The SOUTHERN BAPTIST TEXAN, a fundamentalist version of BAPTIST LIFE IN TEXAS, boasts that Richard Land's convention agency is "opposed to climate-change legislation in the U.S. Senate." While Land is saving the nation from going too green as he sees it, he took the time to admonish the Atlanta Baptist meeting which featured Clinton, Carter and Gore, as being too political. Apparently, Land's weekly chat with Karl Rove did not fit the profile for which he accused Atlanta's gathering.

Houston Baptist University helped sponsor a Rick Scarborough rally for Tim and Beverly LaHaye. Dr. Steve Hotze, deeply into Reconstruction theology, was also a host. Houston Baptist's president once led Baylor University and shifted Baylor's historic church/state positions away from traditional Baptist views.

Dr. Freeman of Duke has written a fascinating story about W.A. Criswell's racial comments. Criswell was pastor of First Baptist Dallas at the time he was invited to Columbia First Baptist in South Carolina to preach a sermon on segregation. In the sermon Criswell told the old "Chigro" joke about how you could not now call an insect a "ciggar" anymore. The next day Strom Thurmond introduced Criswell to legislative leaders and pushed legislation to place the NAACP on a list to ban members from public employment. In 1958, Criswell delivered the graduation speech at a Dallas high school preaching on the curse of Ham. This was the theory that God cursed Blacks to forever be servants to other cultures. Currently the PATHWAY, which is the Missouri Baptist official convention magazine, drew some criticism because its editor supports the Confederate flag. The editor defends the flag as being in reality a Christian symbol.

Baptist Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee had an insightful quote in CHURCH & STATE in the June 2008 issue. Brent stated, "The church can't raise a prophetic fist at a candidate or at a party when it's locked up in a tight bear hug with that candidate or party." Brent is seeking to warn Baptist churches about being too chummy with political figures. I never figured out how, that once one became a Baptist that meant that voter-wise they were at the top of the pack. Luke 16:8 records that Jesus warned that at times the children of this world are wiser than the children of light. Plugging some churches into such political power structures with some of the luggage carried might shed more heat than light in the public square.