Soon to be followed by the Christian consensus on relations with animals?

I wonder if this will cause the same rift in the ELCA it has cause in the Episcopalians?

Dave, the Lutherans can't afford it, and they know it. They're just too small a denomination. If they split, they'll all just fade away.

They went through this same "sexuality study" rigamarole five years or so ago, and after lots of input and studies and arguing, they decided to table it. My bet is they'll do the same thing this time.

Are these the real issues of the day, or rather might it be better to ask why, via the Institute on Religion and Democracy, that the "cloak" of Christianity was allowed to be wrapped around right-wing death squads?

Soon to be followed by the Christian consensus on relations with animals?

I'm concerned at the logic that makes the jump from consenting people to animals. It certainly seems like a bit of protesting too much.

Foltz-- I agree sincerely and wholeheartedly.

But then again, if you would have asked me Sunday about humans marrying robots, I would have given the same response. Then, this news came out on Monday...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301717,00.html

(with eyes rolled and tongue in cheek)

I wonder if Touring ever consider that as part of his tests.

The "evolution" in the Christian consensus concerning divorce or contraception would be instructive? The logic? The slippery slope has its own logic. On what basis might the above Christians make differences, consensually, of course, between consenting adult humans and sheep, dogs, cats, cows or horses? In the recent SC decisions on these sorts of matters I didn't notice any supportable bright lines. But, perhaps others with better discernment can?

But, perhaps others with better discernment can?

Capacity to consent comes to mind.

Dave, the Lutherans can't afford it, and they know it. They're just too small a denomination. If they split, they'll all just fade away.

The word "afford" is very apt. After all, why would the church want to give up its power and influence just to prove a theological point?

Joel,
that the "cloak" of Christianity was allowed to be wrapped around right-wing death squads?

I do not know much about the Institute of Religion and Democracy, but I was unaware of church-blessed paramilitary action in the USA.

Dave S

I do not know much about the Institute of Religion and Democracy, but I was unaware of church-blessed paramilitary action in the USA.

The IRD didn't bless paramilitary action in the USA, it blessed it in Honduras, advocating strongly on behalf of Reagan's Central America policy, with seed money for the group coming largely from Richard M. Scaife. Honduras was the staging ground for our covert war against the Nicaraguan regime, and Battalion 316, a unit of the Honduran military, was responsible for the deaths of U.S. missionaries and hundreds of others who were suspected of opposing the government there. Battalion 316 was trained by and received support from the C.I.A.

Ah, the capacity to consent, excellent work, Wormwood,( C.S. Lewis addendum to Screwtape Letters). Once we corrupt the will (that accursed free will)we are well on the way to feasting....

Battalion 316, sounds eerily similar to John 3:16. John, could we get some documentation on this massacre of Christian missionaries? Not that I doubt it, but rather am fully willing to change my opinion of the IRD should it be true.

Seth,

Battalion 316, sounds eerily similar to John 3:16. John, could we get some documentation on this massacre of Christian missionaries? Not that I doubt it, but rather am fully willing to change my opinion of the IRD should it be true.

There's rather a lot of documentation I'm afraid.

First, here's something from the National Catholic Reporter:

http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives/032103/032103h.htm

The Village Voice:
http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/2004/10/protesters_of_t.php

From the Baltimore Sun:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-negroponte1a,0,1240201.story?page=2

And finally, the Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FG01Ak02.html

Excerpted from the Asia Times, article by Jim Lobe:
"A special intelligence unit of the Honduran Armed Forces, called Battalion 316, was put together by Alvarez and supplied and trained by the CIA and the Argentines. It was a death squad that kidnapped and tortured hundreds of real or suspected "subversives", "disappeared" at least 180 of them - including US missionaries - during Negroponte's tenure. Such activities were previously unknown in Honduras. "

John, where is the documentation of an IRD connection?

Here are some links, Seth

"In the early years of the Reagan administration the IRD worked closely with the State Department, providing speakers for briefings and turning out articles and papers that supported the administration's policies on El Salvador and Nicaragua. It also launched a "smear campaign" against mainline Protestant leaders, particularly those who showed support for the Nicaraguan revolution.

Groups opposing contra aid or working for changes in U.S. policy toward El Salvador were smeared with the "religious persection theme" (the guerrillas are communists; communists persecute Christians) regularly painted on leftist groups by the Right."

(43) (Penny Lernoux, People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism (New York, NY: Viking Press, 1989).

