Special Report
"Follow the Money"
Documenting the Right's Well-Heeled Assault on the UMC
-Andrew J. Weaver and Nicole Seibert
Six months ago, we reviewed in these pages an unsettling book titled United Methodism @ Risk: A Wake Up Call by Leon Howell (see Zion's Herald, July/August 2003). The book exposes an orchestrated attack by the American political and religious right on The United Methodist Church (UMC) and other mainline Protestant denominations that have been sufficiently vigorous, socially involved and politically effective to garner its wrath (Howell, 2003).
In response to the ensuing criticism of the book and our review, we organized a group of researchers to check the facts and found the volume to be well documented and reliable. In the process, we also reviewed hundreds of documents published by the key organization involved in the assault on the church, namely, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). Our findings as outlined below are very disturbing.
The IRD is affiliated with no denomination and is only accountable to its own self-appointed, self-perpetuating board of directors. According to public sources, the IRD focuses its principal expenditures and most of its efforts on The United Methodist Church. In 2001, it spent $358,667 (46 percent of its total program expenditures) on "monitoring" the UMC's activities, leadership and public policy statements. In 1999, it spent $337,636 for the same purpose - more than six times what it spent on its "religious liberty" program that it declares in IRS documents to be its primary purpose (GuideStar, 2002).
From its inception in 1982, IRD has been generously funded primarily by ultra-conservative organizations (Media Transparency, 2003). Records show that since it was founded, the IRD has received more than $1.9 million from the Scaife foundations, including an initial start-up grant of $200,000 (The Public Eye, 1989). The Scaife Family Foundations, managed by Richard Mellon Scaife, gave $225,000 to the IRD in 2002 for its "Reforming America's Churches Project" - among whose stated goals is the elimination of the UMC's General Board of Church and Society, the church's voice for justice and peace, as well as discrediting UMC pastors and bishops with whom they disagree by instigating church trials (Information Project for United Methodists, 2003). With respect to church trials, the IRD states the following in a fund-raising document to donors: "Over the next three years, we expect involvement in at least a dozen different cases around the country" (Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2001a).
The significance of the Scaife family's support of the IRD is best understood in the context of their foundations' overall pattern of funding. Richard Mellon Scaife, who controls the foundations' funds, is a billionaire who has subsidized many of the political right's formative institutions and organizations during the past 30 years (Rothmyer, 2000). His wealth was inherited from the Mellon banking and oil fortune.
In 1999 equivalent dollars, the Washington Post calculated that Mr. Scaife gave to conservative causes and institutions some $620 million during that 30-year period (Kaiser & Chinoy, 1999). In the 1990s, Mr. Scaife supported groups with millions of dollars to fund lawsuits against the Clinton administration on a multitude of issues. In a revealing interview in 1999 with John F. Kennedy, Jr., in George Magazine, Mr. Scaife claimed that the Clintons were involved in the deaths of 60 friends and employees - bizarre accusations that have never been taken seriously in a court of law nor been shown to have a basis in fact (Kennedy, 1999).
The Scaife family, however, is not alone in funding the IRD. California-based Fieldstead and Company is the conduit for the interests of Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, whose father amassed a fortune in the savings-and-loan industry. Howard Ahmanson and his wife, Roberta, who serves on the IRD board of directors, have been key supporters of Chalcedon Inc., the Christian Reconstructionist think tank where Howard Ahmanson served on the board of directors for 23 years (Olsen, 1998). Christian Reconstructionism is a hard-line Calvinist movement that advocates replacing American democracy with a fundamentalist theocracy under strict biblical codes. For example, they would impose the death penalty "by stoning" on everyone from adulterers and homosexuals to incorrigible children and those who spread "false" religions (Robinson, 2002). Ahmanson gave IRD $58,960 in 1991 and $234,135 in 1992 (Howell, 1995) and according to an IRD disclosure recently made to the Washington Post, Ahmanson continues to give on average $75,000 a year (Cooperman, 2003).
Other IRD funding sources include the John M. Olin Foundation, whose namesake manufactured Winchester rifles; Olin has backed the IRD in the amount of $489,000 "to counter the political influence of the Religious Left." The Castle Rock Foundation, created by the Adolph Coors family in 1993, gave $90,000 to IRD to "challenge the orthodoxy promoted by liberal religious leaders in the U.S." The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, funded by a family with ties to the ultra-conservative John Birch Society, gave $1.5 million between 1985 and 2001 to IRD efforts (Media Transparency, 2003). The Bradley Foundation's stated objective is to return the U.S. to the days before government regulated business and corporations were required to negotiate with labor unions (Media Transparency, 2003).
How significant is the relationship between the IRD and this secular-funding base? Between 1985-2002, the IRD ranked 81st in money received on a list of 2609 recipients of funding from right-wing organizations (Media Transparency, 2003). The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy published a report in 1997 showing how a dozen foundations have prevailed in shaping public policy. It found that the organizations that fund the IRD (and a few others) diverge in their practices from the generally accepted social and ethical norms of the philanthropic sector (National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, 1997). According to this report, the IRD-supporting foundations' agendas include the aggressive furthering of public policy that favors the wealthy and the use of government power to support corporate interests and laissez-faire capitalism (Media Transparency, 2003).
