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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.
A case exists for the status quo: Churches that engage in raw partisan politics should lose the tax breaks to which their supposedly ethereal mission entitles them. Letting preachers say what's on their minds from the pulpit is also defensible. How, after all, does one obey the divine mandate to fight evil while biting one's tongue about evil's earthly political incarnations?
But some things decency and a sense of proportion proscribe. Bats in the belfry? Fine. Mice in the organ? A quaint tradition. Moles in the pew? Heaven help us.
Postscript: The target-rich RightThe narks on the Left have a lot more targets to choose from than Mr. Murray and his narks on the Right. That's because people who self-identify as Christians, and who take their faith seriously, tend to vote Republican.
In the 2000 presidential election, reports CNN, George Bush captured 63 percent of the vote among those who said they attended religious services more than once a week. Those who attended weekly favored Mr. Bush 57 percent to 40 percent over Al Gore. Those who never darkened the doorway of a church, synogogue, or mosque liked Mr. Gore over Mr. Bush 61 percent to 32 percent.
Of Americans who profess no religion, Investor's Business Daily finds, 17 percent are Republicans and 30 percent are Democrats (43 percent are independents). This seems to be a built-in disadvantage for Democrats, because, says the magazine, "In 2000, those who did not belong to any religion had the lowest voter turnout."
