How to Support the IRD: All This Antagonism from the Reappraisers Must Mean Something Good!

What?  Those are all respectable people who hold respectable jobs and things.  And they seek to help keep churches focused as being churches representing Christ in the world?  Jack the Ripper and The Hillside Strangler are not on the board?  But, but I thought the IRD was evil incarnate.  Oh but then ECUSA does not believe there is a hell so how can there be evil?  Wait, does that mean ECUSA is wrong?  And people like Mr. Naughton and Terry Martin are just toeing the party line? 

Oh my.

I am, for instance, a Democrat who often, although not always, votes with my party, but also struggles with it for a host of reasons.

Hold on here ... this is going to destroy the vast right-wing conspiracy, who let a Democrat on board, this is going to undo everything ... 

Awesome group of people - and wow, even Democrats are included!  So much for the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.  But we always have our TinFoil Hats on just in case, especially when we drop by Jim N’s site from time and see the latest conspiracy.  At one time, we thought we could put the tinfoil hats away, but now we just keep them out, just in case.

And just to make sure the conspiracy is even more vast, our very first “job” at our very first General Convention (1994), was to make sandwiches for the IRD team in Indianapolis.  But of course, before the General Convention was over we were testifying at committees and drafting testimony and monitoring committees so the sandwich thing must have just been a cover.  Or the sandwiches weren’t that great. 

Seriously, though, Diane was my mentor and great friend.  Her work changed everything.  There are those who have to blame it on a conspiracy, but much of it was the tenacity of this amazing woman.  Even two days before she died she was full of it.  Gene Robinson was in Washington and had spoken somewhere and was on the cover of the Saturday edition of the Washington Times.  We were reading the article to her in the hospital and she sat up, listening intently and even then she was thinking how to respond, as though she would be writing a press release on Monday.  But she went home to glory instead.

At her funeral, we were challenged that it would take all of us working together to begin to accomplish what she could often accomplish alone or with her extraordinarily dedicated team.  That challenge continues - and obviously something must be happening here because every time our friends with whom we disagree begin to panic they pull out the TinFoil Hat Conspiracies. 

Alas, Ephraim Radner doesn’t fit the bill - looks like IRD is far more tolerant and inclusive than the Diocese of Washington.  And that’s something that even “Mr. Jones” will understand.

bb
BabyBlueOnline

ATTENTION!!  ATTENTION!! SOMEBODY

BIG NEWS FROM CAMP ALLEN< CHECK YOUR ENS MAIL>

Grannie Gloria

Grandmother is probably referring to this.

Responding to the recent Anglican Primates’ Communiqué, the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops, meeting March 20 in Navasota, Texas, expressed “an urgent need for us to meet face to face with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the members of the Primates’ Standing Committee.”

The request came as the second of three “mind of the house” resolutions adopted by the bishops on March 20. The resolutions were debated during the business session scheduled during the House of Bishops’ annual spring retreat meeting.

In the afternoon’s first resolution, addressed to the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council, the House of Bishops “affirms its desire that The Episcopal Church remain a part of the councils of the Anglican Communion” and “pledges itself to continue to work to find ways of meeting the pastoral concerns of the Primates that are compatible with our own polity and canons.”

Stating that “the meaning of the Preamble to the Constitution of The Episcopal Church is determined solely by the General Convention,” the resolution also declares that “the House of Bishops believes the Pastoral Scheme of the Dar es Salaam Communiqué of February 19, 2007 would be injurious to the polity of the Episcopal Church and urges that the Executive Council decline to participate in it.”

This is definitely the next-to-the-last-straw.

I’m with Gloria-why is no one posting this at any of the sites?

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_84148_ENG_HTM.htm

James Manley - Next to last straw?? I would think that the camel’s back was broken at least several straws ago. What more does the HOB need to say to makes things any clearer?

“And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do” (Ezr 10:10-12 ESV)

Regards, Conrad

After departing TEC last year, I have been wandering around to various faithful churches, and have been putting part of my usual contribuions there.  However, IRD and ACN have been my organizations of choice for contributions until the picture clears a bit.

Babyblue, its sad you lost such a good friend and mentor.  I am sorry.  Your love for her is moving.

Ephraim Radner is so cool.  He’s been trying to hang onto the vanishing center of TEC for years and will now attempt to do so in national politics.  The increase in ranker as reported by many politicians between opposing forces in our national bodies of governance is quite alarming and its trajectory makes us vulnerable to our enemies.

How right he is about this:

“IRD’s work in bringing attention to matters of religious freedom around the world, woefully and ignominiously ignored by American Christian denominations, has been a critically needed witness.”

How often do most people hear about persecution of Chrisitians in China, Pakistan, the middle east, south and southeast Asia, or religious warfare in Africa?  Even Bhutan and Tibet mistreat indigenous faiths.  It is a huge issue in international relations that seems to be increasingly subverted to any number of other concerns.

