The ERLC executive committee, in forming the ad hoc committee, said it was doing so “to ensure no stone is left unturned.” The group acknowledged, “We understand that additional instances of this kind in connection with the Richard Land Live! program may come to light.”

Comments by Richard Land about the Trayvon Martin killing “have angered many and opened wounds from the past,” the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s executive committee said in a statement released April 18.

The executive committee also registered concern that Land, the ERLC’s president, had used sources from other media without proper attribution for some of his comments in his weekly radio call-in show.

An ad hoc committee has been formed “to investigate the allegations of plagiarism and recommend appropriate action,” the ERLC executive committee reported in its statement.

“The [ERLC] Executive Committee is very saddened that this controversy has erupted, and is very concerned about how these events may damage the work of the ERLC in support of Southern Baptists and in furtherance of the Kingdom of our Lord,” the six-member committee said.

Land, in a statement after the executive committee released its concerns, said:

“I serve at the will of the trustees. I believe fervently in the trustee system of oversight. I am under their authority. That is why I initiated the conference call that led to this statement. I look forward to continuing to work with and under the oversight of my trustees, who have been elected by the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Land issued an open letter of apology the evening of April 16 for comments he voiced on his “Richard Land Live!” radio broadcast March 31 about the infusion of politics into the Trayvon Martin case (story), Earlier on April 16, Land issued an apology for material he failed to attribute on the radio show to a Washington Times columnist (story).

The ERLC executive committee includes the commmission’s three trustee officers and the chairmen of its three trustee subcommittees. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has 34 trustees representing churches from across the country elected by messengers at the SBC’s annual meetings.

The chairman of the ERLC executive committee is Stephen Faith of Indiana, a retired pastor and Baptist association director of missions.

The executive committee statement included expressions of regret alongside reminders of the race relations work by Land and the Southern Baptist entity he has led since 1988.

The executive committee stated its regret for “any harm that may have been done to race relations within the Southern Baptist Convention. The ERLC has worked very hard over many years to heal the wounds and scars of racism in our country and to realize the dream of complete equality among all races in the Southern Baptist Convention and in our nation.

“It should be noted that Dr. Land himself has contributed materially to progress in the area of racial equality,” the ERLC executive committee continued. “Among other things, he was a primary driver of the Convention’s 1995 apology for its past positions on race issues. We therefore disclaim and repudiate any suggestion that Dr. Land, the ERLC, or the Southern Baptist Convention harbors racism in any form. We recognize that there is more work to do before the members of Southern Baptist congregations are as diverse as the citizens of our great nation. We and Dr. Land remain dedicated to that cause.”

Regarding the charge of plagiarism that circulated through the media in mid-April, the ERLC executive committee stated, “We expect Dr. Land and the ERLC to embody the highest moral and ethical standards, as befitting a group of people devoted to following Jesus Christ. Though the source citation standards prevailing among talk radio shows are different from those applicable to journalistic work or to scholarly work in the academic setting, we nevertheless agree with Dr. Land that he could, and should, do a better job in this area. We therefore support Dr. Land’s commitment to improve his practices in giving credit to authors he quotes.”

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available. Also, one or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]