Richard Land (The Christian Right's 'ethicist') to face ethics panel over Trayvon Martin comments [View all]

[ck4829]

Richard Land, a Southern Baptist leader who offended some blacks with his comments about the Trayvon Martin shooting case, now faces plagiarism allegations that will be the focus of an investigation launched by the church ethics panel that he leads.

Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, apologized for the remarks about the shooting in an April 16 letter to the convention’s president, Bryant Wright.

Land, on a recent episode of his radio show, called some black religious leaders “race hustlers” for stirring up interest in the case, in which an unarmed black teenager was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer. Land also accused President Barack Obama of pouring “gasoline on the racialist fires” when the president said that if he had a son, he would look like Martin.

Land’s comments about the Martin case made waves nationally, in part because Southern Baptists, including Land, have been working diligently to reach out to minorities in recent years to broaden their appeal and make up for past sins. The group, the largest Protestant body in the nation, with 16 million members, has even considered taking “Southern” out of its name to distance itself from its former support of slavery and segregation.

http://www.indystar.com/article/B2/20120421/NEWS/304210094/Church-probes-Baptist-leader-Ethics-panel-looking-into-plagiarism-allegations?odyssey=nav|head