Back in the Reagan era, the American right realized that the mainline Protestant churches - as the repository of the Christian "social justice" tradition - formed the bulwark of the political opposition to many Reagan administration policies. So, the IRD was formed to take the mainline Protestant denominations down.
The first salvo was an outrageous 60 Minutes smear campaign piece on the National Council of Churches, described by Andrew Weaver in Being 60 Minutes Means You Never Have to Say You are Sorry - Except Once
Since the early 1980's, the Institute On Religion and Democracy , funded by Christian Reconstructionist financier Howard Ahmanson and the Coors, Scaife, and Bradley foundations, has coordinated an attack on the mainline US Christian Protestant denominations, and these efforts may be nearing fruition.
This summer, possible schisms in two Protestant denominations threaten to change the face of Christianity in America....
if you are not actually a member of any of these threatened denominations, why should you even care ? Or - for that matter - what can you do ?
Well, on the first question, let me say :
First, these attacks whip up hysteria, about the alleged threat posed by a minority - in the absence of evidence - to advance a political agenda. This tactic has precedent in the 20th Century :
The approach of American "religious right" leaders toward gays is akin to the anti-gay policies promoted by Adolf Hitler ( link to salon.com story by Michelle Goldberg ), according to the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie.
Yoffie made the comments Saturday, during the movement's national biennial conference in Houston.
"We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage but there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry."
Even in quiet, low divorce rate New England, these attacks go on : yesterday I got an email reply from a query to someone who mentioned, online, that her church had been attacked and almost taken over. It was just too painful for her and the others which lived through it - to air publicly and her congregation was just trying to move on. I can say this though : that church was not in the deep South or the heartland. It was in liberal Massachusetts...
Now, let me turn to Andrew J. Weaver, Criminal Forensic Psychiatrist, author of numerous books, Methodist Minister, and leader in the fight to defend the United Methodist Church. ( Andrew also writes things on Talk To Action )
[image left: partial map of IRD associations with media and religious organizations. click here for full version from Media Transparency] As material - mostly courtesy of Andrew Weaver's leadership in guiding research efforts - has acrued on John's Dorhauer's ongoing series I've created a new Talk To Action anthology dedicated to IRD associated attacks on the United Methodist Church
As Frederick Clarkson narrates in a recent Public Eye piece, "People outside of the churches may wonder, why they should care? Methodist minister Andrew Weaver, who has researched the Institute and its satellite groups, explains that the member churches of the National Council of Churches account for about 25% of the population and half of the members of the US Congress. "NCC church members' influence is disproportionate to their numbers," he says, "and include remarkably high numbers of leaders in politics, business, and culture.... Moreover, these churches are some of the largest landowners in the U.S., with hundreds of billions of dollars collectively in assets, including real estate and pension funds. A hostile takeover of these churches would represent a massive shift in American culture, power and wealth for a relatively small investment."
IRD and its allies' use of right-wing nonreligious foundation money to smear liberal church leaders through mailings, articles in IRD-aligned publications, press releases, and stories in secular newspapers and magazines has more in common with a CIA Third World destabilization campaign than ordinary civilized debate (Smith, 2004) - Andrew Weaver, paraphrasing the writiong of California-based investigative reporter Matt Smith,
What is more, the institutional moral authority, leadership, and resources of the churches have been vital to major movements for social change throughout the 20th Century--from enacting child labor laws, to advancing the African-American civil rights movement, to ending the war in Vietnam. But as it happens, individuals such as civil rights leader Rev. Andrew Young and antiwar leader Rev. William Sloan Coffin, for example, are much better known than their denomination, the United Church of Christ.
The
Shadow War ( link to Talk To Action site section with collected writing on this ) is widespread and - if you're new to the story - it is really a whole parallel reality which has been one of the major points of advance of the American Christian right up to now.
How are these attacks carried out ? - The Rev. Dr. John Dorhuaer, of the UCC's Eden Theological Seminary, is one of the very few in the US working within one of the Protestant denominations against these attacks, and Dorhauer has an unprecedented ongoing_series on Talk To Action on this. And, in a new piece today, I've showcased some examples of such attacks - a uninvited letter sent to leaders of the United Methodist Church, a four page glossy brochure by a "renewal" group atacking the UCC, and something Dorhuaer calls "The matrix".
