[Dialogue] A Letter From A Former Member of my Congregation of Attack on UMC

[Walter Kargus]

Subject: URGENT: Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) 
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:04:48 +0000 
URGENT: IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED 

For some time we have been watching the Institute on
<http://www.theird.org/>  Religion and Democracy (IRD), a so-called "renewal
group" that attacks and undermines the mainline churches. As a United
Methodist pastor, I have been particularly concerned about the IRD's attacks
on my denomination. I have addressed these concerns in several ways, one of
which is to create the video,  <http://www.ird-info.com/> "Renewal or Ruin?"
which is viewable in its entirety online. 

I have been watching the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) for
several years now.   I learned about the IRD by accident when I witnessed
them attempting to manipulate events at my Annual Conference from behind the
scenes <http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/6/27/192830/958> . For the
last two years I have been reading everything I can find about this
organization and its divisive tactics.   I thought I had seen everything. I
have just learned that the IRD has made a significant move that puts the
future of the United Methodist Church in peril and the church's General
Boards and Agencies at risk. The IRD is an unprecedented threat to the
United Methodist Church, and all denominations it attacks. 

I have long believed that the IRD functions more as a strategy center, not
so much a renewal group. While the language of IRD writers is often couched
in terms of church renewal, it is overwhelmingly critical of church leaders
and structures. The actions of the IRD as regards a little-known coalition
proves this point. 

In 2004 an apparent victory was won when the General Conference voted down a
resolution to cripple the financing and mission of the United Methodist
Church's General Board of Church and Society <http://www.umc-gbcs.org/>
(GBCS- the agency tasked with interpreting the church's social teachings to
the world). However, in recognition of the minority's concerns regarding the
use of endowment funds, which provide significant funding to its ministries,
in spite of over forty years of consistent legal opinions permitting the use
of these endowment funds, the Board elected to seek legal judgment from the
courts on this issue.   To settle this matter once and for all, the Board
filed a request for a declaratory decision on the use of the United
Methodist Building Endowment Fund with the Superior Court of the District of
Columbia. 

Five persons only peripherally related to this case, intervened in this
case, turning a fairly simple matter of clarification into an expensive,
contested lawsuit. The Coalition for United Methodist Accountability, an
organization comprised of the Institute on Religion and
<http://www.theird.org/>  Democracy, Good News <http://www.goodnewsmag.org/>
, and the Confessing Movement <http://confessingumc.org/v2/> , three
powerful and well-funded right-wing organizations claiming to work for the
renewal of the United Methodist Church, is secretly financing the legal
expenses of the five individuals who have intervened against the United
Methodist Church's General Board of Church & Society's request for a
declaratory decision on the use of the United Methodist Building Endowment
Fund from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. 

It turns out that all five of the interveners were recruited to join the
action against the General Board of Church & Society by Mark Tooley,
director of the Institute on Religion and Democracy's UM Action project, and
a law firm Gammon & Grange, based in Arlington, Virginia. 

Why are IRD, Good News, and Confessing Movement covertly funding the court
case against GBCS? In an article
<http://www.goodnewsmag.org/magazine/MarchApril/ma04newsanal.htm>  published
in 2004 in Good News Magazine <http://www.goodnewsmag.org/> , Mr. Tooley
said, "If income from the Methodist Building and old Board of Temperance
investments were restricted to alcohol-related work, it would be a
devastating blow to Church & Society's ability to lobby for its more favored
liberal political causes." Furthermore, Mr. Tooley gloats: "Even more
devastating would be any legal finding that required Church and Society to
reimburse the millions of dollars it has spent over the years from old Board
of Temperance assets, in seeming violation of the 1965 trust agreement's
expectation that all income was to be reserved for alcohol-related work." 

Forty years of legal opinions have clearly allowed the Board the latitude to
use these funds as it has. But how, and why, did the IRD get involved in
this legal case? 

The five interveners against the General Board are C. Pat Curtin, Carolyn
Elias, Leslie O. Fowler, John Patton Meadows, and John Stumbo. All are
United Methodists and all have been delegates to the General Conference at
one time or another.   The interveners testified they do not all know one
another and at the time their depositions were taken at least one of them
stated he did not know the identities of the other interveners. None of them
initiated their own participation in the lawsuit against GBCS. 

Only one of the interveners, Mr. Stumbo, indicated he and his wife, Helen
Rhea Stumbo, a board member of the IRD, anticipated being asked to
contribute to the legal fees related to the intervention against the General
Board of Church & Society. 

Ms. Elias said she thought it was Mark Tooley who asked her to be an
intervener and that she had no idea who was paying her legal expenses. Mr.
Fowler said he was asked to be an intervener by the law firm, Gammon and
Grange, and that he had no idea who is paying for his legal expenses. Mr.
Curtin said he had heard the IRD was paying his legal expenses. 

In a sworn deposition made public by the court, one of the interveners, John
Patton Meadows, an attorney by profession, admitted he was not paying his
own legal fees nor was he sure who was paying for them but that he thought
it was CUMA who was doing so. He also acknowledged that he had sent an email
to the General Secretary of the General Board of Church & Society from his
office computer in the U.S. Attorney's office in North Alabama and told him
he wanted to see him 'muzzled' for questioning President George W. Bush's
decision to invade Iraq. 

Mr. Meadows admitted in his deposition that he had received confidential
legal documents belonging to the General Board of Church & Society prior to
or during the 2004 General Conference but that he did not allow that to
inhibit him from reading them. 

None of the interveners did any research into the background and history of
the case beyond reviewing documents provided to them by Mr. Tooley, the law
firm, and other individuals. Each of the interveners admitted they were
unaware of any restrictions placed on any gifts contributed to the General
Board of Church & Society. 

The IRD has long proclaimed that would like to bring down the General Board
of Church and Society and the Women's' Division of the United Methodist
Church. Tooley's own words in "Good News" magazine in 2004 reasserts this
and adds substance by providing a method. 

Now is the time for action. Please circulate this posting as far as you can-
especially among United Methodist General Conference delegates with whom you
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