Firm foundation?

Religion | Bankrupt Council of Churches turns to lobbyists and foundations | Edward E. Plowman

For at least the past two years, many pronouncements and statements from the National Council of Churches (NCC) and its general secretary, Bob Edgar, have been increasingly strident, critical of the Bush administration, and supportive of liberal Democratic viewpoints.

Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a Washington-based conservative research and advocacy group, may have discovered why. He monitored the NCC Governing Board's fall meeting in New York and learned that the NCC now receives more money from private foundations—most of them secular and politically liberal —than from its member denominations ($1.76 million vs. $1.75 million the last fiscal year).