IRD’s Exceptional Board and Unique Mission

Over the last week I have been reminded of the excellence of IRD’s board of directors. Last Friday I was chapel speaker at Patrick Henry College in Virginia, hosted by IRD board member Graham Walker, who’s been college president for 8 years. He is an astute Wesleyan theologian by background who has successfully governed the premier school for the fast growing home schooled demographic. The relatively new campus is stately, the students impressive (including IRD’s own Bart Gingerich, Class of 2011), and the faculty accomplished. In my message I told of young evangelicals who hope to gain cultural approval by minimizing controversial doctrine. The students audibly laughed, confirming their theological and worldly savvy.

On Saturday I attended an 80th birthday party for IRD co-founder Michael Novak, the distinguished Catholic thinker. He’s nearly the last of that generation who first brainstormed IRD in urgent days to counter pro-Marxist Liberation Theology during the Cold War. It was he who wonderfully explained in his landmark Spirit of Democratic Capitalism how Christianity had germinated political and economic liberty as central to human dignity and creativity. I first read it in college and was mightily influenced. Years later I attended a dinner whose speaker was Margaret Thatcher, who cited this book as formative to her own transformative governance of Britain. Michael told me that he hopes he doesn’t live to be 90. I responded that I pray he lives far longer as his intellect and insights are still so much needed.

Monday I attended a reception for equally brilliant Catholic thinker and IRD emeritus board member Robert George of Princeton University to honor his becoming chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He heroically has applied his own vast intellect and energy to defending religious freedom global and domestic, defending marriage, and defending the sanctity of all human life. His battle style is winsome, enabling his friendship even with ideological opponents like his colleague Cornel West. IRD board vice chair and distinguished religious liberty scholar Paul Marshall was at the reception, as was IRD board member Bill Saunders, who capably serves as vice president for Americans United for Life. So too was IRD board chair Janice Crouse, a tireless global pro-family advocate.

On Tuesday, Robbie spoke at the inauguration of his friend Russell Moore as new head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, illustrating the once improbable alliance in common cause of Catholics and Southern Baptists. Wednesday I ran into papal biographer and IRD emeritus board member George Weigel, who is leading a symposium on whether clergy should continue to serve as state agents in civil marriage if marriage is legally redefined from its intrinsic meaning.

IRD across 32 years has assembled an eclectic crew of intellectuals and activists to contend for the fidelity of our churches within our culture. Some of our IRD founders and longtime board members are now in heaven, like the formidable evangelical Baptist theologian Carl Henry, whose 100th birthday would be this year. There was also the great Lutheran turned Catholic public intellectual Richard Neuhaus, who is still very much missed. United Methodist evangelist and central IRD co-founder Ed Robb is also missed but would be pleased that his son Jim now serves on IRD’s board.

The threats to our culture and churches have changed since IRD’s creation. But the confidence of our board and staff in the core teachings of our faith, and the urgency of their social application, remains enthusiastically fixed!