WASHINGTON — Prominent conservative Christian leaders — including the current and former presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) — wrote Congress and other world leaders Sept. 21 calling for urgent action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in New York for a scheduled Sept. 23 address to the United Nations, leaders from the group of 20 rich and developing nations prepared for a Sept. 24–25 summit in Pittsburgh. Leaders from Catholic, Protestant and evangelical groups representing 28 million American Christians addressed the global dignitaries gathering in the United States, urging a total arms embargo against Iran and a cutoff of exports of refined petroleum products. The actions would send a message to what the letter called “the world’s leading state sponsor of terror.”
Lead signatories included Pat Robertson, chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network; Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Richard Land, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC.
Others signing the letter included current SBC President Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga. Former SBC presidents adding their signatures included Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas, and James Merritt, senior pastor of Cross Pointe Church, Duluth, Ga.
Other prominent signers included Ronnie Floyd, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Springdale, Ark., and chairman of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force studying SBC structure.
Bob Reccord, former president of the North American Mission Board of the SBC and now president of Total Life Impact Ministries, signed the letter. So did Paul Pressler, a retired judge from Texas and one of the architects of the “conservative resurgence” movement that gained control of the nation’s largest non-Catholic faith group in the 1980s.
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