An historic battle is unfolding for the future of mainstream Protestantism in the U.S. and in the world. You might have read press reports about the battles over gay ordination and the threats of walk-outs by hard-line conservatives. But that is only a small part of one of the biggest, and most underreported, religion stories in American history.  

But the see-no-evil press coverage may be about to change. While this has been building for some time, the increasingly forceful and public stands of Rev. John H. Thomas, president of the 1.3 million member United Church of Christ may be the story that can no longer go untold.

Thomas is standing-up for his church. He is speaking-up. He is speaking-out. He is making it clear that he won't back-off; and he won't back-down.

Speaking recently at Gettysburg College, Thomas blasted the 20-year war of attrition aimed at the mainline churches by a key grantee of neo-conservative foundations. The Washington, DC-based Institute on Religion and Democracy is the hub of a national network of conservative factions operating inside mainline churches -- and seeking to bend them to their will or break them apart.

Rev. Thomas is not the only mainstream minister in a fight-back mode. There is a fight-back movement spreading rapidly through the mainline churches -- most visibly in the blogosphere.

In recent weeks, several leaders of major American institutions have spoken-out against the Christian Right. First up was Rev. John Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ, a mainline protestant denomination.

Thomas denounced groups "within and beyond the UCC" that are "intent on disrupting and destroying our life together."

"Groups like the Evangelical Association of Reformed, Christian and Congregational Churches and the Biblical Witness Fellowship are increasingly being exposed even as they are increasingly aggressive," Thomas said. "Their relationship to the right-wing Institute for Religion and Democracy and its long-term agenda of silencing a progressive religious voice while enlisting the church in an unholy alliance with right-wing politics is now longer deniable. United Church of Christ folk like to be 'nice,' to be hospitable. But, to play with a verse of scripture just a bit, we doves innocently entertain these serpents in our midst at our own peril."