IT is not every day that one is the subject of a junior G-man investigation, nor is it often that one finds church groups paying church monies to undertake such snooping. Yet recently, with some others, I was the subject of a 55-page document financed by the General Board of Global Ministries and the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, as well as by the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries of the United Church of Christ. The subject was the seven-month-old Institute for Religion and Democracy.
As it happens, these church boards could have saved their money—those of us involved would have been glad to provide the information free. Why was secrecy necessary? Certainly, no one identifying himself as engaged in such a study called onmeoron anyone else belonging to the Institute. (The authors were a former congressional aide to certain Democrats and a former congressional intern.) So two huge churches seem to wish to do for this tiny new Institute what General Motors did for Ralph Nader.
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