WASHINGTON — Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has been appointed to a fourth term on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky reappointed Land to a two-year term on the nine-person panel. The action was made official Oct. 22, when it appeared in the Congressional Record.
Land, a USCIRF vice chair, called the reappointment “an honor and a privilege.”
“The tremendously important work of the commission should inspire all Americans,” Land said. “The commission has taken up the cause of religious freedom and the plight of the persecuted across the globe on behalf of the American people.”
President Bush previously appointed Land to a two-year term in 2001, followed by a one-year term. Land was off the commission for less than a year before being renamed to USCIRF for two years in 2005 by then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.
USCIRF, which is a nonpartisan panel appointed by the president and members of Congress, researches the status of religious liberty in other countries and provides reports and recommendations to the White House and legislators.
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