Institute on Religion and Democracy

The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) is an American, Christian think tank that promotes spiritual renewal among mainline churches, as well as advocating for Christian values in the public square. The organization comments on current events in the Christian community.

The IRD was founded in 1981 by United Methodist evangelist Edmund Robb and AFL-CIO official David Jessup.Michael Novak and Richard John Neuhaus joined the IRD board early on, as did Christianity Today magazine founding editor Carl F. H. Henry. Mark Tooley became IRD's president in 2009.

The early focus of IRD was to identify Marxist tendencies in mainline Protestant churches and draw attention to attacks on religious liberty. IRD challenged churches that supported Marxist regimes such as the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and Vietnam in the 1980s. In 1985, IRD co-sponsored a conference with Ronald Reagan's administration, where speakers criticised the National Council of Churches for its efforts to develop contacts with church leaders in the Soviet Union.

Since the early 1990s, the IRD has actively urged U.S. churches to affirm traditional Christian sexual ethical teachings, including opposition to same-sex marriage. IRD has also challenged mainline Protestant church agencies that support abortion rights. International religious liberty is a chief concern for the IRD, and their religious liberty program has especially focused on southern Sudan.

Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, IRD has emphasized the importance of traditional Christian "Just War" teachings. Most recently, IRD has challenged church officials who they say uncritically accept worst-case scenarios regarding human-induced climate change. The IRD focuses much of its attention on the policies of the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

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