Listening to Fred Barnes

Well, I’m taking a break from writing about the latest human rights atrocities, attacks on Christians by Islamic supremacists, and attacks on those denouncing Islamic supremacism by the Obama Administration and others. 

This coming Monday night is IRD’s second annual Diane Knippers Memorial Lecture, a great tribute to a great lady who we still miss, both at IRD and within the American Anglican world. Diane worked at IRD almost from its founding days in 1981 and became president of IRD in 1993, which she remained until her death in April 2005.

Not long after Diane became president, she hired me to be her assistant. Amongst all of her other qualities, Diane was gracious and unselfish. She soon realized that my heart was with international religious liberty and Christian persecution issues, and released me to work on that part of IRD’s program. Although she cared very deeply about domestic church concerns – not least of which was the turmoil taking place in The Episcopal Church – she also cared about the persecuted church around the world – and she knew how to connect the dots between mainline church abandonment of Biblical orthodoxy and mainline church lack of concern for those who were willing to die rather than abandon their faith in Jesus Christ.

Last year we started our annual lecture series in honor of Diane. One of IRD’s founders, American Catholic philosopher, author, and diplomat, Michael Novak, spoke about IRD’s founding and the founding document written by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus that declared that “key democratic ideas of human dignity, equality, fraternity and liberty flowed from Christian roots and Christian understandings.” He described the days when he and Diane were in the trenches together, as IRD exposed mainline church ties with the KGB and other such goodies. And Michael warned not to confuse the “common good” with statism.

This year, our speaker is The Weekly Standard editor and Fox News political commentator, Fred Barnes. Fred is also a member of IRD’s board of directors. His “trench time” with Diane involved particularly the work of IRD concerning the Episcopal Church, and Diane’s efforts to mobilize the remaining orthodox bishops to counter the heretical elites in church leadership. Fred is a member of a vibrant Anglican church in northern Virginia. He will be speaking on religion and the presidential election at the Madison Hotel on Monday at 6:30 PM. In a press release today, IRD President, Mark Tooley, said, “’We are honored by Fred’s leadership within the IRD board and by his providing analysis on religion’s role in this year’s presidential election season, through the lens of 40 years of journalistic experience and his own astute faith. America and Americans are irrepressibly religious, and this year’s election, like nearly all American life, will be affected by issues of faith.’” 

I’m looking forward to the evening. If you’re in the area, please try to join us.