The Christian Post has been dedicated to publishing cringe, perhaps even more than The Gospel Coalition. Richard Land continues to be a subversive actor, even after moving on from being the head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. In his latest column, he defends the demonic prayer at the Republican National Convention whilst waving his credentials as an Evangelical.
In an article titled, “Sikh prayer at RNC: Why as an Evangelical I have no problem with this” Land defends his liberal position with an unsurprising appeal to pluralism as a good in and of itself.
A minor kerfuffle erupted on the first night of the Republican National Convention in the wake of California’s Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon’s prayer which included the statement, “Dear Waheguru, our one true God.” Ms. Dhillon is a Sikh, so her prayer was quite in line with her faith, just as I, as a Christian, would pray “in the name of Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son.”
People immediately hit social media decrying Ms. Dhillon’s prayer. One representative post serves as an example: “This was a HUGE SLAP IN THE FACE to our nation’s founding and to Christian conservatives.”
Actually, Ms. Dhillon’s prayer should serve as a classic example of the “pluralism” that we say we believe in in America. What is pluralism? It is the belief that everyone in America has the right, based on the Constitution and its First Amendment, to express their religious beliefs according to the dictates of their own consciences in the public square without fear of censorship, bias or prejudice.
Richard Land believes that religious liberty for pagans is good, even though it’s not exactly what the Founding Fathers intended and cannot be supported using Scripture.
When I make this argument for pluralism, I often receive objections from traditional Christians that allowing anyone to pray exposes our children to false religious teachings. Whenever I hear this objection, I think of the biblical prophet Elijah and his confrontation with the prophets of Baal (I Kings 18).
As the Bible relates it, Elijah challenges the prophets of the pagan god Baal to a contest. He challenged them to pray to their god and he would pray to the one true God and we would see which prayers God answers.
Richard Land neglects to retell what happened to the prophets of Baal and how they were slaughtered by Elijah. Elijah’s martial prowess, a miracle of God, is a repudiation of liberalism and pluralism.
We should espouse and practice pluralism in the public square and government spaces. We should not practice pluralism within our places of worship and our religiously affiliated educational institutions. I am a Southern Baptist and I expect a Southern Baptist church to have speakers who espouse Southern Baptist beliefs. I would expect a Roman Catholic church to have speakers who espouse Roman Catholic beliefs. Differing faith traditions have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of their faith traditions within their own institutions.
However, in the public square, we should espouse and defend pluralism, defending the right of all our fellow citizens to express their faith in the public square. And we should always remember that if we allow someone’s faith to be discriminated against today, we may find our own faith discriminated against tomorrow.
Richard Land neglects to mention how Christianity is being punished today and how activists are going to jail for praying outside abortion clinics. Moreover, he fails to show how an overtly Christian society is bad.