II.)   BJCPA Recommends Pro-abortion Book by Humanist Author

 

1.      The issue we raised in this brief section of our BJC flyer is that the “humanist author,” Edd Doerr, has served as vice president of RCAR since 1989.  Mr. Tichenor states that “The BJC does not check up on, or vouch for, the character and beliefs of all the authors whose books are reviewed…  The fact that Edd Doerr is a ‘humanist’ does not mean that what he writes is inaccurate or unhelpful.”  However, Edd Doerr is not just “a humanist,” he has long been among the top leaders of the American Humanist Association (AHA), the largest group of organized atheists in the United States.  Besides his position at RCAR, at the time of the “book review,” Doerr was also vice president of the AHA; a signer of Humanist Manifesto II; and a former 16 year staff member at Americans United.  After becoming president of the AHA, an article by Doerr was featured in a 1996 issue of the BJC’s journal. (Report from the Capital, July 23, 1996, p. 2)

 

2.      Doerr also serves as executive director of Americans for Religious Liberty (ARL), a group founded by leaders of the AHA.  Former BJC executive director James Wood serves on the board of directors of ARL.  Numerous past and present members of AU’s governing board also serve on ARL’s board of directors and advisory board.  Thus, it should come as no great surprise that the president of the AHA would be featured in an article in the BJC’s journal or that the BJC would recommend his book to its Baptist readers.  This same “humanist” served as editor of AU’s monthly journal for the bulk of the 16 years he worked for AU, defining church/state separation and religious liberty for AU’s readers, many of which were pastors of Southern Baptist churches.  Thus, the humanist perspective on church/state separation and religious liberty was being funneled directly into Southern Baptist churches across the United States.  This further reflects the fact that AU and the BJC define religious liberty and church/state separation just as the American Humanist Association does. 

 

3.      Doerr’s article in the BJC’s journal appeared July 23, 1996.  On April 29, 1996, Doerr signed a letter published by RCAR praising President Clinton for his veto of the partial-birth abortion bill.  He signed another RCAR letter sent to every member of Congress urging them to sustain the veto.  Some of the other signers of the RCAR letters who serve on the boards of various organizations with Dunn include: Meg Riley (AU); Charles Bergstrom (AU and the Churches’ Center for Theology and Public Policy); M. Douglas Meeks (Churches’ Center); Philip Wogaman (Churches’ Center); Rabbi David Saperstein (AU); Rabbi Lynne Landsberg (AU); and  Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory (AU).  Ivory, a member of the RCAR board of directors, was a participant at the BJC’s 60th anniversary celebration in 1996. (RCAR newsletter, Reporter, July 1994) (Report from the Capital, Oct. 29, 1996, p. 4)     Ivory also serves as an AU trustee with the BJC executive director  James Dunn.    

 

4.      John M. Swomley Jr., president of Doerr’s Americans for Religious Liberty, has also been a long time ally of the BJC.  Swomley served on the AU board of trustees with Dunn in the early 1980’s and has been a speaker at past BJC conferences. (Report from the Capital, Sept. 1981, p. 3)  In the June 1991 issue of the BJC’s journal, Report from the Capital, an article by Swomley was reprinted from Human Quest,  “an independent journal of religious humanism.”  Swomley serves as an associate editor for Human Quest.  Swomley also writes a regular monthly article in the Humanist magazine along with Doerr and received the Humanist Pioneer Award from the AHA in 1985. (Free Mind, May/June 1985, p. 2)  But Swomley’s influence goes far beyond working with humanists.  He also serves as secretary of the national board of the ACLU and chairs its national church/state committee.  (Doerr also serves on this committee.  Prior to becoming executive director of Americans United, Barry Lynn was a member of the ACLU church/state committee.) Swomley has also been heavily involved with the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights.  Most recently, he authored and signed the above mentioned RCAR letter supporting president Clinton’s veto of the partial birth abortion bill.  Dr. Swomley is professor emeritus of Christian Ethics at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. 

