“Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience …. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason … You start being ‘kind’ to people before you have considered their rights, and then force upon them supposed kindnesses which they in fact had a right to refuse, and finally kindnesses which no one but you will recognize as kindnesses and which the recipient will feel as abominable cruelties.” –
– C.S. Lewis

An interesting article from the NY Times:
Conservative Group Amplifies Voice of Protestant Orthodoxy
May 22, 2004
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
As Presbyterians prepare to gather for their General
Assembly in Richmond, Va., next month, a band of determined
conservatives is advancing a plan to split the church along
liberal and orthodox lines. Another divorce proposal shook
the United Methodist convention in Pittsburgh earlier this
month, while conservative Episcopalians have already broken
away to form a dissident network of their own.
In each denomination, the flashpoint is homosexuality, but
there is another common denominator as well. In each case,
the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a small
organization based in Washington, has helped incubate
traditionalist insurrections against the liberal politics
of the denomination’s leaders.
With financing from a handful of conservative donors,
including the Scaife family foundations, the Bradley and
Olin Foundations and Howard and Roberta Ahmanson’s
Fieldstead and Company, the 23-year-old Institute is now
playing a pivotal role in the biggest battle over the
future of American Protestantism since churches split over
slavery at the time of the Civil War.

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