The
Episcopal Churchand the
Presbyterian Church (USA)are having their periodic national conferences this weekend.
There are several dramas underway, to which I cannot begin to do justice, but are worth mentioning -- because these formal gatherings are front lines in the culture wars in ways that are not always appreciated by those outside the churches -- or even inside the churches. Both of these national churches comprise several million members, and each are fraught with internal divisions over the hot button issues of the so-called culture war: homosexuality and abortion. I post this diary in part to expose the specatularly innaccurate notion popular in certain Democratic Party circles -- that reproductive rights and gay and lesbian civil rights are not the concerns of mainstream Christians. The Christian conferences this weekend in Columbus, Ohio and Birmingham, Alabama respectively put the lie to such claims.
I have not followed the details of the ongoing internal policy wrangling, so I am sorry that I cannot give you an analysis of what exactly is at stake, except to note that you will likely be reading about the highlights in the newspapers on Sunday and next week.
The internal policy disputes generally have to do with ordination of gays and lesbians and these churches' historic prochoice stands on abortion.
The issues are being fought most vociferously by rightwing factions alligned with the Washington, DC--based Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD); an agency funded by the strategic funders of the right, such as foundations affiliated with Richard Mellon Scaife and the Coors family. The agency has been wreaking havoc in the mainline Protestant denominations, in order to neutralize and dismember them as effective advocates for social justice, and as a check on the excesses of America foreign policy, and the behavior of multinational corporations.
Awhile back I wrote:
For much of the 20th century, the mainline Protestant churches maintained a vigorous "social witness." That is what these Protestants call their views on such matters as peace, civil rights and environmental justice. While there was certainly conservative opposition to the development of these views, and to the activities that grew out of them, the direction of mainline Protestantism was clear. The churches became powerful proponents of social change in the United States. They stood at the moral and political center of society with historic roots in the earliest days of the nation. Indeed, they epitomize the very idea and image of "church" for many Americans. In retrospect, it seems inevitable that powerful external interests would organize and finance the conservative rump factions into strategic formations intended to divide and conquer--and diminish the capacity of churches to carry forward their idea of a just society in the United States--and the world.
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 IRD in 1980 as a Washington, DC-based agency that would help network, organize, and inform internal opposition groups, while sustaining outside pressure and public relations campaigns.
At Talk to Action, we have been following the latest battles as best we can. While far from comprehensive, here are excerpts from posts by two guest front pagers: Matt who blogs at Political Spaghetti, and Rev.Carlton Veazey, President and CEO of the Religous Coalition for Reproductive Rights that offer some imporant information and analysis on this weekend's events.
Orthodox Anglicans' Akinola: 'Five Years in Jail if You are Gay in Nigeria' by Matt
In late February, 2006, John Bryson Chane, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, DC, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post. In it, he revealed to the WaPo's readership one of the many awful consequences that decades of conflict have brought to the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality. Just days before, one of Chane's fellow bishops in the Anglican Communion, the Primate of All Nigeria and leader of the Anglican Communion's largest Province, Archbishop Peter Akinola, endorsed legislation that would ban most basic civil rights for gay and lesbian Nigerians, and enforce that ban with a 5 year prison sentence.
The Anglican Communion is in crisis mode, struggling to salvage a broad though loosely affiliated organization from self-destruction under the pull of two strong forces. On the one hand, northern Anglicans in the US, Canada, and the UK are committed to a liberal stand on homosexuality, and to a Gospel of Inclusion (i.e., "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You"). On the other hand, the Provinces of the Global South, along with splinter organizations in the North (see the American Anglican Council, or AAC, and the Anglican Communion Network, or Network) are "orthodox" on the issue of homosexuality, and consider their purpose to be far more evangelical than that of the Episcopal Church, USA (ECUSA), or of other Northern Anglicans. The Provinces of the Global South claim moral authority because of their great and increasing numbers, while parish registries in ECUSA and elsewhere are stable or in decline.
