General Convention of Texas budget. The special offering was taken by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, a rival state convention to the BGCT.
___Last year, the BGCT eliminated the ERLC from its Adopted Budget, explaining that the agency under Land's leadership had become engaged in partisan politics. BGCT churches may still give to the ERLC through designated gifts. The BGCT Adopted Budget also reduced funding for the six SBC seminaries and the SBC Executive Committee.
___Noting that the ERLC was the only SBC agency completely defunded by the BGCT, Land said, "We wear that as a badge of honor." The ERLC receives more Cooperative Program funding from Southern Baptists and churches in Texas now than before the defunding by the BGCT, he said.
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