Edgar wrote:

The work of Christian unity is never easy, but it is most fulfilling. We do this work because the Gospels compel us to. "The glory that you have given me I have given them," Jesus says in John 17:22, "so that they may be one, as we are one."

The work of division and destruction of the Body of Christ, meanwhile, is much easier and has been with us since the decades just after Jesus walked among us. St. Paul's bemoaned the "jealously and quarreling" among the followers of Christ.

Recently a major newspaper described the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the Institute of Religion and Democracy (IRD) as "two influential Christian nonprofit organizations." The similarity ends there, though I would dispute just how influential the IRD is.

The NCC exists to promote Christian unity. It was born in the 1950s and fueled by the ecumenical movement of the 1960s, a movement I am proud to say is alive and well. In my seven years as the NCC's general secretary, I have seen Baptists working with Greek Orthodox on matters important to Jesus, and Methodists and Quakers collaborating on a Sunday School curriculum. It's all quite inspiring.

Our work is often done well behind the scenes, but it is never done in secret. The business and debates conducted by delegates from our member churches is done in the light of day, open to anyone. That work is never easy, but it shows the care and concern that Christians have for the work they do together.

The NCC is, and always has been, accountable to its member denominations. Every program area, every initiative, statement or policy has been based on the decisions of our member communions.

The IRD is sometimes called a Washington-based "Christian think-tank." It is more actually a front for wealthy neo-conservatives bent on silencing the prophetic voice of mainstream Christians and progressive evangelicals.

Religion News Service, which publishes a weekly commentary along with its news stories gave equal time to IRD.

Fair? Perhaps.

Perpetuating a false equivalence? Yes.

The newspaper that Edgar was too polite to name, was, of course, The Washington Post. I wrote at the time, that it offered up

"one the most extraordinary examples of false equivalence I have have ever seen in a newspaper.  Here is the lede:

Two influential Christian nonprofit organizations questioned each others finances yesterday, each suggesting that the other is beholden to big donors with partisan political motives.

The two "organizations" in question were IRD and the National Council of Churches.

The National Council of Churches (NCC)is an ecumenical agency that is operated by elected representatives of the member national denominations whose membership comprises 45 million Americans in 100,000 churches. It serves many functions in organizing and in expressing the views of, historic, mainline protestantism. It is a representative body, whose direction is set by the member denominations to which it is accountable, and operates with transparency.  

This stands in stark contrast to the IRD, whose leadership is unelected and self perpetuating; which operates in secrecy, and whose agenda and activities seek to utilize the democratic politics of the mainline denominations in order to foment dissension and division, and to undermine the National Council of Churches itself.

In his RNS commentary, Tonkowich, quoting a member of his board of directors, describes what the IRD represents as a "new ecumenicism." To call this a euphemism, would be overly generous. Rather, the term is better described as political propaganda.

This is a group that has presented itself as an agency of "renewal" and "reform" of the mainline churches. While any big institution is probably perennially in need of both, these are not the objectives, and the activities of the IRD. Why, as Andrew Weaver, reported on Media Transparency  last year, have a third of the IRD board been Catholic -- and not just any Catholics, but leading neoconservative intellectuals with close ties to the Vatican? And why, as I reported, is IRD president James Tonkowich not even a member of any of the churches his agency professes to want to renew?  The short answer of course, is that IRD is nothing like the NCC or any of its denominations. It is is a political operation intended to disrupt and destroy these religious communities. Why? Because powerful interests don't like the social gospel and the churches that have embraced it and they are willing to pay big bucks to try to neutralize or eliminate them. I have written about this in detail, as have others.

IRD and its satellite agencies have explicitly sought schism in the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church, and to generally wreak havoc in other denominations and the National Council of Churches. The plans for schism, which have been well-documented, were laid years ago and of course, creating the conditions for schism to become possible, took years before that.

So, to summarize, once again: The IRD for 25 years has engaged in activities intended to disrupt and divide the mainline Protestant churches in the United States. They and their allies have had considerable success, as we have seen most recently in the case of the Episcopal Church. The media, mainstream, alternative, or religious, rarely cover this war of attrition except  the wedge battles over such things as gay ordination. Sometimes, the media not only fails to tell the story, but perpetuates  false narrative that works strongly in IRD's favor: in this instance, by reenforcing a false equivalence between a national, representative organization, the National Council of Churches, and the Washington, DC rightist agency bent on its destruction.