Submitted by admin on Fri, 2007-03-16 08:00. ::
For those who remember a similar IRD-led attack on the World Council of Churches two decades ago -- highlighted by a controversial and buzz-generating segment on CBS' "60 Minutes" -- the IRD's latest blast appears to be -- to borrow a phrase from New York Yankee great Yogi Berra -- "déjà vu all over again."
The IRD excoriated the World Council of Churches (WCC) for allegedly being tools of the anti-American left over its support of the Nelson Mandela-led African National Congress in South Africa, and its opposition to President Ronald Reagan's contra wars in Central America; wars that destabilized governments and were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. And now it is doing a similar job on the NCC.
"The institute, a Washington-based think tank, is allied with conservative groups on issues such as same-sex marriage. From its founding in 1981, its primary effort has been to challenge what it calls the 'leftist' political positions of mainline Protestant denominations, such as the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)," the Washington Post recently reported.
The IRD vice president charged that the NCC's membership is "shrinking" and "no longer able or willing to bear the financial load" of the NCC organization. That has forced the NCC into an unholy alliance with "non-church givers with political agendas [that] have stepped in to save the council. And, in preserving and strengthening the NCC, they help to project an exaggerated image of the Religious Left -- beyond what the NCC's or any other constituency could justify. The Religious Left simply does not have anywhere near 45 million people in the pews on any given Sunday."
"Bob Edgar has declared his personal support for same-sex marriage. He and other NCC leaders repeatedly criticize fellow Christians who defend the traditional definition of marriage. In thus fostering the impression of an evenly split U.S. Christian community, the NCC serves the interests of its 'progressive' yokefellows who are campaigning for the legitimization of same-sex marriage," Wisdom said.
This is cache, read story here
