Richard Land Stands with Catholic Bishop for Religious Freedom

A movement called Stand Up For Religious Freedom invited citizens across America to protest infringements on religious freedom, including the Obamacare mandate compelling religious employers to pay for insurance covering contraceptives, abortifacients and sterilization.  At one recent rally, an estimated 500 participants swarmed the state capitol building in Nashville, TN. There, Southern Baptist leader Richard Land proclaimed his solidarity with the Catholic bishops against the Obamacare mandate.

“This is not a Catholic issue; it is not a Baptist issue,” Land announced. “It’s an issue of freedom. This is about religious freedom, not reproductive freedom. This is about conscience, not contraception. It’s about coercion, not Catholics.”

Land is president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the public morals and ethics arm of the largest Protestant body in America. At the freedom rally, Land was joined by U.S. Representative Diane Black, Nashville Catholic Bishop David Choby, Nashville’s St. Thomas Hospital physician Rachael Kaiser, and Vanderbilt Law professor Carol Swain.

“I am here today to say that the Southern Baptist Convention stands shoulder to shoulder with the Catholic bishops standing for our God-given First Amendment religious freedom rights,” Land promised. “We stand at a fateful moment in the history of our nation. We have a tremendous obligation to our children, to our grandchildren, to our great-grandchildren, to defend our religious freedom at this moment of peril.” Besides the Obamacare mandate, the rally also addressed Vanderbilt University’s new policy compelling religious campus groups to open their leadership positions to non-believers.  The campus Catholic ministry has already quit Vanderbilt in protest.

Regarding the Obamacare mandate as well as Vanderbilt’s policy, Land observed, “These are symptoms…We have a virus in this country and it has affected the federal government and it is secularism.” He warned: “It is absolutely intolerant of people of faith.” And he urged: “We have to remind our government that it is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Citing the mandate specifically, Land pledged: “We are not going to allow the government to force us to fund what we find unconscionable.”

To placate religious protests, the Obama administration offered to compel insurance companies to provide contraceptives and abortifacients without charge, which ostensibly would spare religious employers from paying for them directly. Land described these accommodations for religious groups as “like putting lipstick on a pig.” He added: “The larger point here is that for the government to give us an accommodation: who does the government think it is?”

Continuing his argument for liberty and reduced government interference, Land argued: “Our glorious First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law effecting an establishment of religion, nor interfering with the free exercise thereof. All the restrictions of the First Amendment are on the government, not the people!” With this observation behind him, the ERLC leader declared, “There are times when we must stand up and defend our freedom and even when we are patriotic citizens, we must be reminded of the time when our Savior picked up that coin and said, ‘Who’s face is on this? Caesar’s. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.’ And ultimate allegiance and ultimate conscience belong to God and not to any government bureaucrat.”

All the government can do—all the government has a right to do—is to recognize, acknowledge, respect, and protect our God-given freedom of conscience,” Land exclaimed, provoking loud applause.

Land reminded his listeners of Baptist forefathers John Leland and Roger Williams, who helped pave the way for religious disestablishment in America. The ERLC president summarized Williams to claim that “to interfere with a person and his or her relationship with God is rape of the soul.” And Land concluded:  “It is time for people of faith, of all faiths and of no faith but love freedom, to stand up and say, ‘Here I stand I can do no other come what may so help me God.’”