Last week The Rev. John Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, had some strong words of condemnation against the Republican Party aligned Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and their allies:
"Groups like the Evangelical Association of Reformed, Christian and Congregational Churches and the Biblical Witness Fellowship are increasingly being exposed even as they are increasingly aggressive," Thomas said. "Their relationship to the right-wing Institute for Religion and Democracy and its long-term agenda of silencing a progressive religious voice while enlisting the church in an unholy alliance with right-wing politics is now longer deniable. ... United Church of Christ folk like to be `nice,' to be hospitable. But, to play with a verse of scripture just a bit, we doves innocently entertain these serpents in our midst at our own peril."
I recently wrote that the groups named by Thomas have worked actively to sow division in UCC congregations and in other national mainline churches. IRD, for example, is funded by extremists such as Richard Mellon Scaife and staffed by Republican Party activists and has a stated goal of "reforming" all mainline churches. Biblical Witness Fellowship is a group affiliated with IRD. Their aim is to silence the prophetic voice of mainline churches on issues such as war and peace and economic justice for the least of these. These groups confuse partisan political activity in support of the Republican Party with living out the Gospel message.
This week IRD fired back at Thomas and the UCC:
The IRD, unlike the UCC's own Washington lobby office, does not usually take positions on legislation before Congress. It does not endorse or oppose candidates for public office, either explicitly or implicitly. IRD publications, besides reporting critically on the one-sided political activities of denominations like the UCC, confine themselves to sketching general, non-partisan principles for Christian civic engagement.
Click here for their full statement.
The IRD statement was written by IRD staffer John Lomperis. Lomperis was a volunteer on the Bush / Cheney 2004 campaign - a fact he has not disclosed in numerous articles written for IRD attacking mainline churches for not supporting the president's policies.
And what are the "non-partisan principles for Christian civic engagement" that IRD advocates:
* Support for the war in Iraq.
* Support for Bush's tax policies that have benefited the wealthy at the expense of the "least of these" and opposition to social service programs that lift people out of poverty.
* Opposition to marriage for gays and lesbians and other civil rights protections for other minority groups.
You would be hard pressed to find an example of where the IRD has ever strayed from the Republican Party line since they first emerged in the early 1980s. Why would they? Their staff and funders are Republican activists representing the extremes of the right-wing in American politics.
Don't try accusing mainline churches of doing just the same on the other end of the political spectrum. The United Church of Christ, National Council of Churches, and most other mainline churches were critical of the Clinton Administration, for example, on issues related to welfare and Iraq. Mainline church bodies understand that their loyalty belongs to God and not a political party.
That's a lesson IRD has never learned in their on-going campaigns to defame and destroy Christian leaders and denominational bodies that continue to speak prophetically in difficult times.
