The Institute on Religion & Democracy is a faith-based alliance of Christians. Thank you for visiting!
We keep our readers in touch with the issues and our activities via www.TheIRD.org and Faith & Freedom, our quarterly magazine. In resources mailed to homes around the country, we address the issues from just war to denominational politics to same-sex marriage to immigration.
Operating as usual
01/13/2023
If non-liberals choose to remain within a rapidly liberalizing United Methodist Church, what sort of treatment can they expect?
A United Methodist Pact of Umar? The future for non-liberal United Methodists is suggested by the medieval Pact of Umar for subjugating Christians to Islamic rule.
01/12/2023
Much of the news coverage of the death of Pope Benedict XVI focused on his historic 2013 decision to step down from the papal office, but his legacy goes beyond that decision.
Pope Benedict's Unexpected Legacy for Protestants Benedict wrote in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est that, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but an encounter with an event, a person.” For him, that event was transformative.
01/11/2023
For Western Christians, attempting to identify and make sense of the tapestry of Eastern Christianity can be an onerous undertaking. Yet, understanding Eastern Christianity is critical if we hope to understand our roots as Western Christians.
Who are the Middle Eastern Christians? - A Simple Guide for the Western Church Understanding Eastern Christianity is critical if we hope to understand our roots as Western Christians.
01/10/2023
On New Year’s Eve, the state of New York joined five other states in legalizing human composting. Sarah Stewart writes that this new manner of burial is being championed by environmental supporters, but it is also symptomatic of a culture that fails to properly value human beings and resists the need to contemplate the nature of mortality.
The Incarnation and the Value of the Human Body Human composting is symptomatic of a culture that fails to properly value human beings and resists the need to contemplate the nature of mortality.
01/10/2023
We’re starting New Whiggery fellowship Jan 24 for DC young professionals interested in classical liberty led by scholars Erik Matson of George Mason University and Mercatus Center & Sam Goldman of George Washington University. Meets thrice monthly. Apply now!
The New Whiggery - The Institute on Religion and Democracy The New Whiggery exists to promote the best of the American constitutional tradition and to evaluate political decisions in light of history, first principles, prudence, and a moral framework grounded in natural law.
01/09/2023
Non-denominational Christians are now the largest non-Catholic religious group in America and nearly all growing U.S. congregations are non-denominational, writes IRD President Mark Tooley. What is the impact on American society?
Post-Denominational America Christians no longer look to centralized structures and prominent church leaders for guidance for societal guidance, if they ever really did.
01/07/2023
Any congregation considering staying United Methodist has a stewardship obligation both to understand that this is a major, permanent financial commitment and to examine the many controversial and questionable things for which high United Methodist apportionments force you to fund, writes UM Action Director John Lomperis.
United Methodist Apportionments: A High Price of Staying UMC A comprehensive explanation of all that is funded by United Methodist apportionments, which are much higher than necessary.
01/06/2023
American congregations considering disaffiliation from the United Methodist Church are understandably concerned about significant exit fees. Congregations should also factor in the costs of choosing to stay United Methodist, writes John Lomperis.
Global Methodist Connectional Funding: A Less-Burdensome Alternative for Denominational Support Global Methodist connectional funding offers much less burdensome denominational funding for congregations who disaffiliate from the UMC.
01/05/2023
An ideologically diverse group of United Methodist Church leaders crafted a plan for an amicable divorce in 2020, to be approved a the General Conference assembly later that year. "But then COVID arrived, and the convention was postponed three times, to 2024," IRD President Mark Tooley says in The Week. Those delays "left many traditionalists feeling betrayed and exasperated."
The breakup of the United Methodist Church By the end of 2023, the United Methodist Church will be significantly less united. Here's why.
01/04/2023
Many churches feel threatened by the financial implications of disaffiliation from the United Methodist Church. However, when bishops follow the discipline language faithfully, the cost of disaffiliation with taking a loan and moving to the Global Methodist Church is the same as staying in the UMC and paying annual apportionments, writes Richard Hoffman in our Methodist Voices series.
How to Exit United Methodism Many have been harmed by a woke ideology embraced by the United Methodist Church. The first thing is to protect your local church.
01/03/2023
Pure self-assertion simply does not lead anywhere.