 

5.      Dr. Swomley also serves on the board of The Interfaith Alliance (TIA), along with CBF leaders David Currie and Foy Valentine (Valentine is a member of the BJC’s board and past president of Americans United).  Also serving on the TIA board is Meg Riley and Philip Wogaman.  Riley, a lesbian, serves on the governing board of AU with Dunn.  Wogaman is senior pastor at Founndry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C., where president Clinton attends. According to an April 13, 1995 TIA press release: “The Interfaith Alliance was established in July of 1994 as a mainstream alternative to the radical religious right.”  TIA defines the “Radical Religious Right” as the American Family Association; Concerned Women for America; Christian Coalition; Focus on the Family; Family Research Council; Eagle Forum; and various other such organizations.  In TIA’s mission statement, they state that the Religious Right “promote[s] an extreme political agenda based on a false gospel…  This false gospel threatens our families, our values and our future.”  However, a close look at the TIA board of directors reveals clearly just how “mainstream” this anti-Religious Right organization really is.  Four members of TIA’s board of directors signed the April 29th 1996 RCAR letter praising President Clinton for vetoing the ban on partial-birth abortions (John Swomley; Philip Wogaman; Meg Riley; and Bishop Edmond Browning). (See section II.3)  TIA executive director Jill Hanauer was formerly the political action director of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).  Regarding the issue of homosexuality, TIA board members consistently side with the “gay” community:  Denise Davidoff, moderator of the Unitarian Universalist Association, “endorsed homosexual marriages;” Diane Porter, a former Episcopal Church executive, “supported a new church seminary policy that welcomed ‘committed same-sex couples;’”  Amos Brown, “who pastors the largest black church in the West, embraced homosexual marriage while running successfully for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors;” Herbert Valentine, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA, “opposed his denomination’s policy against homosexual practice;” Bishop Edmond Browning, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, “urged Congress to recognize homosexuals as a class specially protected under civil rights laws.” (Washington Times, March 31, 1997, p. A19 and Faith and Freedom, Spring 1997, p. 11)  TIA board member, Rev. Meg Riley, has served as the director of the Office of Lesbian and Gay Concerns for the Unitarian Universalist Association.                                                                                  

 

      According to a May 7, 1998 TIA press release, the new executive director of The Interfaith Alliance is C. Welton Gaddy.  Gaddy also serves as president of the Alliance of Baptists, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and is a member of the Coordinating Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.  Quoting Dr. Gaddy, the press release states: “The time has come for tolerant majority to be heard and to let the American people know that religious political extremists do not speak for all people of faith.”  He continues: “This year we have witnessed religious political extremists out do themselves in misleading the American people by claiming to speak on behalf of the people of faith and conscience.”  Citing two conservative Christian leaders - James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council - the press release states: “…the religious right is waging a campaign of distortion and manipulation to advance a divisive partisan political agenda…”

 

     The BJC’s close ties to The Interfaith Alliance is clearly seen in the fact that three members of TIA’s board of directors were speakers at the BJC’s 1996, 60th anniversary conference: Joan Brown Campbell, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches (former BJC General Counsel Buzz Thomas is now Special Counsel for the NCC); Philip Wogaman, as mentioned above, is president Clinton’s pastor; and Gardner Taylor, pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY.  Gardner Taylor is also a member of the BJC board of directors along with TIA board member Foy Valentine.  According to People for the American Way, the formation of TIA was an outgrowth of grassroots organizing of “progressive” clergy by PAW.  Interestingly, John Buchanan, a former president of PAW was also a speaker at the BJC’s 60th anniversary conference.  Add to this the fact that BJC executive director James Dunn is a former PAW board member and the current president of PAW, Carole Shields, is a member of the BJC board. (Report from the Capital, Oct. 26, 1996 issue)  (See Section IX.4-6 and Section XVI)

 

     Though the BJC has been critical of political “partisianship” on the part of the “Religious Right” and voter guides produced by the Christian Coalition, they have failed to mentioned that The Interfaith Alliance “was started in 1994 with a $25,000 grant from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.”  Nor did they mention “the ‘soft’ campaign cash that the Alliance received from Project 96, a $4 million effort tied to labor unions and the Democratic Party.  Project 96 paid for the distribution of Alliance voter guides in eight key districts where the Democrats were aiming to unseat House Republicans.” (Faith & Freedom, Spring, 1997, p. 10)

 

      It is also important to mention that two TIA staff members led “breakout sessions” at the1995 and 1996 General Assemblies of the CBF and that TIA (along with the BJC, PAW and AU)  was one of the 68 member organizations that produced the radical pro-homosexual, pro- abortion, pro-pornography How To Win political training manual. (See section IX)

