WASHINGTON (ABP) – A former Southern Baptist Convention official told social conservatives at a weekend rally in Washington he is praying that President Obama is not elected to a second term.
“I pray that a trumpet will announce the moving in of a new president on Pennsylvania Avenue and the moving out of an old one on Pennsylvania Avenue,” Bob Reccord, executive director of the Council for National Policy, said June 4 at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference and strategy briefing.
Framing remarks around a Bible passage about a trumpet blowing an “uncertain” sound, the former president of the SBC North American Mission Board accused the Obama administration of “dissonance,” a musical term also used to describe inconsistency between an individual’s beliefs and actions.
“They call for a strong business climate, yet we have the second-highest corporate tax rate in all the world, and in just the last few years we have added two trillion dollars of regulation to the business climate,” Reccord said. “They call for creation of jobs, yet our job makers are constantly faced with inconsistent tax laws and yet-unknown weights of burden called Obama-care.”
Reccord said he is praying for a new president and congressional leaders who will “bring a clear trumpet call” on issues like the sanctity of life, free economic enterprise and lowering taxes.
He also called for leaders who “understand who our friends are and who our enemies are and treat them accordingly.”
“Good fences make good neighbors, and the place to start is our own borders,” Reccord proclaimed. “Rather than suing the states that are trying to fulfill the standing law of the land, congratulate and reward the states who do that.”
Reccord also wants a president who will “see that traditional marriage is worth protecting and will hold a Department of Justice responsible for defending the law of the land in the Defense of Marriage Act.”
Reccord was the first president of the North American Mission Board, an entity created in a reorganization of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1997. He resigned in 2006 after a trustee investigation found evidence of poor management, autocratic decision making, possible conflicts of interest and a “culture of fear” among the agency’s staff.
Since 2006 Reccord has worked alongside his wife, Cheryl, in Total Impact Ministries, which offers conferences for men, married couples and parents. In the fall of 2009 he was selected as executive director for the Council for National Policy, a network of prominent social conservatives founded in 1981 by Tim LaHaye, now best known as author of the Left Behind novels.
“I believe that in November, we can have not only a new day but a new direction,” Reccord told the annual gathering first organized in 2009 by former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, “when we see a president and a new set of leaders come alongside those who are fighting the battle so strongly and valiantly now.”
-30-
Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.
Related story: