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Spies in the pew

The infiltration of churches by political zealots signals a social decline that goes beyond parties.

Date published: 8/18/2004

J.EDGAR HOOVER had the minuscule U.S. Communist Party so well infiltrated, it's said, that undercover FBI agents at party meetings ended up clandestinely taking notes about each other. The nation's Sunday church attendance also may enjoy a boost now that zealots left and right are taking to the pews to monitor sermons for forbidden political content.

The Religious Freedom Action Coalition, founded by Spotsylvania's Bill Murray, soon will reconnoiter liberal churches--Unitarian, A.M.E., etc.--and report those that allegedly violate federal law governing their tax exemption by touting or trashing a candidate or party, overtly or via code words (e.g., "pro-choice," "inclusive," "hate speech"). Mr. Murray, whose Web site about this campaign is puckishly titled "ratoutachurch.org," can honestly say that he is trading tit for tat: Liberal Christians in Kansas this summer pioneered such ecclesiastical espionage to hinder clergy who opposed gay marriage, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has filed 50 IRS complaints during the last decade against churches--mostly evangelical ones--for crossing the line between expressing moral precepts and politicking.

As a guide for living, the Old Testament's "an eye for an eye" is scorned by professing Christians, and professing Americans should scorn a spy for a spy. The culture is already so politicized that Right and Left likely hold conflicting positions on huckleberry jam, but if there's one place citizens should be able to count on as a retreat from the madding world, and a safe house from HUMINT, it's a house of worship.

Societies can be totalitarian in different ways. During the Third Reich and the Cold War, informers turned in dissident churchmen to the SS and the KGB. Now this creepy practice is being replicated in the United States, not by an all-powerful state but by a civil fanaticism that doesn't know where to stop. Hence, a spiritual sanctuary becomes just another field of fire in the culture wars, and an oasis of the soul is filled with the dry secular sand of "Hannity & Colmes" or a monthly meeting of Handgun Control.

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Date published: 8/18/2004