Conservative Group Amplifies Voice of Protestant Orthodoxy

[NashVegas]

looks like they wanna kick what liberals are left in Yahweh's house, outta the place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/22/national/22CONS.html?hp

As Presbyterians prepare to gather for their General Assembly in Richmond, Va., next month, a band of determined conservatives is advancing a plan to split the church along liberal and orthodox lines. Another divorce proposal shook the United Methodist convention in Pittsburgh earlier this month, while conservative Episcopalians have already broken away to form a dissident network of their own.

In each denomination, the flashpoint is homosexuality, but there is another common denominator as well. In each case, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a small organization based in Washington, has helped incubate traditionalist insurrections against the liberal politics of the denomination's leaders.

With financing from a handful of conservative donors, including the Scaife family foundations, the Bradley and Olin Foundations and Howard and Roberta Ahmanson's Fieldstead & Company, the 23-year-old institute is now playing a pivotal role in the biggest battle over the future of American Protestantism since churches split over slavery at the time of the Civil War.

[DeadHead67]

1. Kick us out of Daddy's ?!!!!!

I DON'T THINK SO!!! Whose house is it anyway?!!!(answer in the previous post)

[checks-n-balances]

2. Thanks for posting this, much as I hate to read it...

For those who don't know, this stealth group (IRD) is the equivalent to the PNAC to the general public - the "think tank" pulling the strings. For decades they have been undermining the work and voices of progressive mainline Methodists, Presbyterians, and now Episcopalians. They've been using wedge issues and right-wing political tactics for years, IMHO to eventually take over completely as the fundamentalists did to the Southern Baptist Convention (denomination).

It makes me sick (an understatement).

[Kat45]

3. As a Christian, I am quite disturbed by this article.

In his life on earth, Jesus was a pretty liberal guy.

[harrison]

4. Jesus wasn't a liberal, Jesus was a radical. He was shaking the

foundations and for that he got crucified. But I digress. This is very sad to me. As a life long United Methodist, I wondered where this talk of splitting the church came from, and now I know.

It appears that disparate elements of the mainline denominations are going to have to go their own way and found a new denomination where women and gays can be ordained and accepted fully.