NASHVILLE (ABP) — Southern Baptists should get involved in the political process, and the SBC will assist them by developing a campaign and promoting it through a new website called ivotevalues.com, Richard Land told the SBC Executive Committee Feb. 16.
Land, president of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said Southern Baptists will work in tandem with the group “Americans of Faith” to encourage evangelicals to register and vote, with a goal of adding 2 million registered voters before the fall elections.
A handout described Americans of Faith as “a coalition of civic-minded evangelical leaders and organizations.” The groups were not named. The ivotevalues.com website, which has not yet been launched, will promote voter registration and compare candidates on a variety of value-related issues.
The campaign, which hopes to involve “tens of thousands of Bible-believing churches across the U.S.,” will promote voter registration days in churches on two Sundays, July 4 and Sept. 26.
An estimated 4 to 5 million evangelical Christians sat out the last presidential campaign, Land said.
“It is essential to get people to vote their values,” Land said. “We should never tell people how to vote, but we should tell them they have a responsibility to be informed and involved in the process.”
Voters should be taught to look for and support candidates who endorse their values, beliefs and convictions, he said.
“We learned in the last election that every vote counts, and then it counts, and then it counts, and then it counts,” he said, referring to vote-counting difficulties in Florida, where a disputed margin of a few hundred votes put George W. Bush over the top in the presidential election.
Land said he believes the upcoming presidential election is the most critical election in his lifetime, and perhaps “in the history of the Republic.” It is “the most important election since 1860,” he said, referencing Abraham Lincoln's defeat over Stephen Douglas.
“We must never try to tell people how to vote, but we should tell them the Lord wants to talk to them about how they're going to vote, and the Lord is going to talk to them one day about how they voted,” Land said.
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