Thanks to Mystical Seeker for linking to this article in the Public Eye. Churches Under Seige: Exposing the Right's Attack on Mainline Protestantism by John Dorhauer.
Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer is a staffmember of the United Church of Christ's Missouri Mid-South Conference and coauthor of Steeplejacking: How the Christian Right is Highjacking Mainstream Religion.
Lew Daly wrote A Moment to Decide: The Crisis in Mainstream Presbyterianism. This is a must read for Presbyterians.
Thanks to Doug King at The Witherspoon Society. The Witherspoon Society has been posting about the IRD for over a decade. Here is a link for various reviews and comments on Lewis Daly's book.
Witherspoon also has some more links regarding newer strategies by the IRD.
Debbie Berkley, who has commented on this blog, took issue with NY Times article about the IRD. Witherspoon published her critique.
This is a helpful set of articles as well. I urge you to take some time and check these out.
For a good rebuttal of “Churches Under Seige: Exposing the Right’s Attacks on Mainline Protestantism.“ I would suggest Embracing Comspriacy Theories,
ReplyDeleteor "Faithful Friends and Faithless Tales," at Naming His Grace.
John, of course, seems to be unaware that the world is truly run by the Pentavarite, not the IRD.
ReplyDeleteWho's the Pentavarite?
Well, it's a well known fact, that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.
Members of the Pentavarite are: The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, *and* the late Colonel Sanders.
I'm impressed that Viola managed to leave a comment here without engaging in her usual smear tactic of associating religious progressives with Nazis.
ReplyDeleteViola is not associating progressives with Nazis or saying that progressives will become Nazis. She is illustrating how the theology of progressives can lead to dangerous ideas by showing how similar theology did that with Nazis.
ReplyDeleteDebbie Berkley
If any of you are fans of Carl Sagan, I would like to invite you to take a look at my blog here:
ReplyDeletehttp://talk2actionchallenge.blogspot.com/
It is a challenge to use Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit to evaluate what is said about IRD. It is also a challenge to present evidence to support all the claims that are made about IRD, including the type of claims that John is making on this blog.
I asked John Dorhauer and Frederick Clarkson to give me evidence for their claims about IRD, and they said they didn't need to have evidence.
Debbie Berkley
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ReplyDeleteOkay Alan,
ReplyDeleteI am going to try and explain this hopefully in a clearer manner than before. If a person or group believes that God, his redemption and/or his ontological being, is revealed in something besides Jesus Christ as he is found in the Holy Scriptures they have opened the door that may lead toward an understanding of God or humanity that has a potential for evil.
I used what happened in Germany as an example. The German Christians believed that God was revealed in the events of German history and in the German Culture. They tried to put those events and their culture on a par with Scripture and its revelation of Jesus Christ.
Progressives tend to down grade God's revelation in Scripture, replacing it or putting it on a par with all kinds of other supposed revelations.
For instance, pluralists believe other religions are equal to the Biblical revelation of Jesus Christ. Some believe sexuality or sexual acts are new revelation. Some progressive ethnic groups believe their culture is revelation. The list goes on.
I am saying that opens the door to evil. Only God's revelation in Jesus Christ found in both the O.T. & N.T is truthful
Viola Larson manages to continue her smear against Progressives here, claiming that it leads to "evil" like Nazism, and Debbie continues to defend it.
ReplyDeleteLet's get serious here. Alan summarized this point perfectly--Debbie is defending Viola Larson's spewing of bile by denying that progressives are Nazis--they are just "like" Nazis. And that somehow makes this smear okay.
This is beyond the pale. When Debbie tries to defend this claptrap, she shows how little credibility she has when she complains about progressives speaking "hatefully" towards others.
Hey, guys you are being too hard here on my friend,((Viola.)) So, I'm leaping to her defense. I can understand what she is saying, although I would have to think about this more deeply, Viola.
ReplyDeleteI certainly wouldn't interpret this as a personal attack or smear.
But, Alan, with all due respect, brother, you don't sound like a progressive to me, but more like a 5 point Calvinist.
