The second part of Jim Naughton’s series about the influence of right wing billionaires in mainstream American protestant churches, Following The Money is online now, here.

The Dromantine Retreat and Conference Center , a 19th Italianate mansion sits in stony isolation on a hilltop outside Newry , Northern Ireland . The center is home to a Catholic seminary, but it played host to a distinctively Protestant drama in February 2005. For five days, the Primates of the Anglican Communion assembled in its meagerly-furnished meeting rooms to determine whether the 77-million member body could be preserved despite bitter disagreements over homosexuality.

For the previous 15 months, the leaders of several conservative Episcopal organizations had been working secretly with their allies among the primates to remove the Episcopal Church from the Communion for consecrating a gay man with a male partner as bishop and permitting the blessing of same-sex relationships. Failing that, they aimed to establish a parallel American province for Episcopalians who differed with their Church on the nature of same-sex relationships.

At the Dromantine conference, the Americans and their international allies collaborated with an unprecedented openness, in an attempt to force Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to take a harder line against the Episcopal Church.

Among the primates who backed this effort were Peter Akinola of Nigeria , Henry Orombi of Uganda and Gregory Venables of Argentina . Working with them were the leaders of the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Communion Network, the Ekklesia Society and the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Those groups, backed by five politically conservative U.S. foundations, and Howard F. Ahmanson, a benefactor of numerous conservative ballot initiatives, candidates and think tanks, had been cultivating relationships with evangelical leaders in the developing world since the mid-1990s. But at Dromantine, the Americans’ role as the principal strategists for the movement against their church came into focus.

The impending schism in the Anglican church is by no means a grass roots movement powered by disagreements over scripture.  It is fueled and funded by a handful of American right wing billionaires who are also the source of most of the money funding the American culture wars for the past two decades.  The Washington Blade this week, has a short article on how one of their front groups, the Institute on Religion & Democracy, has been stepping up its attacks on the gay community since the end of the cold war:

“There is a growing awareness that IRD and groups affiliated with them have been having an increasingly disruptive effect on our churches,” John H. Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ, told the Blade. “In some cases, groups that have affinity with IRD provide instruction to churches seeking to leave the United Council of Churches.”

IRD’s critics point to the group’s leadership and funding sources as proof it intends to use gay issues to divide congregations.

Follow the money

IRD’s financial backers include conservative foundations like the Scaife Family Foundation; the Carthage Foundation; the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation; and the Randolph Foundation, according to Media Transparency, a research group that investigates conservative groups.

Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. has also contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to IRD, according to a report by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington authored by Jim Naughton, communications director for the diocese. Ahmanson has also contributed hundreds of thousands to groups opposing gay marriage and pushing anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives, according to the report.

By way of dozens and dozens of front groups and propaganda mills, this small circle of right wing billionaires have utterly poisoned American politics.  The extent of their political influence has only come to light through the persistent work of a few small progressive watchdog groups.  The extent of their reach into the religious lives of Americans is still being documented.  For all the damage they’ve done to the political dialog in America, the damage they’ve done to the spiritual lives of the American people may, in the end, be far more profound.