What does this all mean? At the very least, we can say that the IRD, by uncritically accepting funds from such organizations, tacitly approves of their agendas. Conversely, it would appear obvious that the IRD would not receive funding from such groups were it opposed to their objectives.
The IRD's stated goals, which consistently are at odds with the historic social witness of the mainline churches, include increasing military spending, opposing environmental protection efforts and eliminating social welfare programs (Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2001a). In this respect, it can be said that the IRD and its wealthy patrons are intent on derailing if not outright controlling the UMC's social witness. If that sounds implausible, one need only consider how right-wing groups during the last decade have done that and more in their take-over of the Southern Baptist Convention.
How do they operate in pursuit of their goals? The IRD's modus operandi is to vilify and ridicule UMC officials, organizations and programs that do not reflect its views. For example, in March of 2001, the IRD demonstrated utter contempt for United Methodist bishops in an assault on their collective judgment and integrity; this was published on the Good News Web site under the title, "The Methodist President and His Bishops" (Tooley, 2001a). Mark Tooley, executive director of IRD's United Methodist monitoring program, a former CIA analyst and a board member of Good News, called the bishops en masse "fatuous" and "pompous." According to Mr. Tooley, "statements from United Methodist bishops are often inarticulate and sometimes downright nonsensical." He was particularly agitated by their unanimous vote questioning the proposed expenditure of tens of billions of dollars by the Bush Administration on a "Star Wars" missile defense system that is without proven scientific merit (PBS, 2003). He also was scornful of the bishops when they expressed concern for "children and the poor," who, according to the bishops, are being impoverished as a result of excessive military expenditures (Tooley, 2001a).
The IRD hardly has a good word to say about any United Methodist leaders. For example, when Duke University adopted a policy (supported by both North Carolina bishops) that students and their families could use the university chapel for same-sex blessings by churches that permit them, Mr. Tooley and the IRD unleashed an attack on the Rev. Dr. William Willimon (Willimon, 2001). Dr. Willimon is the Dean of the Chapel at Duke and a widely respected leader within the UMC community and beyond. When he contacted the IRD to report that he and his secretary were receiving hate mail and pornographic materials in the name of the IRD's protest, Mr. Tooley wrote back saying, "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen." Mr. Tooley stated that he had no interest in talking further with Dr. Willimon until he resigned from Duke (Willimon, 2003).
Dr. Willimon is in good company. IRD has attacked, among others, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, the evangelical leader Dr. Tony Campolo, the National Council of Catholic Bishops, the UMC's Igniting Ministry public relations campaign (Bowdon, 2001), the UMC's newest hymnal (McIntyre, 2001) and numerous other distinguished Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders and programs (United Methodists Affirming Christ's Teachings in our Nation, 2003; UM Action, 2000).
There's more. For example, when the Interfaith Alliance was formed during the 1990s as a progressive multi-faith group to counter the bullying of the Christian Coalition and others on the religious right, Mr. Tooley took exception. He was upset that prominent and respected Americans like Walter Cronkite were trying to help the multi-faith group (Neuhaus, 1997). Perhaps harking back to his cold-warrior days in the CIA, Mr. Tooley likened several Christian and Jewish leaders to communist stooges: "The Interfaith Alliance's board is about as diverse as a Soviet politburo during the empire's final, geriatric years. Yes, some were bald, others had bushy eyebrows. Some came from Leningrad, others from Minsk. Some were septuagenarians, others were octogenarians ยบ There are two Catholic bishops from the church's left-fringe. Three liberal rabbis. And several Black denominational leaders who shun the social conservatism typical of most black churches" (Neuhaus, 1997).
Of course, he is belittling some of the most eminent religious leaders in America who serve on the Interfaith Alliance Board, including Rabbi David Gelfand, Senior Rabbi at The Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton, New York; Rev. Gardner C. Taylor, Pastor Emeritus of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, and past president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention; and Dr. J. Philip Wogaman, former Dean of Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C. and retired Senior Minister of Foundry UMC in the nation's capitol (The Interfaith Alliance, 2003).
Mr. Tooley is not alone, however. Diane Knippers, formerly a United Methodist, is now a member of the Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia (along with Colonel Oliver North) and heads up the IRD. Ms. Knippers recently made the claim in The United Methodist Reporter that "The fact is that the IRD rarely takes any kind of political position" (Smith, 2002). Nothing could be further from the truth. It would be difficult to find a right-wing Republican position that IRD has not rallied behind with gusto. We documented several dozen examples. Following are only a few.
The IRD has pressed the Bush administration to take a harder line on North Korea (Goodenough, 2003) and vigorously supported Republican tax cuts for the rich (Tooley, 2001b, c). Mr. Tooley's direct board of directors supervisor, David Stanley, is the chairman of a radical anti-tax group (Clark, 1999) that advocates the slashing of government services for the poor and disabled and huge tax cuts for the wealthy (Neas, 2003). The IRD opposes even limited environmental protection efforts and has collaborated with other like-minded folks to try to roll back protections now in place (Interfaith Coalition for Environmental Stewardship, 2003; Public Eye, 2003; Sider & Ball, 2002; Tooley, 2002). The IRD, particularly Ms. Knippers, has been vocal in opposition to any form of hate crime legislation (Jones, 2000). It has expressed opposition to a land mines treaty (Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2001b) and to women even having knowledge about reproductive choices (Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2001c).