LGB vs. T: Self-Determination Collides with the Need for Common Understandings Where the imperative of liberation is raised above reason, experience, divine revelation and tradition, there is no way to judge between competing claims.
12/30/2022
Contrary to many of today's assumptions, nobody is beyond redemption.
Redemption in "Remember the Night" No one is beyond redemption.
12/29/2022
United Methodism's North Georgia bishop et al stop the voting for church exits because they didn't like the results. Is it because closing & selling churches amid collapsing finances is a moneymaker?
Methodism’s Georgia Captivity? Their action resembles a Third World dictatorship that, having called an election, realizes the results will not be favorable, and cancels the voting.
12/26/2022
Can Catholics be Christian Nationalists?
Is the National Interest Worth Pursuing? Scholars at an Institute for Human Ecology event reflect on the relationship between Catholicism and nationalism.
12/26/2022
As international bodies like the EU seem to set themselves up almost deliberately as an enemy to the Church’s cause, are they driving conservatives toward nationalism?
Is the National Interest Worth Pursuing? Scholars at an Institute for Human Ecology event reflect on the relationship between Catholicism and nationalism.
12/23/2022
Lessons & warnings from The Crown about modern marriage:
The Crown and Modern Marriage An analysis of The Crown's fifth season, noting the ill effects of modernization on both the British monarchy and marriage as an institution.
12/22/2022
What is Anglican political theology?
Anglicanism in the Public Square - Part 5 The last of five sessions of the John Wesley Institute's 2022 Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference.
12/21/2022
The fourth session of IRD's Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference featured Professor Oliver O’Donovan of the University of Edinburgh, whose talk, “Political Community in Prayer,” locates an Anglican political theology in the Book of Common Prayer, paying particular attention to the 1549 and 1552 versions of the collect for the monarch.
Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference - Part 4 The fourth of five sessions of the Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference, featuring Oliver O'Donovan.
12/20/2022
It is good to remind ourselves at Christmas of the eternal truths for which we contend, and why the demands of today’s cultural revolutionaries simply cannot be complied with.
Revisiting Following Christ in the Future Reminding ourselves of our responsibility to obey God according to the truth he has revealed is important at Christmas, as is our confidence that on some day, God will make all things right.
12/19/2022
Just days ago, former Libyan intelligence operative Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi (Mas’ud), age 71, appeared in U.S. District Court on federal charges of destroying Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. Families of Mas’ud’s victims were in the courtroom to confront him for the first time.
God’s Justice & Lockerbie Bombing God’s justice doesn’t sleep forever, writes IRD President Mark Tooley about the prosecution of an agent of Libyan dictator Muamar Qaddafi.
12/17/2022
Gospel Coalition editor Collin Hansen discusses his new spiritual biography of famed New York church planter Tim Keller.
Collin Hansen on Tim Keller The growth of urban evangelical Christianity owes a lot to Tim Keller.
12/16/2022
For many families, it has become a tradition at Christmas time to watch Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, but before that film came to theaters, Capra directed another movie about a man contemplating su***de at Christmas time.
Inviting a New Audience to ‘Meet John Doe' Meet John Doe has a valuable lesson: the answer to social ills is not found in the intervention of government but in neighbors caring for one another.
12/15/2022
The United Methodist Church split was the topic of a recent extended interview hosted by a Charlotte National Public Radio station.
Prominent Southern Theologian, Pastor Misrepresent United Methodist Division Meet the new UMC mainstream: Prominent theologian and megachurch pastor, both in the South, misrepresent United Methodist division.
12/14/2022
Athanasius was at the center of the great debate that led the Church to clarify its message about Jesus of Nazareth. At the heart of the debate was the question, “Who is Jesus?”
Who is Jesus? What does it mean for Jesus to be Jesus? What do Scripture and tradition teach about the person of Christ?
12/14/2022
The new United Methodist Church unveiled at the November jurisdictional conferences is a denomination of increasingly bold liberalism—on far more than just gay weddings—and pointed intolerance of insufficiently “woke” moderates and conservatives.
Jurisdictional Conferences Redefine United Methodist Church Recent jurisdictional conferences have effectively redefined the United Methodist Church, on more issues than just homosexuality.
