Richard Land, the chief “ethicist” of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently railed against “liberals” and “Hollywood Elites” regarding the recent arrest of Roman Polanski on his weekly radio show. Here’s Land:
“There are sometimes stories that in and of themselves don’t take on a great deal of significance, but when they are seen as symptoms of a serious problem in society or in certain segments of society, they rise to the level of becoming symbolic. I think we had an example of that this week, and that was with the arrest in Switzerland of Roman Polanski. . . .The Hollywood community has lived in its own sexual cesspool so long that it no longer has any understanding of the enormity of the crimes that Roman Polanski committed.”
Christa Brown has responded to Land’s rant over on his blog. Check it out. Great stuff, really.
And where was Land’s outrage about prominent Southern Baptist pastor, Steve Gaines, who kept quiet about a minister’s admission to sexually abusing his young son? Gaines said it was “under the blood.”
And where was Land’s outrage about a former California Southern Baptist Convention president who claimed he “erred on the side of grace” when he kept quiet about a deacon’s molestation of children in his church?
And where was Land’s outrage about a Southern Baptist children’s home director who urged no prison time for a prominent Southern Baptist pastor who had been convicted of sexually abusing teen church girls?
And where was Land’s outrage about a former Arkansas Baptist State Convention president who urged leniency and no prison time for a prominent Southern Baptist minister who sexually abused dozens of adolescent church-boys?
And where was Land’s outrage about the many good Baptist people of Benton, Arkansas, who recently begged the court to give convicted minister David Pierce probation, citing Pierce’s good deeds and saying it was punishment enough for Pierce to lose his livelihood and reputation?
All these stories and more ran through my mind as I listened to Richard Land rail about the “Hollywood elites.” Did he imagine that child sex abuse was somehow less heinous if the perpetrators subdued their prey with Bible verses? Or was Land’s silence based on the simple fact that the people in these stories carried the “Baptist” name, instead of the “Hollywood” name?
Take a minute to read Christa’s entire post. Bookmark her blog or subscribe to her RSS feed while you’re reading the post.
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