BOOGIE MAN

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

If Jim Naughton seems a little angry these days, please go easy on him because he recently received a terrible psychological shock to his system and hasn’t fully recovered yet. Seems that last Halloween night, some punkass little Trick-or-Treater knocked on his door dressed up as the IRD:

The Nov. 13 convention of the Diocese of New York will consider a resolution on the Institute for Religion and Democracy’s negative impact on religious freedom.

The IRD has a “negative impact on religious freedom?” Who knew? Do you mean that I negatively impact someone’s religious freedom by merely suggesting that their theology is wrong? Apparently.

RESOLVED, That the Diocese of New York affirms the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion, which includes the right of churches to choose their own clerical and leaders according to their own rules and criteria without interference from governments, private citizens, or other religious groups, and

Exactly how is the IRD interfering with the Episcopal and other mainline pseudo-Christian organizations? This is how.

RESOLVED, That the Diocese of New York condemns those activities of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) and related groups that have sought to punish the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and United Methodist denominations for leadership choices with which they disagree through seizure of church property and other assets entrusted to the community for mission and ministry; and

Wait, what? Do you mean it’s actually not the parishioners of churches who want to continue in the Christian religion who are suing to keep their meeting houses? Are you suggesting that the IRD has somehow manipulated these people into suing? Because that’s the stupidest thing any Episcopalian has written in, oh, the last day or two.

RESOLVED, That the Diocese calls upon the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to authorize creation of a joint task force of the affected denominations to:

1) Assess the threat to religious freedom posed by the activities of the IRD and related groups
2) Develop recommendations to mitigate such threats, and
3) Ascertain the cost to the three denominations to date of litigation to prevent the alienation of church property and other assets.

Which means more lawsuits and more billable hours for more mainline attorneys. And for the benefit of any traditionalist Christians remaining in TEO, if you don’t think that disagreeing with TEO’s decisions or its theology constitutes, according to TEO, an assault on its “religious freedom” that might even land you in court…

For nearly 30 years, IRD has publicly stated its goal of “reforming” the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and United Methodist churches along “orthodox” lines, even though it is not accountable to any of those churches. Each denomination has produced films, documentaries, and exposés about IRD’s damaging activities, but each continues to treat the problem as internal discontent rather than a coordinated assault on religious freedom. This approach has resulted in costly litigation in all three denominations. A joint task force is needed to share information and develop common strategies to safeguard the freedom and financial health of the three target denominations.

…you’re kidding yourselves.

Will this thing ever see the light of day? I seriously doubt it. I’ve never heard of anything actually illegal that the IRD has done and I’d like to think that the Episcopalians, Methodists and Presbyterians would be laughed out of court if they ever tried to sue a group merely for spending a lot of money to advocate its positions.

But this is America where lots of brain-dead leftist hacks wear black robes at work. So you never know.