Faces of Intolerance: Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Jr

Ahmanson has been a big wheel in CA Republican politics (0.00 / 0)

and national Republican politics, donates millions of dollars per cycle, has funded pundits, preachers. He supported (was the main funder of) the Christian Reconstructionist movement for a while - the movement calling for capital punishment by stoning of gays, adulterous women, rebellious children, in its effort to replace the American Constitution with its interpretation of Mosaic Law (probably leaving shellfish, pork ,poly-cotton fabric, and mules out of the treyf/forbidden items). The stoning bit got too much publicity, and Ahmanson moved on to try to "reform" the mainstream churches, Episcopal, United Methodist, Presbyterian (the main branch), Evangelical Lutheran. His wife belongs to one of the breakaway churches formerly known as Episcopal.  

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PS. "Institute for Religion and Democracy" (IRD) (0.00 / 0)

is an Ahmanson-funded "think tank" that produces materials and websites used by right wing members of churches to undermine congregational loyalty to the denomination or to try to take over the national organization of the denomination, depending on the polity of the denomination. The general notion of the IRD is that churches should not advocate social change, and should support patriarchal family and unregulated market capitalism. Of interest, most of the board members of this supposedly Protestant think-tank are right wing Catholic. One of the best sites detailing IRD is

www.talk2action.org  (search "IRD" or look in left column)

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