Renewal or Ruin

Although they have been active since the early 1980s, until a few months ago I had never heard of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. After I came across Culver and Dorhauer’s book Steeplejacking, I blogged about issues related to the IRD several times. Despite this, what I saw tonight was still an [...]

The value of speaking up

While I found Culver and Dorhauer’s book Steeplejacking to be very disturbing, it also has an element of hope - both in the story of a church that was saved from steeplejacking, and in the idea that, but getting the word out, it was possible to avert some of these tragedies. The IRD, it [...]

Answering the far-right

John Dorhauer replies to criticisms levelled by IRD employee Steve Rempe in his review of Steeplejacking. Dorhauer answers Rempe’s accusations quite effectively by quoting from IRD documents, and concludes that either:
If Rempe is still unclear about how the IRD is infiltrating our churches, then it means he has not been included in these internal [...]

Right-wing backlash

As I mentioned previously, I found Culver and Dorhauser’s book Steeplejacking to be both highly informative and deeply disturbing. Most importantly - it was effective. It was well-written, and it did a good job of conveying the threat to mainline churches. It also sheds light on the actions of the neo-conservative Institute [...]

More Steeplejacking

I have always had immense respect for the United Church of Christ. I love their Marriage Equality position and their history of openness. And this is why I find the book Steeplejacking so distressing.
Culver and Dorhauser discuss the development of the Institute on Religion and Democracy from the early 1980s when it [...]

Steeplejacking

I was chilled when I first heard of the Institute on Religion and Democracy a few months ago. As Charles Currie said:
IRD, as a refresher, is a conservative political group set-up in the early 1980s by Republican activists who aimed to silence Christian voices opposed to the Reagan administration’s foreign and domestic policies. [...]