Sarah,

Thank you for the link to the IRD web site. I’m still lost, though. I have searched and searched, followed every link and read every page, but I still can’t find out how to join the Orthodox Conspiracy. What’s more, I want my share of the money they are paying conspirators.

I’m not greedy. I don’t want a ton of money. I’ll settle for, say, $1.00 for every post I make on a reappraiser’s blog. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

C’mon. Share the wealth. I think you’re holding out on us!

If for some reason I don’t qualify, can I at least get one of those boffo arm patches that says, “Honorable Coconspirator, I.R.D.”  You know, the one with the Jolly Roger wearing the Klan hood and has the swastika insignia below it? It’ll look great on a black cassock. Please? 

Seriously, there’s some good information here. I wonder why this thing has been so quiet? Well, if the reappraisers know about it, I guess it hasn’t been all that quiet, huh? Still, IRD looks like an ally we should have been working with, lo these many years.

Oh, uh, er… For the reappraisers reading this, my previous paragraph is entirely in code. It doesn’t mean that any of us orthodox are surprised to learn about the IRD. In fact, we established the IRD and they’re our puppets. The previous paragraph is a personal message for Sarah, written entirely in a new cipher developed by IRD in conjunction with the NSA. Don’t bother trying to break it as NSA says it will take 3 super-computers working full-time for 11 years to decipher what I wrote to Sarah. Oh, yes. And this paragraph is also an encoded message. It, too, doesn’t mean what it says. Or does it?

Blue Apples.

Maybe not so coincidently, a letter from the IRD is sitting on top of my mail pile. I first joined after hearing Diane Knippers speak at Plano. (She spoke twice: the first time about how TEC got into the mess it’s in, and the second very convincingly about the role of the laity in this battle.) I read both of her speeches from time to time so I won’t forget the simplicity and truth of her words. She and the IRD were perhaps the first to identify how TEC is now being run by socially conscious baby boomers who have embraced the culture we live in so completely that our Christian heritage has all but been tossed out. She also likened the disease she was fighting to an “affliction of unfaithfulness” in TEC. She ended her last talk with these words:

Brothers and sisters, we know that He is our sovereign Lord – and He holds our future in His hand.
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

Now that I’ve read the tributes from all of you—and especially from Baby Blue—I’m going to double what I had intended to give.

People died because of the actions of the IRD.  And you support this?

Let the blood of those innocent Baptist missionaries be on your heads, then.

I will not support unrepentant murderers.

FrJake . . . your reputation precedes you and all of us look with a jaundiced eye on any of your claims concerning pretty much anything at all.

Sources, please.

RE: “I will not support unrepentant murderers.”

I didn’t realize that you had stopped supporting abortion.

I have never supported abortion, and spoke out against the Ex. Council for supporting the HRHC.  You’re making assumptions.

The CEPAD affair is quite well known.  Fred Clark’s rendition is probably a good one to start:
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2003/11/ird_and_the_cep.html

Fr Jake, you seem to support TEC, TEC support “reproductive rights” which is the ‘right for a woman to chose’ to allow her child to be birthed or murdered while the child is still inside her, all in the name of it’s her body, but that child has a unique DNA even in the womb, thus could not possibly be her body.

QED - You support an organization that supports the slaughter of millions of God’s creation, some of whom might even could have grown up to agree with your positions. Thus “I will not support unrepentant murderers” may not be accurate in by the same measure.

Fr. Jake,

Planned Parenthood, a group which VGR supports, started as a eugenics scheme which directly inspired the Nazi population control schemes.

By your logic, is blood on VGR’s hands?

RE: “I have never supported abortion . . .”

It is sad that Father Jake responds with the usual sophistry of progressives who wish to obscure their support for progressive ideals when speaking to moderates and traditionalists.

Here is Father Jake’s position on abortion from 2004—“very few people are pro-abortion”:

“Is abortion abhorable? Yes. You’ll find very few people who are pro-abortion. But there are medical situations in which it must be considered an option. To outlaw it would also be abhorable, in my opinion.

Let’s repeat Father Jake’s points:

1) “I have never supported abortion.”

2) “Very few people are pro-abortion.”

3) To outlaw abortion would be “abhorable”.

This is simply classic obfuscation by a progressive, folks.  If you are asking questions of potential clergy for your parish or potential bishops for a diocese, know that this is the way that many progressives approach “communicating” with traditional conservative parishioners—a smirk, redefined words, and deceit about the person’s beliefs.

In the same string of comments, Father Jake goes on to compare the loss of lives in the Iraq war with the millions lost through abortion in the US.

And then he says this:

“I still see a clear parallel; actually, it seems to me that the innocent Iraqi civilians would be a higher priority as a “sanctity of life” issue, as they are living lives, while a fetus is a potential life (unless you claim to know at what moment “ensoulment” occurs within a fetus).

