Hard Ball On Holy Ground

By Stephen Swecker

This volume is a collection of research, essays and interviews on the efforts of the religious right to undermine mainline churches. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0971114625
• ISBN13: 9780971114623
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Boston Wesleyan Press
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Must Read

Truly a must read for all Christians - well researched and well written. You may be right to feel under attack. A look behind the curtain.

Hard Ball On Holy Ground

I was aware of the content of this book before I ordered it, so I was very pleased with the content. I had not read the whole book before ordering it, so now that I have the book I was able to complete my reading of it, and found it to be just what I wanted and expected.

PNW Pastor

Swecker gives an excellent background of how organizations that are not the church, like the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) have assulted mainline churches with agenda causing some of the issues mainline churches face today. He gives good historical background and the make-up of these organizations including the names of the board of directors, to illustrate how a few folk who are not within the mainline church organizational structure can infulence change. He also calls to accountability the church to "wake up" and see what is really going on. An excellent read .

STORY OF A HOSTILE TAKEOVER BID OF CHURCHES

In hierarchical and authoritarian institutions like today's Roman Catholic Church and Southern Baptist Convention, debate and dissent are discouraged. Mainline denominations are heir to forms of governance that are representative and transparent. It is the openness of the governance processes of these churches that the radical right has exploited to turn them into battle grounds in the culture wars. Attacks on mainline Protestant churches are meant to discredit these democratic bodies so to impose rule by strict dogma and autocratic governance. This tactic is often on view when the conservative "renewal" factions in the mainline denominations foment internal dissent and generate conflict. In some cases, unaware theologically conservative Christians seeking spiritual renewal are being used by the "renewal" factions for hardball political power designs. The question remains, why would Richard Melon Scaife, Adolf Coors, Howard Ahmanson, the Bradley Foundation, the Olin Foundation, and other secular political operatives care about funding a multi-million dollar crusade against mainline churches and the National Council of Churches(NCC)? Think about this: While the members of churches affiliated with the National Council of Churches account for about a quarter of the population, approximately half of the members of the U.S. Congress say they are members of these communions. NCC church members' influence is disproportionate to their numbers and include remarkably high numbers of leaders in politics, business, and culture. The prevailing ethos of American culture is and has been shaped by the leadership and membership of theses churches. Moreover, these churches are some of the largest land owners in the U.S., with hundreds of billions of dollars collectively in assets, including real estate and pension funds. A hostile takeover of these churches would represent a massive shift in American culture, power and wealth for a relatively small investment. If this sounds far-fetched, one need only consider how right-wing groups during recent decades have taken over and now wholly control the Southern Baptist Convention. Theologically conservative Christians who are seeking spiritual renewal in mainline churches need to look carefully at the hard ball tactics of these secular operatives. The church needs spiritual renewal; what it does not need is more political hardball and takeover bids. If these secular operatives like Scaife and Coors achieve a hostile takeover of mainline Protestantism along with the dismantling of the NCC, they will have muted an important part of America's social conscience and significantly diminished its capacity for civic discourse. The soul of the church is at risk.