NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has resigned from a new interfaith coalition, saying some fellow Southern Baptists felt it was inappropriate for him to support the building of mosques.
Land told organizers at the Anti-Defamation League that “many Southern Baptists share my deep commitment to religious freedom and the right of Muslims to have places of worship.” At the same time, “they also feel that a Southern Baptist denominational leader filing suit to allow individual mosques to be built is ‘a bridge too far.’ ”