  

6.      In the April 1997 issue of Christian Ethics Today, a journal published by Foy Valentine’s Center for Christian Ethics, featured an article by Dr Swomley.  The Center for Christian Ethics receives funding from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and includes on its board of trustees: Patricia Ayres, John Leland Berg and Daniel Vestal (Coordinator of the CBF), each of which also serve on the board of the BJC.  In the December 1997 issue of Christian Ethics Today, another article by Swomley appeared, entitled: “Abortion And Public Policy.”  Swomley begins this article with the statement: “My purpose in this article is to demonstrate that abortion per se is not morally wrong…”  The lengthy article includes numerous statements reflecting Swomley’s commitment to an extreme pro-abortion position:   

·       “The use of the term ‘baby’ or ‘child’ or ‘human being’ to describe an embryo or fetus is a propaganda device…”

·       “[I]t is worth citing Biblical answers to the key questions in the abortion controversy: ‘When does human life begin?’  The Bible’s clear answer is that human life begins at birth with breathing.” 

·        “Public policy must defend the rights of existing living persons as over against religiously based claims made on behalf of fetal life.” 

·        “A community following a devastating war or a plague that had virtually destroyed all human life might expect a pregnant woman to bear the child.  By the same logic, any community, whether a family or a state, which already had more people than it could furnish with food and water, could restrict the number of childbirths.  There are already children dying by the thousands in some parts of the world because of too little water and food and no foreseeable prospect of change.  What is the inherent right of thousands of fetuses to be born if they will jeopardize the existence of those already born?  The shortage of water in the southwestern United States is a familiar and serious problem.”   

·       “What right does anyone have to impose mandatory pregnancy on a woman?  The ethical question is not whether abortion can be justified, but whether we focus on an embryo or fetus as the object of value or whether we focus on the woman who as a free moral agent must have freedom of choice.” 

·       “[W]omen experience violence in our macho or male-dominated society.  The overt type of violence includes such acts as rape, spousal abuse, and sexual harassment.  The covert type, frequently hidden behind the myth that motherhood and care of children define a woman’s role, has been institutionalized in religious, economic, and political systems and enforced by legislation and custom.” 

·       “There is violence also in the idea embodied in some legislation that a poor woman may have a publicly funded abortion only if the pregnancy endangers her life.  This means that any damage to a woman’s health short of death is ‘acceptable’ violence; suffering brought by exacerbation of existing health problems such as diabetes or heart disease and the shortening of her life thereby are ‘acceptable’ violence.  The imperiling of a woman’s mental health is also a type of violence.” 

·       “[A] woman who does not want a child, but who becomes pregnant from rape, incest, failed contraception, or ignorance about her reproductive processes, must serve as a surrogate mother without pay for the benefit of another person or couple, since the major proposed alternative to abortion is adoption.  Forcing women to bear children they do not want and cannot support or care for, and then go through the trauma of giving them away is a form of violence.” 

·       “Violence occurs in the requirement of parental notification by teenagers before they can get an abortion.” 

 

7.      It should also be noted that Doerr’s book entitled Church Schools and Public Money was not the only humanist book “reviewed” and recommended by the BJC to their readers. Other books authored or co-authored  by Edd Doerr, or written by staff members of Doerr’s organization, Americans for Religious Liberty, include: Religion and Public Education: Common Sense and the Law, by Edd Doerr and Al Menendez. (Report from the Capital, May 1992, p. 16)  Why We Still Need Public Schools, edited by Art Must Jr., included a chapter by Doerr and Menendez. (Report from the Capital, Sept. 1992, p. 16)  Visions of Reality: What Fundamentalist schools Teach, by Al Menendez, associate director of Americans for Religious Liberty. (Report from the Capital, January 1993, p. 16)  The December Wars, by Al Menendez. (Report from the Capital, November 29, 1994, p. 4)  Myths About Public Prayer, by John Swomley, president of Americans for Religious Liberty. (Report from the Capital, June 26, 1996, p. 4)  In the February 8, 1994 issue of Report from the Capital, the BJC recommended a book written by Rob Boston entitled: Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About the Separation of Church and State.  Boston identifies himself as a “secular humanist” and serves as associate editor of Church and State, a journal published by Americans United where BJC executive director James Dunn serves as one of 15 trustees. 

 

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