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/groupwatch/ird.php

"During the 1980s, IRD's Diane Knippers became the source for attacks on the Nicaraguan Council of Protestant Churches (Consejo de Iglesias Pro-Alianza Denominacional, or CEPAD), a disaster relief organization that had operated in Nicaragua since the country suffered a devastating earthquake in 1972 and continued to work there during the country's contra war of the 1980s. "CEPAD ran a network of medical clinics for the poor, as well as a successful literacy campaign, recalls Fred Clark, who was acquainted with CEPAD through his work with a US-based group called Evangelicals for Social Action. "That literacy work had won the admiration and support of Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, and his Sandinista regime. Ortega's praise of CEPAD gave Knippers what she saw as an opening. The evangelical churches were not supporters of the Sandinistas, but Knippers portrayed CEPAD -- and therefore the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society -- as 'guilty' by association. She wrote of CEPAD as a communist front, part of a supposed Soviet beachhead in Nicaragua. No one in this country paid much attention, but the contras did. CEPAD's clinics became targets for their paramilitary terrorists. Knippers had placed evangelical missionaries - doctors and nurses - and the poor people they served in the crosshairs of terrorists." (My emphasis)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_on_Religion_and_Democracy

"In the 1980s, Central American theologians urgently described the "religious and theological war" being waged by a global empire eager to dress its war against the poor in the array of imperial theology ( Kairos Central America , 1988). That war was not just ideological, of course: the U.S. Army School of the Americas had trained, armed, and given at least tacit encouragement to the assassins of Romero, the Jesuits, and thousands of other, less renowned victims (though the facts were strongly denied by President George H. W. Bush and his Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney).

But the war was ideological. While more liberal Christian denominations prepared cautious studies on biblical interpretation and fretted over procedures for maintaining ìthe bonds of loveî within their churches, the well-funded Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) mounted aggressive campaigns to pressure moderate and liberal theologians out of their jobs in churches and seminaries, and to smear the World Council of Churches as a front for global Communism. Oliver North gathered an enthusiastic network of right-wing evangelists to promote White House policy and provide "aid and comfort" – including gunrunning – to the terrorist contra army in Honduras. The Justice Department moved swiftly to prosecute U.S. Christians who dared to offer sanctuary to refugees fleeing the wars in Central America, or to protest the School of the Americas. "

http://www.thewitness.org/agw/elliott120204.html

"More recently, the Reagan administration has sharp-ened its attack on progressive elements of the church, both at home and abroad. The Santa Fe Report, prepared for the Council for Inter-American Security and presented in 1980 to the Republican Platform Committee by a team of ultraconservative advisors, states that "U.S. foreign policy must begin to counter (not react against) liberation theology as it is utilized in Latin America by the 'liberation theology' clergy." In order to garner support for this policy, the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), an interdenominational organization, was established in 1981 with funding from right-wing institutions, including the Smith 'Richardson and Sarah Scaife foundations, both of which have served as CIA financial conduits. The IRD unleashed a propaganda drive against church activists at the forefront of domestic opposition to U.S. aid to the government of El Salvador and other repressive regimes in Latin America. The IRD campaign has been highly successful, even reaching the pages of Reader's Digest, from where it was picked up by 60 Minutes."

http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:P5QMYQOdTIEJ:www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1983/07/willbedone.html+Penny+Lernoux,+Institute+on+Religion+and+Democracy,+reagan,+central+america&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&ie=UTF-8

That the IRD was founded as a counter to the NCC and WCC is nothing new, nor its funding sources in the early 1980s. Neither is the tale that IRD was simply the Reagan's theological front to liberation theology and its political implications. I've discussed this at length with both RJ Neuhaus and J Budziszewski, both of whom deny the charge (then again they're probably lying, as do all orthodox these days). The only link that speaks directly to the IRD's bloody hand is sourcewatch, which is about as credible as, well, sourcewatch; why emphasize your point only here - simply edit the page at sourcewatch. This said, we might as well throw the Vatican in the mix, if opposition to Romero's gang in Central America makes one guilty of support paramilitary regimes. Nevertheless, I will study this further with the hope of discovering the full extent of IRD's involvement.

Seth

Here's the CEPAD/IRD story from Fred Clark.

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2003/11/ird_and_the_cep.html

You can email him, the link is all the way at the bottom right of the page.

Ah, the capacity to consent, excellent work, Wormwood,( C.S. Lewis addendum to Screwtape Letters). Once we corrupt the will (that accursed free will)we are well on the way to feasting....

Yes, while the C.S. Lewis reference is cute, again I reiterate my concern that your and others logic jumps imediately from two consenting, sentient adults to one sentient adult and a member of another species.