Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D. submitted an incredibly
well documented diary at talk@action about the reasons the Reagan era State Department and current neoconservatives intermingled personnel, money, and efforts with the ostensibly religious Institute on Religion and Democracy. I'm giving DailyKos readers a taste of the work but I strongly suggest that you all read the whole article.
The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a neoconservative-led Washington "think tank," has relentlessly used unethical propaganda methods to carry out the radical political agenda of a handful of secular benefactors opposed to progressive Christian voice and social action
The National Council of Churches of Christ (NCCCC) represents 36 member communions - encompassing Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican, and African-American traditions - including more than 100,000 local congregations and 45 million persons in the United States. This 55-year-old ecumenical body has been a primary target of an orchestrated attack by determined right-wing ideologues since 1981.
Although the IRD claims to be non-partisan, it is difficult to find anything other than right-wing causes that it supports. In the 20th century, mainline churches and ecumenical institutions played pivotal roles in advancing the civil rights of African-Americans and women, as well as opposing the Vietnam War and the anti-democratic policies of the Reagan administration in Central America and Southern Africa. More recently the NCCC has focused on issues of peace, poverty and pollution .
In 2000 the IRD prepared a covert funding proposal to raise money from radical right benefactors.
"A major priority during 2001-2004 year will be to push for the final dismantling of the National Council of Churches ...IRD monitors most major gatherings of the National Council of Churches and, when possible, the World Council of Churches. We work to discredit these bodies' radical political advocacy and to weaken support for the councils..." --IRD
Howard Ahmanson (whose wife, Roberta, serves on the IRD board of directors) has been a major financial backer of Christian Reconstructionism, a movement that works to replace American democracy with a fundamentalist theocracy which advocates "stoning to death" (not a joke) adulterers, homosexuals and rebellious children . Additionally:
minimum-wage laws and Social Security for younger workers would be eliminated; most old-age security would be covered by personal retirement plans or by care from adult children; and the federal government would play absolutely no part in regulating businesses, public education or welfare....all inheritance and gift taxes would be abolished, while income taxes would be no more than 10 percent of gross income (and then only until government was shrunk further). Gleaning for the poor on private farms after harvesting would be encouraged
--Christin Century
Mainline denominations are heir to forms of governance that are representative and transparent. It is the openness of the governance processes of these churches that the radical right has exploited to turn them into battle grounds in the culture wars Attacks on the NCCC and its constituent churches are meant to discredit the legitimacy of their democratic bodies and to impose rule by strict dogma and autocratic governance. This tactic is often on view when the conservative "renewal" factions in the mainline denominations working with the IRD foment internal dissent and generate conflict
Those of us who are not religious might well ask why we should care, since this seems to be internal religious matter. Three reasons that should grab your eye are the following
The IRD was founded by several key leaders of the neoconservative movement that now dominates the George W. Bush administration, including Roman Catholics Father Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Novak and the religiously unaffiliated Penn Kemble. The IRD has steadfastly promoted the foreign and domestic policy agendas of the neoconservative movement that gave it birth. Its mission has closely tracked the neoconservative agenda over almost two and half decades - moving from militant anticommunism to post-cold war American global domination to radical anti-taxation for the rich, and destruction of the meager social safety net for the poor and middle-class.
In its early years, the IRD worked intimately with the Reagan White House, providing papers, speeches and even co-sponsoring a conference with the State Department. The conference was held at the State Department, and $44,000 was provided by a grant from the U.S. Information Agency . The IRD continually assailed the theological integrity of Christians ministering and living among impoverished peasants in Central America . Richard John Neuhaus, one of the founders of the IRD, acknowledged that the IRD had a specific "political agenda" from the beginning - Central America and opposition to liberation theology were top concerns
Using McCarthy-like tactics, it routinely challenged the patriotism of any Christians who did not share its goals, as it continues to do . Its favorite ploy in the 1980's was to try to identify the NCCC and its constituent member churches with alleged communist subversives - whether Marxist-influenced liberation theologians, anti-apartheid activists or international relief workers. Any religious group that dared to speak of assisting or empowering the poor was, in the eyes of the IRD, suspect and probably "communist" . The Cold War, for the IRD, was merely a proxy for its partisan struggle to portray American liberals as complicit in the sins of Soviet-style communism. It was, in other words, a kind of neo-McCarthyism. The close association between the IRD and the first-term Reagan administration earned the IRD the moniker of "the official seminary of the White House" .
--Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D., Christopher G. Ellison, Ph.D.,
Fred W. Kandeler, D.D., Richard L. Binggeli, Ph.D. and
Fred Clark, MATS.