Evangelical Crackup/OBama at FBC Columbia SC

If I read this Lee Bandy oped in the State correctly, that is what it says; Obama has worshipped at Harry Dent and Ed Young's old mainstay FBC Columbia

U.S. Barack Obama, D-Ill., frequently quotes Scripture on the stump and proclaims a “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ.
He often invites reporters to go to church with him on Sundays as he did on a recent visit to Columbia. He took his guests to First Baptist, a predominantly white congregation, and to Brookland Baptist, a predominantly black church.

All this headlined today at news lists of www.faithinpubliclife.org along with the Evangelical Crackup NY Times Mag story also listed at www.baptiststoday.org
I am disappointed in my friends at bl.com for not having a go at it yet.

Here is the key passage from the NY Times on the SBC:
And just click on Next Page for more

The 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention — the core of the evangelical movement — may be rethinking its relationship with the Republican Party, too. Three years ago, I attended its annual meeting in Indianapolis and tagged along as the denomination’s former president and several of its leaders invited the assembled pastors across a walkway to an adjacent hotel for a Bush-Cheney campaign “pastors’ reception.”
Over soft drinks, Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition director then working for the Bush campaign, told the pastors just how far they could go for the campaign without jeopardizing their churches’ tax-exempt status. Among the suggestions: “host a citizenship Sunday for voter registration,” “identify someone who will help in voter registration and outreach” or organize a “ ‘party for the president’ with other pastors.”
Republicans should not expect that kind of treatment from Southern Baptists again any time soon. In June of last year, in one of the few upsets since conservatives consolidated their hold on the denomination 20 years ago, the establishment’s hand-picked candidates — well-known national figures in the convention — lost the internal election for the convention’s presidency. The winner, Frank Page of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., campaigned on a promise to loosen up the conservatives’ tight control. He told convention delegates that Southern Baptists had become known too much for what they were against (abortion, evolution, homosexuality) instead of what they stand for (the Gospel). “I believe in the word of God,” he said after his election, “I am just not mad about it.” (It’s a formulation that comes up a lot in evangelical circles these days.)
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Frank Page needs to have a heart to heart with Richard Land in the presence of Garry Wills and Randall Balmer.
The SBC must defund Land's ERLC, by denying him CoOp Program dollars.
I think Mike Huckabee for one would understand that Land's history with Karl Rove, is anathema to the cause of Christ as understood by George Truett.
See my previous blog on how it breaks down with Ronnie Floyd in the intramural baptist politics in Arkansas.
Land's stripe is plain to see for those who want to look close. His time has past. He is a blight to the Baptist cause in America even the witness of Madison and Jefferson.
Consult my betters on that account, Randall Balmer in Thy Kingdom Come, and Garry Wills in American Christianities; then ask Land about SC Primary 2000.

Frank Page and Ben Cole and Wade Burleson see the world differently from Richard Land. I think that has become clear from the onslaught of recent blogs, article and analyses.