You wouldn't know it to read the mainstream media, (or to listen to those who wring their hands over the alleged efforts by as yet unnamed secularists to drive also unnamed people of faith from public life) that the rightist Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), the inside the beltway, neoconservative agency has waged a war of attrition against the historic mainline protestant churches in the U.S. You wouldn't know about the ways the agency and its satellite groups have spent millions of dollars to destablize and even dismember these churches like they were a third world country whose government was disliked by the United States. You wouldn't know that the group has been bankrolled by the leading strategic funders of the conservative movement and the religious right such as Richard Mellon Scaife and Howard Ahmanson, and cheer-led by The Washington Times newspaper, which is owned, controlled and bankrolled by the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

So when there is news about the IRD, the slant on the story can be most peculiar. Today was no exception.

Once upon a time, the member denominations of the National Council of Churches maintained a vigorous social witness. That's what such mainline Protestants as the Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, the Methodists, and the Episcopals called their stands for social justice including such things as civil rights for African Americans, equality for women -- including ordination, and opposition to the excesses of American foreign policy from Vietnam to El Salvador. While there was some conservative opposition to these advances over the course of the 20th century, including some schisms, the direction of mainline protestantism was clear.