The "splinter organizations" that have organized the conservative movement within ECUSA, and in the process have forged deep alliances with their Global South brethren, have their roots deep within the Republican Party. Jim Naughton of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington expertly outlines that relationship in his series "Following the Money." The AAC -- an umbrella group for American conservative Anglicanism -- has historical and present ties with the Institute on Religion and Democracy (or IRD), a deeply conservative group devoted to supporting politically consonant forms of Christianity within mainline Protestant denominations. The historical relationship between the IRD and the AAC is clear -- at one point, their websites were identically formatted, and their offices were in adjacent suites in an I St. office building in northwest Washington, DC. (The AAC is now headquartered in Atlanta.) The IRD has received considerable support ($4,679,000 between 1985 and 2005) from The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Richard Mellon Scaife via the Carthage Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundaiton, and the Scaife Family Foundation, the Randolph Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation (the Coors family), and others. The IRD board is populated by such conservative luminaries as Mary Ellen Bork, Fred Barnes, author of "Rebel in Chief", Richard J. Neuhaus, Michael Novak, and is advised by conservative radio talk-show host Michael Medved. A source in the AAC tells me that a still large share of the AAC's budget comes from Howard Ahmanson, Jr., a major funder of Intelligent Design "research" at the Discovery Institute.
Support from the IRD has helped the AAC and the Network (the "orthodox" wing of ECUSA) get their feet on the ground, and establish ties to Global South Provinces, where the Network's brand of Anglicanism has found a far more sympathetic audience.
The groundwork was laid, then, for a massive right-wing reaction to the elevation -- at the ECUSA 2003 General Convention -- of V. Gene Robinson, an open and partnered gay priest, to be Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. Since then, it has been open warfare against the "creeping influence" of Western liberalism, with Archbishop Akinola leading the charge, and conservative American Anglicans more than eager to follow.
It is in this context that we must interpret the significance of the Nigerian gay marriage bill (pdf) that Archbishop Akinola endorsed and Bishop Chane discussed. As much as Archbishop Akinola and the Church of Nigeria would like us to think otherwise, the bill is a direct reaction to the conflict over homosexuality in the Anglican Communion, and specifically a reaction to the presence of a gay and lesbian Anglican advocacy group that formed in Nigeria last year.
much more
RCRC Responds to False Accusations by Protestant "Renewal" Groups by Rev. Carlton Veazey
With mainline Protestant churches in the midst of their large regional and national conferences, so-called "renewal" groups are trying to stir up turmoil by attacking the churches' historic support of women's reproductive choice. As in many years past, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is a target of these "renewal" groups, in particular of The Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), an ultra-conservative political lobby in Washington DC. The IRD's campaign against the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is perhaps best characterized as an effort to distort our mission and work and vilify our good name. Repeatedly over the years, the mainline denominations have seen through this deceitful effort and rejected it.
Reproductive choice is not the only sensitive issue that is exploited by the IRD and its allies. Gay rights and doctrinal interpretation are also targets of their attacks.
As more research and documentation about the "renewal" movement becomes available, there is greater awareness that this is a coordinated effort to undermine mainline Protestantism by exploiting certain issues. The ultimate goal is to render America's largest denominations incapable of standing up to right-wing politics.
Currently, the IRD and its allies are circulating sample resolutions among the denominations that misrepresent the Coalition's history and positions... It would be a grave error to believe that the Institute on Religion and Democracy and its allies in the "renewal" movement are concerned about women and families. Rather, they are part of a movement in American politics and culture that happily uses personal issues to agitate and rally people to their cause. The "renewal" groups are a stark contrast to the mainline churches and Jewish traditions, which have been models of compassionate, respectful, and thoughtful discernment about human reproductive issues and have assiduously sought to be inclusive of the diverse views of their members.
In the name of justice and decency, it is time to end the silence about the IRD and the "renewal" movement.
much more