Nashville, Tenn.—Dr. Richard Land, president of The Southern Baptist’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, launches a new values emphasis to reach out to “values voters” this election season and beyond. The initiative includes two Web sites: a re-launch of iVoteValues.com and the newly developed iLiveValues.com.
iVoteValues.com encourages Christians to register to vote, educate themselves about the candidates, and vote their values. The iVoteValues campaign was first launched by the ERLC in partnership with Focus on the Family and other like-minded groups in 2004. The Family Research Council has partnered with the ERLC for the 2008 initiative.
iLiveValues.com seeks to enable and support Christians as they daily live out their values in their communities. iLiveValues.com is also the online home for three new podcasts developed by the ERLC, as well as other media resources.
According to 2004 Election Day exit polls, 78 percent of white religious conservatives voted for President George W. Bush.
“On nearly every news broadcast, you hear discussions about the importance of Evangelicals and so-called ‘values voters,’ but Christians have a very important role to play in their communities every day of the year,” Land said.
“These same individuals must live out their faith in daily decisions, influencing their society toward righteousness and truth,” Land continued. “Our culture is facing too many grave social issues today for the people of faith to sit on the sidelines, only engaging the issues on Election Day.”
Through the 2004 iVoteValues effort, tens of thousands of new voters were registered both online and through the iVoteValues 18-wheeler truck. But more than that, the campaign helped focus the nation’s attention on moral issues instead of pocketbook issues, Land said.
p(notes). The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 16.3 million members in over 44,000 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C.
