Rev. Thomas is not the only mainstream minister in a fight-back mode. There is a fight-back movement spreading rapidly through the mainline churches -- most visibly in the blogosphere. Here is an excerpt from Thomas' speech:
The IRD - the Institute on Religion and Democracy - is a sophisticated "inside the beltway" organization well funded by conservative foundations and closely aligned with a neo-conservative political agenda. IRD includes on its board intellectual and media figures like Michael Novak, Richard John Neuhaus, George Weigel, and Michael Medved. IRD's stated purpose is "Reforming the Church to Renew Democracy." It describes itself as "an ecumenical alliance of U.S. Christians working to reform their churches' social witness in accord with biblical and historic Christian teachings, thereby contributing to the renewal of democratic society at home and abroad," (emphasis added). The political agenda becomes even clearer when the Mission Statement goes on to say that the IRD believes "that Western representative democracy is, on balance, a good worthy of advancing." The echoes of the Bush administration's foreign policy are not hard to hear. In a forthcoming article in The Public Eye magazine about the attacks on the mainline churches, I summarize the origins and purpose of IRD:
When the strategic funders of the Right, such as Richard Mellon Scaife, got together to create the institutional infrastructure of the Right in the 1970s and 80s - they underwrote the founding of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a Washington, DC-based agency that would help to network, organize and inform internal opposition groups, while sustaining outside pressure and public relations campaigns. Meanwhile, a number of UCC clergy are also fed up with the internal and external attacks on their church and are organizing in the blogosphere. Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer is posting on this subject every week here at Talk to Action. Rev. Dan Schultz, who operates the national blog site Street Prophets, is also taking aim at the misrepresentations of his denomination. Chuck Currie, a recent seminary graduate and veteran blogger has written much about the IRD and related matters. Another prominent minister who is fighting back is Rev. Dr. Andrew Weaver, who with a number of Methodist colleagues has written a book called Hardball on Holy Ground, and has posted several pieces at Talk to Action as well as numerous articles on the general subject over the past few years. The book follows the publication in recent years of United Methodism @ Risk: A Wake-up Call, by Leon Howell, and A Moment to Decide: The Crisis in Mainstream Presbyterianism, by Lewis Daly. These books have played catalytic roles within the mainline churches, informing the gathering movement that has has emerged from the realization that the churches have been subject to a unprecedented campaign of divide and conquer for two decades. The realization has come slowly and with great difficulty. But these most mainstream of American institutions -- the mainline Protestant churches -- may be responding at last.
Rev. John Thomas, President of the United Church of Christ, Denounces IRD Attacks on Churches | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)
Rev. John Thomas, President of the United Church of Christ, Denounces IRD Attacks on Churches | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)
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