Evangelicals Geared Up to Reclaim America for Christ
Christians are feeling more "alien" to American culture, but a group of Christian "culture war" veterans are planning to reclaim America for what is was founded on.
The Reclaiming America for Christ conference heads for Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in March and replacing key speaker Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries is newly added Dr. Richard Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Kennedy, 76, remains hospitalized after suffering a heart attack that led to cardiac arrest late December. His condition is improving, according to Coral Ridge's executive vice president, Brian E. Fisher.
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The ministry announced over the weekend that Land will take the place of Kennedy as the prominent evangelical leader recuperates in the hospital.
"Dr. Land is a powerful and outspoken voice in America on behalf of biblical standards in public life,” said Dr. Gary Cass, executive director of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. “We very much look forward to hearing from him when he speaks at our gathering.”
"Why reclaiming America?" Kennedy had asked at a previous Reclaiming America conference.
"This nation started out as a Christian nation and was the work of Christ in the beginning, and therefore, we have every right to reclaim it," said Kennedy.
Although America was established with the Christian faith, there are people today who seem to think that Christians just arrived from Mars, Kennedy had said, "that we're some sort of aliens that have come here to obtrude ourselves into their lovely secular culture."
But the origins of America say it all.
"America simply began as a church relocation project," Kennedy told conference participants. Leaving the persecution in England, Pilgrims arrived in America to establish "a new home for their church."
"Yes, the church had a great deal to do with the founding of America and they said that they came here for the glory of God and the establishment of the Christian faith."
Thus given the Christian founding of America, the annual conference calls Christians to simply "reclaim" America for Christ, as Kennedy had noted.
U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black recently withdrew his engagement to speak at the conference, saying that his "non-partisan role as chaplain conflicts with the conference agenda."
Speakers scheduled to speak include best-selling author Ann Coulter; Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council; Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life; Dr. Frank Wright, President of the National Religious Broadcasters; and Walid Phares, author of Future Jihad.