Heck, what is a progressive anyway as opposed to an orthodox evangelical?
All these terms are enough to make your head spin. Dear Mad Priest and I get into this all the time together. He's convinced that I'm not a bona fide evangelical, and I'm being deceived about this.
And, I think I am, just as orthodox, and evangelical as the day is long.
What do you think,Mystical? Am I bona fide or what, one of those evangelicals with the "despicable" views? (teasing Myst.)
God have mercy!
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ReplyDeleteThanksa to all of you for reminding me why I stopped believeing in all this stone age nonsense years ago. (No offense to you John, you know I think you're a stand up guy.)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean that Jews are just like Nazis?
ReplyDeleteIf you take Viola Larson's reasoning to its logical conclusion it definitely means that. Jews, after all (using her own words) believe that "God, his redemption and/or his ontological being, is revealed in something besides Jesus Christ as he is found in the Holy Scriptures". So the inevitable conclusion from her own argument is that Judaism leads to evil like Nazism.
"So the inevitable conclusion from her own argument is that Judaism leads to evil like Nazism."
ReplyDeleteDUDE! DUDE!
(or um... Dudette ... sorry I don't know which is appropriate)
What part of "OK, I have to go throw up now" do you not understand?!?!
Srsly.
Alan, I understand perfectly. I think we need to call people on this kind of crap when they make such arguments. Let us expose this hate-filled propaganda for exactly what it is.
ReplyDelete"Let us expose this hate-filled propaganda"
ReplyDeleteNo, no, no, no, no, NO!
Clearly you haven't been listening.
Not hate filled. It's filled with big skooshy, squishy, happy, fluffy, cottony, sugary LOVE, covered with whipped cream and a cherry on top, with a cute little powder-puff tail and big floppy feet.
Not hate filled. It's filled with big skooshy, squishy, happy, fluffy, cottony, sugary LOVE, covered with whipped cream and a cherry on top, with a cute little powder-puff tail and big floppy feet.
ReplyDeleteLOL. Oh yeah. I forgot.
Viola wrote: Only God's revelation in Jesus Christ found in both the O.T. & N.T is truthful
ReplyDeleteThis is so conservative, so limited and so wrong. God's revelation is everywhere, all the time. It's in front of our face at this very moment, it's at the tips of our fingers and in the beat of our hearts. It's in the leaves of the trees and in the rush of the wind. It's in the voices of children and in the quiet snoring of the faithful dog lying next to me. God's revelation is always immediatey present. If we ignore God's relevation, or restrict our vision to the narrow confines Bible worship, we miss what God is speaking. Jesus knew this; in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says "Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." This is a long way from saying, "In the future I'll be revealed only in small books to be written 50 to 100 years after I die."
I love you all, yes all, but I gotta say hey to Monkey. Boy, I hear you my simian pal. There are more days than one that I would just as soon handle the whole business over to Vi, Deb, and Jim.
ReplyDeleteBut, yet I still think I am doing the Lord's work.
Hey, we gotta hit the streets again for some peacenikkin'. Snad's ready.
I would just like to point out that I never said that progressives were like Nazis (nor do I think that they are), so please try to read my comments more carefully, using your minds and not your emotions.
ReplyDeleteIt is unfortunate that very few people can understand analogy. When someone says that "A happens in a B way similarly to C happening in a D way" they don't mean that A is C and that B is D.
Debbie
I think Viola is either engaging in propaganda or is just simply flat out wrong to try to associate liberal theology with the acceptance of Nazism on the part of the German Lutheran Church in the 30’s.
ReplyDeleteI thought she was smarter. But she displays a total lack of knowledge of German culture and of the social economic and political events that led to the rise of Nazism and World War II. As it is, she has drawn the exact opposite of the conclusion she should have drawn.
The German culture was one of respect and admiration for autocratic authority. Their national identity was tied up in the “father-land”, with the head of the Nation as the ultimate authoritative father figure. It was all but unthinkable for Germans to go against what the Father, Leader, and Savior of the German people had to offer. He and the Nation and their family values were one and the same.
