Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at IIT

In recent years there have been disclosures and acknowledgments that agencies of the United States government used clergy, missionaries, and church workers for purposes of gathering secret intelligence information. These practices must be viewed with alarm and growing concern. Religious bodies of the United States citizenry must be warned and apprised of the following consequences:

1. The use of clergy, missionaries, and church workers for intelligence gathering on behalf of the national state immediately compromises and renders ineffective the primary role of religious workers to be careers for the humanitarian and spiritual needs of the constituents they serve. It should be readily apparent that missionary personnel abroad as well as church workers and clergy at home will find themselves marginalized or ignored if their work is associated with apprehension and suspicion rather than confidence and trust by the people whom they serve.

2. Moreover, in the case of Christian workers who view themselves and are considered by others primarily to be a ents of Jesus Christ they must not be treated as or cast in the appearance of being political agents of any government. The use of clergy, missionaries, and church workers by any country for narrow national interests quickly will result in the suspicion that churches are arms of the state. If this occurs, then the credibility and integrity of both the church and state are abused and preferred.

3. Furthermore, if such present practices are continued and sanctioned by either the churches and/or government then it is probable that increased political and legal pressures will be brought by government agencies on religious workers to intensify clandestine operations and thereby further erode the traditional guarantees of confidentiality between clergy and parishioners, priests and confessors, and missionaries and national coworkers.

In view of this alarming situation, the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs urges: (1) that the United States Congress explicitly prohibit both the CIA and the FBI in their respective charters from gathering intelligence information from missionaries, and church workers, or placing clergy, missionaries, and church workers under any obligation to engage in intelligence gathering activity; (2) that public policy legally bar any operational connection between a church and any intelligence and/or law enforcement agency thus guaranteeing the traditional right of confidentiality on the part of clergy, missionaries, and church workers in the practice of their ministries; and (3) that the member bodies of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs adopt policies for themselves which prohibit their personnel from engaging in intelligence gathering activity on behalf of government.

Member bodies are encouraged to establish policies which instruct their personnel to maintain their religious integrity as free and independent agents of the church of Jesus Christ by not aligning themselves with covert intelligence assignments from the state.

Adopted in Plenary Session, March 4, 1980