"Mark Tooley" (born 1965) became president in 2009 of the Washington-D.C. based Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a conservative religious thinktank noted for its critique of liberal religious groups.

He has worked for IRD since 1994, prior to which he worked for the CIA. His articles appear regularly in The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, Frontpagemag.com, Touchstone and elsewhere.

He is the author of "Taking Back the United Methodist Church." Tooley was featured in the October 10, 2009 issue of World magazine.

In November 2009, Tooley signed an ecumenical statement known as the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience/Manhattan Declaration calling on Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences.

Tooley authored "Methodism & Politics in the 20th Century: From William McKinley to 9-11" (http://www.bristolhouseltd.com/methodism-and-politics-in-the-twentieth-century/) in 2011, the first comprehensive overview of the political witness of what was once America's largest Protestant denomination.

More Mark Tooley on Wikipedia.

It's improper to use the egg roll for political purposes.

251

It's facetious and not very persuasive for Family Pride to say they're not making a political statement.

194

It's inappropriate to use children's events as a political statement.

172

I have never heard [in recent history] of several hundred [churches] leaving in one swoop. It serves as a threatening reminder to other mainline denominations of what can happen to them. Perhaps it will caution Methodists and Lutherans and Presbyterians.

168

Book of Daniel perhaps failed because it showed an elite world of liberal religion with which most Americans cannot relate. Like much of the Episcopal hierarchy today, it was preoccupied more with the aberrant than with the enduring norms for human behavior. And like the declining Episcopal Church as a whole, it turned out to be a failure.

157

Unfortunately, for at least the last 40 years, the World Council - rather than focusing on Christian evangelism and unity - has instead turned very sharply to the theological left and focuses on radical liberation theologies that very often tend to be very anti-Western and anti-American.

153

I think it's inappropriate to use a children's event to make a political statement.

149