Mainstream religious communities have lost considerable ground in public life to the religious right in recent decades. But in Albany, New York on February 10th, mainstream religious leaders and laypersons are convening dicuss what has happened and what to do about it. Unlike many such events, conference organizers want to underscore that mainstream religious communities have not merely lost their voice, but that there have been concerted efforts over 25 years to distort and silence them, choreographed in part by the Washington, DC-based Institute on Religion and Democracy.
In an op-ed titled, Standing firm against forces of coercion, in the Albany Times-Union, conference organizers Harriet Warnock-Graham, Bernard Fleishman, and Edward Bloch, wrote:
Behind the news about conflicts in churches over gay marriage, reproductive rights and other hot-button issues, there's a background story about a propaganda think tank that seeks to discredit, divide and ultimately take over mainline denominations.... Its technique is to fund splinter groups to disrupt peace and justice work; to get individuals, congregations and regional church bodies to leave their denominations; and to take money and property with them. The goal is to silence the moderate church so it can't speak out against spiritually indefensible policies.
But the news is not all bad. Indeed, this conference is about empowerment and is titled, "Recovering Our Voice."
Rev. Dr. Andrew Weaver will lead a workshop on the attacks on the churches, titled: "Safeguarding Religious Values from Political Manipulation." Weaver and fellow Talk to Action contributors Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer and Rev. Dr. Bruce Prescott, discussed IRD and the attacks on the mainline churches on State of Belief, the Air America radio hosted by Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, last year. (Read the transcript here.) And I recently wrote an introductory overviewof the controversy.
Other workshops will deal with listening to youth, interfaith dialogue and working with the media. The goal is to equip our local interfaith moral majority to deal with the attacks of radical right-wing forces.
Our task is to restore the potency of our prophetic voice on behalf of the most vulnerable members of the human community -- and to protect all faith communities, and those who are not religious, from political/religious coercion.
The keynote speaker is Rev. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, who will address his concept of "middle church" based on his book "Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right." In the introduction, he writes: "The politics of faith have been co-opted in the service of a political agenda defined by fascination with war, indifference toward poverty and exploitation of God's creation for the benefit of a relative few." (the NCC is, btw, a body representing 45 million mainstream christians in 100,000 churches.)
Recovering Our Voice
When: Sunday, Feb. 11, 3-6:30 p.m.; Book signings at 2 p.m.
Where: First Lutheran Church, 646 State St., Albany
Cost: Suggested donation, $10
Sponsors: Interfaith Alliance; Methodist Federation for Social Action, Troy Area chapter; Capital Area Council of Churches; Sidney Albert Interfaith Center of the College of Saint Rose; Capital Region Ecumenical Organization; Muslim Community of Troy; Islamic Center of the Capital District, Presbytery of Albany.