[As seen in http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=40482] HOUSTON (BP)-The current president, as well as former presidents, of the Southern Baptist Convention commended Richard Land for his courage and faithfulness as head of the denomination's ethics entity for a quarter of a century in a dinner in his honor.

Current SBC President Fred Luter and the former presidents joined others -- including seminary presidents, entity heads and state Baptist leaders -- in celebrating June 8 Land's 25 years of leadership of and retirement from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). The dinner, sponsored by the ERLC's trustees, occurred as Southern Baptists began gathering in Houston for the convention's 2013 meeting June 11-12.

Having announced last year his intention to retire from the ERLC, Land, 66, became the commission's president emeritus June 1, when Russell Moore moved into the president's role. The ERLC trustees elected Moore as president in late March. On July 1, Land will become president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, N.C.

Elected as president in 1988, Land led the transformation of the ethics entity during the SBC's conservative resurgence. He directed the commission as it became a stalwart advocate for the sanctity of human life and religious freedom while it maintained its biblical stances on such issues as racial reconciliation and marriage.

Jimmy Draper, the keynote speaker and a former SBC president, said, "No one in our lifetime has had a greater impact on the social and ethical attitudes and actions of Southern Baptists than Richard Land."

Luter, the SBC's first African American president and pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, thanked Land for being a personal blessing to him through the years. Luter also told Land his faithfulness meant he "will go down in history as one who stood up when other people did not, one who spoke up when other people did not. ... There was no challenge you did not take o