In short—apparently believing that someone would not check on what he actually believes—Father Jake used words to obscure what he actually believes about abortion.  He offers trumpet blasts about the evils of the IRD, then when confronted with abortion, writes DECEITFUL WORDS.

A tragic sophistic response, replete with cowardice and disdain.

This is a priest, friends, of the Episcopal church, behaving in Standard Operating Procedure. 

Know that every jot and tittle in your parish and bishop-search interviews must be nailed down, with follow-up questions to make certain they are not indulging in this sort of behavior—and even then they simply may lie to you.

I believe that Fr. Jake is against abortion, despite being in the Episcopal Church, just as I believe Ephraim Radner is against murder, despite being in the IRD.  That is the whole point.

To say that people in the IRD have “Blood on their hands” is illogical, as Fr. Jake himself demonstrated when he says he does not support abortion.

The CEPAD affair is quite well known.  Fred Clark’s rendition is probably a good one to start:

The link you provided doesn’t even claim that anyone from CEPAD was so much as shouted at, much less murdered, Jake.  Care to try again?

Sarah, before you go pulling any more snippets out of context and twisting them to mean what you want them to mean, how about reading what I have said in contenxt on the issue?

http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2005/02/abortion-debate.html

Or on the RCRC?
http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2006/01/episcopal-church-yoked-with-rcrc.html

I would normally expect an apology, but knowing the nature of this site, I won’t hold my breath. 

Jeffersonian, Fred says people were killed.  Read it again.

Look, if you are all fine with the IRD killing people, no problem.  But to try to shift things to abortion is weak, really weak.

From the link, in case you missed it:

...Only once did its influence have any significant real-world impact, and that ignoble incident became a black mark from which it took IRD years to recover. They got people killed…

I saw that, Jake, but I also saw a distinct lack of particulars.  Surely there are details about how many CEPAD members were killed, maimed, kidnapped, tortured, etc. by the Contras.  Do you have anything a bit more concrete than “they got people killed?” 

I’m certain we can come up with abortion statistics and the number of people that practice kills, a practice TEC fully supports, though you have no qualms about being associated with, and monetarily supporting them.

Every story about the “scandalous” CEPAD affair links to exactly this one tale by Clark.  I suspect that this has about the same credibility as the “polygamous bishops” legend.

RE:Look, if you are all fine with the IRD killing people, no problem.

Who are they killing?

You’ve stated publicly that you want to imprison the current IRD leadership, which some were in HS when these alleged events took place. So far my independent web search has only this article and several revisionist blogs that quote each other and this blog.  The one article you referenced itself a blog entry that cites no source.

Please give us a reference to Washington Post or New York Times piece, surely they’d be no lovers of the Reagan administration and written a critical article.

Now, with such weak scholarly evidence, I would normally expect an apology, but seeing the character demonstrated by your loose accusations and unethical demands of punishments of non-participants, I won’t hold my breath.

Now who is lying, Jeffersonian?

Or maybe you have never seen the many resolutions on abortion passed by TEC?

http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts/acts_resolution.pl?resolution=1994-A054

It speaks very clearly against abortion, except in “extreme situations,” which is my stance, and always has been.

Fr. Jake - while passing resolutions how many organizations does the church support which are aimed at providing abortions?

Well isn’t that a lovely sentiment?  Unfortunately, my mendacious minister, it also says this:

That this 71st General Convention of the Episcopal Church express its unequivocal opposition to any legislative, executive or judicial action on the part of local, state or national governments that abridges the right of a woman to reach an informed decision about the termination of pregnancy or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of acting on her decision.

In other words, while we think you ought to only have an abortion under certain circumstances, if you want to have one for any other reason, we’re not about to stand in your way.

This is the ‘church’ you support, Jake, a ‘chuch’ that demands that we just gasp and tut-tut the murder of millions of innocent babies.  It’s all yours, buddy.

Amen, Jeffersonian.

Jake -
I take exception with your posts - of course, that is not unusual.  You rant about the innocent Iraqi’s.  Could you rant a little about who is killing those innocent Iraqi’s?  Like other Iraqi’s or the Iranians or any number of other terrorists who are seeking to keep peace out of the Middle East at any cost?
And Sarah did an excellent job of giving the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of your post.  Just to give you the benefit of the doubt I went and read it.  She was right on the money.
Hosea is correct - give us facts not one rumor used to support another rumor.  This is smelling a LOT like the polygamous bishop lament.   If memory serves, you participated in spreading that little rumor.

Fr. Jake, considering the conclusion ECUSA reaches in the final resolve, along with its affiliation with the pro-abortion RCRC, the stance is not so clear.  Or would you support a resolution such as this?  After all, it even uses much of the same language as the one to which you linked.