"You could easily call the Institute on Religion and Democracy "The Institute of Sex and More Sex" Because, if you Google homosexuality on their site, an incredible percentage of everything they do is a gay-bashing attack that works, and it really is fearmongering. To the point that the Ku Klux Klan, last summer, endorsed and encouraged on their site, one of the attacks that the Institute of Religion and Democracy made.....So their target is really fearmongering that turned, in this case, into the Ku Klux Klan endorsing them. That's the level of vitriol that is involved in these groups" - Andrew Weaver, on State of Belief
That gay-bashing has worked - up to now - splendidly. But recently a chorus of voices on Talk To Action, Pastordan and Chuck Currie on Street Prophets and Chuck Curries blog, a report from the Episcopalian church tracing the money trail of groups funding its attackers.... then the state of belief show on the IRD's attacks.... this growing chorus has raised the awareness of the Shadow War and so some observers think the forces aligned this summer, too weak to attempt an direct takeover, may try to force a schism....
This summer, both the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian churches face possible schism : in the run up to the coming conflict, the Episcopalian church has released a study that traces the funding sources of groups attacking the Epsicopalian denomination.
What are the stakes ? -
As To Action co-founder Frederick Clarkson narrates , The two-part series by former Washington Post and New York Times reporter James Naughton ( "Follow The Money" ) examines, according to a press release, the network of conservative groups, "their donors and the strategy that has allowed them to destabilize the Episcopal Church.... The groups represent a small minority of church members, but relationships with wealthy American donors and powerful African bishops have made them key players in the fight for the future of the Anglican Communion "to warn deputies that they must repent of their liberal attitudes on homosexuality or face a possible schism . This summer, that schism may become a possibility writes Daniel J. Webster in This Schism Is Brought to You by the IRD and Facing The Spectre of Schism . Episcopalian Priest "Father Jake" covers the prospects in detail : some Epsicopalian leaders are more optimistic but all agree the threat is real.
Note : no one covers IRD and associated attacks on the Episcopalian church with greater insight or diligence than, I might venture, Father Jake, writing on Father Jake Stops the World
OK..... on to the second question - so, what can you do ?
Short answer : READ, LEARN, PASS IT ALONG.
Print up some pieces and send to your pastors, friends, or family. Send people to Talk To Action, Street Prophets, Father Jake Stops the World....
The Shadow War has flourished in the silence. It's the child molestor enabled by social decorum and embarassment. It's the crazy uncle or aunt in the attic or the basement, the dark secret unspoken...It's a moldy rotten thing needing fresh air - give it some air ! A little noise and a little light goes a long way in this area :
John Dorhauer, writing on Talk To Action, narrates in On the Run , some of the groups formed to attack the UCC are, well... on the run :
One of the more amusing aspects of writing about the attacks of the religious right has been tracking their responses.
For a long time, groups like the IRD and the renewal groups associated with them have had the luxury of doing their most deleterious work under the radar.
This happens because they are intentional about hiding the aspects of their work that they know most folk would deem unchristian.
This happens because much of the work they do is somewhat clandestine: practiced, if you will, in the art of deception.
This happens because much of what they print - which is intended to convince others about the wayward motivations of their targeted enemies - is filled with innuendo, statements taken out of context (or worse, completely recontextualized), outright lies, and deceptions cleverly composed by those whose `mission' forgives their lack of scruples.
This happens because these deceptions are written to people predisposed to hear something incriminating about those named enemies to begin with.
This happens because some of the people fed by their hatred and vitriol turn into bullies who impose fear and silence upon their fellow congregants and pastors.
But something happens when light is shed into these dark corners; when their motivations are named; when their tactics are disclosed; and when the deception and lies inherent in their writing are exposed..... ( Dorhauer then narrates a "Faithful and Welcoming" group, deprived of its previous anonymity claims of independence from the IRD, running from its newfound publicity )