IRD: Renewal or Ruin Now Available

Renewal or Ruin, a 25-minute documentary on the Institute on Religion and Democracy is now available online. If you're already familiar with the IRD, it probably doesn't tell you anything you don't already know; but if you're part of a mainline denomination and aren't familiar with the IRD, it's probably worth watching.


"Renewal or Ruin?" from Steven D. Martin on Vimeo.

Talk to Action has the transcript.

One minor point: Jim Winkler, General Secretary of the General Board of Church and Society, who has been unfairly targeted (and, as he says, "stalked") by the IRD, made the following point in the film:

a lot of people will say, “Gee Whiz Jim, I didn't realize that you all do so much work on alcohol abuse, on tobacco abuse, on gambling, on pornography and so forth. Wow, I had no idea!” And of course I'd like to think that those are the kind of things that some of the people connected to the IRD would actually approve of.

Not to defend the IRD, but GBCS doesn't exactly go out of its way to emphasize the work it does in the areas of gambling, alcohol abuse, and pornography. Judging by the agency's e-mail alerts and website, GBCS gives the impression that its primary concerns are war, immigration, and the environment. These issues are important to me, and I mostly agree with the General Board's stances on war, immigration, and the environment, but Winkler can't pass the blame if people get the impression that these are the only issues that GBCS cares about.