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TechnoratiGovernment-sponsored religion is government-dictated, government-deluded religion. We don’t want the government to sponsor religion! We want the government to quit suppressing our right to be involved. We want the government to guarantee a level playing field and then to get off the field! Does that mean that false religions have the same rights to express their opinions and their beliefs as we do? Sure. Let them come. I never saw Elijah backing away from a confrontation with the prophets of Baal. He just showed them the power of the One True God!
Let us never forget our Baptist heritage. America will never get the proper role of religion in society right without Baptists and our heritage. It’s in our genetic code to mistrust government when they come to us and say, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.” With government sponsorship, with government favoritism, comes government control. The Baptist Faith and Message says the church should never resort to the state to do its work. It’s our job. It’s our privilege. It’s our work to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But when we preach that Gospel, and God has blessed it and people’s hearts and minds have been changed, then they have the right as citizens to come forth in the public arena and say, “This is wrong, and we want it stopped.”
For example, abortion is the murder of babies, and we want laws to change it. When we convince a majority of Americans that we are right, that’s not called a theocracy, that’s called the democratic process.
God knows that I love my country, but Christians, our hope is not in America. America’s hope is in Christ. Ask not what your country can do for God. Ask what God can do for your country. And the answer, of course, is everything.
Southern Baptists, let’s heed the call to stand in the gap and repair the hedge and claim the promise of God when He said, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14, NIV). May there be a new birth of freedom, may there be a new birth of morality, may we stand in the ways and see the old paths and heed the watchmen on the wall.
The Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov. 29:18). The vision is the Chazon, the entirety of the Word of God, and it is our job to proclaim and preach the Gospel. It is no one else’s responsibility. It’s the job of those who name the name of Christ. The Cross is our liberty and our salvation.
God bless you, God bless your family, and God bless the United States of America.
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Dr. Richard Land is president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns, with particular attention to their impact on American families and their faith.