12/13/2022
Free speech, including speech a few or many people find offensive, has been strongly protected by the courts.
The Tyranny of Self-Definition Runs into a Free Speech Wall People simply cannot have what they want because of self-defined status. Recognizing this in the case of speech is a very important step in the restoration of personal freedom against the latest whims of the cultural revolutionaries.
12/12/2022
American United Methodism adopts very liberal policies, refuses to include even "compatibilist" traditionalists in leadership, and conveys ominous threats against any conservative congregation hoping to be left alone.
United Methodist Church Is NOT a “Big Tent” The United Methodist Church is no longer a "big tent" that genuinely seeks to include non-liberals, despite earlier promises.
12/09/2022
Feminist theology Christ’s atonement was distracting “weird stuff.” But millions of Christians in all cultures and times, unencumbered by an education at Union Seminary in New York, intuitively understand there is great power in His blood.
Death of Radical Feminist Theology Millions of Christians in all cultures and times intuitively understand there is great power in His blood.
12/09/2022
IRD President Mark Tooley chats with Jason Vickers about his move to Baylor’s Truett Seminary to chair its Methodist studies program.
Methodism at Baptist Baylor University Truett Theological Seminary will become a place for Methodist seminarians to study.
12/08/2022
Inside the United Methodist lengthy, LGBTQ-affirming ideological re-education session. This actually happened in a historically more moderate jurisdiction. Expect more to come.
United Methodist LGBTQ Re-Education The United Methodist LGBTQ ideological re-education, to which jurisdictional conference participants were subjected, shows UMC's future.
12/08/2022
Brad Littlejohn recently argued for the necessity of the Church in shaping the public, without it becoming subservient to the state or needlessly illiberal.
Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference - Part 3 The second of five sessions of the Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference, hosted by the John Wesley Institute.
12/06/2022
Cuba and Nicaragua have been added to U.S. State Department list of egregious religious freedom violators, but Scott Morgan reports that there are glaring omissions.
Mixed Bag as State Adds Cuba, Nicaragua, Excludes Nigeria, India from Watch Lists There are glaring omissions in this year's State Department watch lists of religious freedom violators, writes Scott Morgan.
12/05/2022
Patrick Schreiner, Professor of Biblical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, discusses his new book “Political Gospel: Public Witness in a Politically Crazy World.”
Political Gospel The most politically active thing you can do as a Christian is to be a part of your local church.
12/02/2022
How did Anglican conceptions of the state shape English Canada differently than they did the United States?
Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference - Part 2 The second of five sessions of the Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference, hosted by the John Wesley Institute.
12/02/2022
United Methodist agencies are preparing for a 38 percent drop in funding for 2025-2028, which implies an approximate expected membership loss of 2.3 million members from the nearly 6.3 million the denomination had in the United States in 2020. That is not a minor exodus.
There Go the Churches Loyalties to denominations that once persisted across generations are suddenly ending, writes IRD President Mark Tooley.
12/01/2022
Is there really "a blood red thread" that connects the Club Q massacre to official United Methodist disapproval of homosexual practice, as two liberal bishops allege?
Bishops Link United Methodism, Disaffiliations, Club Q Murders Liberal bishops' outrageous rhetoric linking conservative United Methodists and the Club Q mass murders may help explain their motivations.
John Wesley Institute Director Ryan Danker leads IRD’s Wednesday Worship with an Advent sermon message.
11/30/2022
IRD's Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference brought together a group of scholars of various nationalities and Anglican denominations to delineate a coherent political theology in light of the broader Anglican movement’s historical, theological, and ethical principles.
Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference - Part 1 The first of five sessions of the Anglicanism in the Public Square Conference, hosted by the John Wesley Institute.
11/28/2022
The pending same-sex marriage act is more than a bill to establish at a statutory level what the Supreme Court decreed as constitutional law. It could be appealed to as national policy with real consequences for religious or other objectors to same-sex marriage.
The Same-Sex Marriage Bill: a Deceptive Claim of Protection for Religious Freedom All that is secured is protection against adverse action because of refusal to solemnize same-sex marriage, not refusal to recognize it.
11/26/2022
God is blessing & judging America.
Divine Blessings & Judgment Our prayer for 2023 and beyond should be for a grateful and penitent America.
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