The Nazis abhorred the softness of feminine values in men. For them, the male must be the macho head of his household who makes the tough decisions and teaches his boys how to be tough and survive in a tough world. The woman was the nurturing one in the family. It was her duty to give birth, raise and nurture as many children as she could. The Nazis thought that (effeminate) gays, in their presumed denial of these male authoritarian values and in their obvious inability to carry out the female duties of giving birth, were aberrations of nature that ought to be eliminated.
This predisposition to accept the male authority of the State and of the Head of State is most similar today to what American Conservatives believe, not American Liberals as she tries to insinuate. It is the conservative who get hung up on the authority of Scripture, that authority of the confessions, and authoritative interpretations of authoritative edicts. It’s like they hate thinking for themselves and want to be told what to think.
It is the conservatives who accept without question the excuses that our President has given for invading and destroying another country. He is after all our Leader and “Decider” (by the way, the Latin word for Decider is Dictator). It is his job to make the tough decisions and we should follow him without question. It is the conservatives who believe in “law and order” and the authority of the State, even quoting the Bible to justify accepting the authority of our State as if it were run by the Decider of the Roman Empire in 50 AD and not a government by and for We-the-People.
The authors and proponents of the Barmen Declaration repudiated the authority of the State and of the Authority of the Head of State. They said that we the members of the Church should only be under the rule of Jesus Christ. And I agree.
Of course the authors of the Barmen Declaration based their position on the Scriptures, and rightly so. Dietrich Bohoffer, who was a pacifist, was able to go against what he believed to be a biblical mandate and fight against Hitler only by “sinning boldly”. Pacifism and the rejection of the authority of the State for the authority of Christ are deeply biblical principles. If the authors of the Barmen Declaration were living in America today, they would be rising up against the conservative Evangelicals and calling them to repentance and to a return to true biblical values instead of their right wing political agendas masquerading as Christian principles.
If full acceptance of homosexuals in the church is a sin (as if), then I too intend to sin boldly. The alternative bigotry and oppression of the Christian right wing reminds me too much of what Nazism became. But to try to turn Barmen upside down and make it look like the Confessing church of Germany would have supported America’s right wing Christianity is absurd. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I hope Viola puts here considerable writing skills to more honorable use.
It is unfortunate that very few people can understand analogy. When someone says that "A happens in a B way similarly to C happening in a D way" they don't mean that A is C and that B is D.
ReplyDeleteI understand her analogy perfectly well. She's not saying that progressivism causes Nazism, she's saying that progressivism leads to evils like Nazism. You seem to think that this distinction makes all the difference in the world, or you assume that we don't get the distinction. We in fact do. The distinction is meaningless.
So Debbie, if we're mischaracterizing the analogy, can you explain how the comparison between Jews and Nazis is flawed but the comparison between Christian progressives and Nazis is applicable?
ReplyDeleteYou know what I would say, :) ((Dr. Monkey.))) But, c'mon don't I have even a itsy bitsy chance at that pasta dinner??
ReplyDeleteAs I said then, one of the MANY things I find offensive about Viola's "comparison" is that it compares people who are homosexual and those who support them (and yes, it's about sex; she can't even make the "no, it's about the Bible" argument without bringing in sex) to Nazis.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's like comparing Jews to Nazis. Hitler went after, tortured and murdered gay people with the same zeal he did the Jews, as Jodie rightly points out.
If one were to compare Jews to Nazis, one would be immediately buried in an avalanche of hate mail from the American Jewish Committee and rightly so.
But it's perfectly OK to hate on the gays, 'cuz we're the last minority in the United States that's acceptable to hate. IN CHURCH, for crying out loud.
As I said then, one of the MANY things I find offensive about Viola's "comparison" is that it compares people who are homosexual and those who support them
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's another aspect of her whole "Nazi" argument that is so bizarre, and indeed offensive. The idea that a belief in greater inclusiveness, equality, and human rights can somehow be tied to the creation of a historical movement that believed in exclusion, inequality, and oppression, is yet another example of where Viola Larson's arguments take a strange, illogical, and ugly turn.