“Resolved, that we regard the anti-homosexual legislation in Nigeria as having a tragic dimension, calling for the concern and compassion of all the Christian community, but we must take special care to see that the conscience of the Nigerian voter is respected, and that the responsibility of individuals to reach informed decisions in this matter is acknowledged and honored as the position of this Church.  We therefore unequivocally support Nigeria’s full freedom to pass laws as it sees fit.”

And while we’re at it, let’s see what TEC’s stand is on a particularly gruesome form of abortion:

In 1997, at the 72nd General Convention, the delegates approved a resolution that did not condemn partial-birth abortions but expressed grave concerns about the procedure, “except in extreme situtions.”

Apparently, the same sort of situations you can have just a regular abortion under.  What an enlightened organization you follow, Jake!

How could they not condemn partial birth abortions???  How could anyone fail to condemn the killing of a baby so close to birth? Don’t answer. It’s just typical of all TEC “stands” for now.

Phil, I predict Fr. Jake won’t respond to that one.

The issue here is Ratner’s affiliation to the IRD board.  It subsequently got sidetracked into an unproductive discussion of FrJake’s position on abortion.  In no way is such a discussion germain to the topic.  Perhaps the honest and rational approach would be to discuss whether or not it is wise for Ratner to serve on this board.

While I feel that most of the attacks on FrJake have been lacking in merit Fr. Jake has clearly instigated the attacks with the use of hyperbole and accusations.  He would do better to temper his style and present his arguments more cogently.  Unfortunately, even assuming he could do this, I anticipate two problems: unreliable facts and an equally ill tempered group of reasserters! Oy vey!

Is there any possibility we can expect that Fr. Jake might present cogent, well referenced primary sources for his allegations without the drama of his spin while at the same time expecting reasserters to engage in careful analysis of the facts and address these without feeling as if they or their loved one (in this case Rather) were being personally assaulted? 

Shared by one how’s personally carried out all of the above faux pas:)

I’m reminded of lawyers who:

When the facts are against them, they argue the law
When the law is against them, they argue the facts
When both are against them, they just argue endlessly, hoping to exhaust the opposition

Mmh. Maybe it’s germane to the subject to point out that the person in question is Ephraim Radner. And the thread is actually about how to support the IRD. Thanks for the info, Sarah.

I found a single reference to four people killed, in 1986, who were working with CEPAD in Nicaragua.  The citation does not say who killed them, it does not say why.  Yet, to believe Jake we have to assume that IRD fingered CEPAD as a communist front, that this accusation from a DC think tank was picked up by a bunch of guys squatting in a Central American jungle, and who proceeded to act unthinkingly on this accusation.  Connect the dots, man.

Oh, and we’re supposed to believe that IRD was supposed to know this would happen, thus placing direct culpability in their laps.

Through the looking glass we go…

Richardc:

I hear your point, but I’ve looked for something more independent but only found blogs quoting other blogs. Maybe we should give a little time for a creditable source - until then FrJake - you’re just noise, for you’ve produced a very serious accusation without evidence (I’m thinking something that would be acceptable to my professor, so far what you’ve produced would not pass the return accusation from ECUSA matter would as primary source).

Oscewicee,
Thanks for the typo correction.  As for the subject of the thread, not withstanding the title, clearly the substance of Sarah’s writing concerns the uproar regarding IRD and Radner’s service to the organization.

Okay Richardc, I hear you ... let me start over ...

He’s a Democrat, he’s going to destroy the vast right-wing conspiracy, this is going to undo everything !!!.

RE: “Sarah, before you go pulling any more snippets out of context and twisting them to mean what you want them to mean, how about reading what I have said in contenxt on the issue?”

LOL.  Better yet—how about *everyone* go right over to the link where your comments were made, and *everyone* can read your comments about abortion which clearly describe your position.

http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2004/12/get-realget-christian.html

And . . . I note that you sent people to other links but not the one from whose comments I directly commented.

; > )

PS: Nice faux outrage, by the way.

I note, again, that Father Jake claims not to “support abortion”, I point out that he also has stated that “very few people are pro-abortion”, that outlawing abortion would be “abhorable”, that a fetus is only a “potential life”, and that the death of Iraqi civilians “would be a higher priority” . . . and then Father Jake announces he’s owed an apology.  ; > )

The brass of that—even from an Episcopal priest—is pretty breathtaking, and I think points to another SOP of many progressives—when caught, proclaim your *outrage*.

It’s a nice touch, I think.

Whoooeee, not a lot of love for the ignorant, dusky heathen over at Jake’s is there?  At least not those that disagree with the latest zeitgeist and thus, Jake’s flock’s officially-approved double-plus-good thoughts.  Good thing we have our melanin-deficient friends to set the savages straight, eh?

And where has Jake gone all of a sudden?  Hello…is this thing on?...