Archive — June, 2008 — divided states

**Question:** Folks like [Jim Wallis](http://www.beliefnet.com/story/159/story_15988_1.html) and [Tony Campolo](http://www.beliefnet.com/story/150/story_15052_1.html) often accuse religious conservatives of placing too much priority on the pro-life issue, supposedly forsaking other issues like poverty. We asked Richard Land about that. **Richard Land:** "...To criticize pro-lifers for saying we are too focused on the pro-life issue would be like criticizing Dr. King for being too focused on the issue of racial justice and racial reconciliation. Dr. King dealt with other issues but he kept "the main thing the main thing" as long as his people were being denied their basic constitutional rights..."

"If you look at the Civil Rights Movement, if you look at the abolitionist movement, if you look at the labor reform movement, if you look at the child-labor reform movement, every major successful reform movement in our history has been significantly led, peopled, and supported by people of religious faith and, certainly, ministers being a significant portion of that number..."

"After the 2004 elections, the Democrats came to understand that they are going to have a very hard time winning a majority in the county if they ignore people of religious faith. So, all of the Democratic candidates have people who are in charge of "outreach" to Evangelicals..."

"It seems to me that those three models are really competing for ascendancy all over the world. In its extreme form, you have the sort of theocratic model like the Iranians where all women have to wear Muslim head coverings. Then you have the French model which is sort of the extreme on the other side that says you cannot wear Muslim head coverings and go to public school. It is sort of the supreme value of the French state (they have actually said this) is secularism. Whereas, in America in Muskogee, Oklahoma, (in about as deep in red state country as you can get) they have concluded that Muslim girls may or may not wear their head scarves to school depending on the Muslim girls and their parents’ preference. **That** is pluralism..."

"I think when we say that America is a Christian nation, as a Baptist, I find that phrase problematic because, for me, a Christian is someone who is in a regenerate state, someone who has had a born-again experience with the Lord Jesus Christ. So the idea of a Christian nation, it seems to me, is at odds with my understanding of what a Christian is. Now, a nation that is being guided and directed by Judeo-Christian values is another thing..."

"...it is giving the American people the impression that the country is more divided than it is. Now the country is divided, but I don't think it is as divided as you would assume by watching all of cable news shows with their 24/7 shouting matches. Americans are being lead to believe by the media that they are more divided than they actually are and I think a lot of people when they listen to these shouting matches, after a while they say, "Eh, a pox on both your houses! Nothing is ever going to change!" and they pull out of the process..."