This meant that the perpetrators of these attacks went unchallenged while attention was focused largely on the inner dynamics of churches embroiled in controversy.

That is no longer the case. Fred Clarkson, an investigative journalist who organizes this website, and Andrew Weaver, a Clinical Psychologist who has written about this extensively, have been on a long campaign to shed light into the darker corners of this ugly mess. A result of that is an emerging cadre of folk like me whose love for their church, their history, and their covenantal obligations both to ecumenism and to scripture empower them to uncover unpleasant truths about a church under attack, and embolden them to speak this ugly truth to an ever-widening audience.

The tides are turning.

People are listening.

And as they do, we are discovering better strategies both to fend off attackers and to deepen devotion to their beloved church - a devotion that ends up being the single greatest antidote to the venom spewing forth from the attack agents.

But something else is also happening. Those behind the systemic and systematic dismantling of the progressive church are, for the first time, being antagonized out of the shadows in which they have been laying hidden for decades now. And for the first time, they find themselves on the defensive, reacting to those who speak publicly what they would just as soon remain private.

An example is an article appearing on the IRD website by Jim Berkely, responding to what I had written a few weeks ago on this page. You can find that article at http://jimberkley.blogspot.com/2006/11/more-dor.html.

His response is filled with innuendo, hyperbole, sarcasm, and ad hominem attacks - all hallmarks of one intending to discredit the author without really dealing with the accusations leveled against the IRD by that author. It is a low form of dialogue and debate intended to direct attention away from the question at hand - namely how the IRD, funded by neo-conservative politicos, operates through their Association of Church Renewal and its 30+ renewal members to foment dissent and disruption in otherwise healthy and vital congregations affiliated with moderate and progressive denominations who stand ready (if not otherwise occupied by or intimidated into silence by agitators) to speak out against the excesses of a political pantheon whose thirst for power and domination simply cannot go unchallenged.

Berkley's attempt to discredit misses his point, but makes mine: our work here is paying off. We have those who are at the heart of this attack against the progressive church finally reacting to what we are doing  - somewhat on the run with little else to hang on to but feeble attempts to deflect attention away from the subject matter and onto the whistle blower.

A second example, and this one even less noble than the first, can be found at ucctruths.com. At the top of their page is a "John Dorhauer Conspiracy Challenge Clock."

No, really, I'm not making this up. It even has my photo next to it. I didn't know about this until I flew to Orlando last week for a biennial gathering of Conference Staff leaders from across the denomination. I have become some sort of cult hero because of this - and took no small amount of teasing from colleagues because of it who wondered why I was deserving of such attention and they were not.

Anyway, there is a ticking clock next to my face. They are waiting for me to respond to their challenge and prove my point, and until I do the clock with my face next to it will continue to run. Here is my response: the clock proves my point. It is silliness and not substance. It is deflection and not debate. It is entertaining, to be sure, but not enlightening.

As long as there are no substantive responses; no meaningful dialogue; no visible signs of stopping the attacks on denominations and churches that are doing their best to fulfill the mandates of scripture as they interpret them; no apologies for past atrocities that cannot, I am afraid, be defended by the argument that the way you interpret scripture justifies these behaviors: then we will continue to write about what we discover hidden in the shadows of these recessed corners into which you have withdrawn.