More on the Evangelical Manifesto

Well, I read the whole thing and I am as ambivalent about it as before. Not unmoved or apathetic, but ambivalent. There is much truth there, and much to commend. Civility in civic discourse, one of the main admonitions of the paper, is an under-valued virtue. Also, as the Manifesto teaches, evangelicals are defined not by political affiliations but by their commitment to the Gospel and to its Christ.

However, these admonitions respond to caricatures of evangelicals that are largely inaccurate or exaggerated. The truth is that most evangelicals (though certainly not all) are civil when discussing important issues with their intellectual opponents. The truth is that evangelicals do primarily define themselves theologically and not politically, especially conservative evangelicals.

So, the document ends up beating a straw man, scolding evangelicals for sins of which we are occasionally guilty but often innocent. Indeed, self-flagellation is the most prominent exercise of the authors. The list of transgressions (pages 11-13) is long: trumpeting a diluted Gospel; hypocrisy in our lifestyles; hypocrisy in our proselytization; hypocrisy in our fractiousness; hypocrisy in our (lack of) reliance upon God; hypocrisy in our materialism; hypocrisy in our environmental stewardship; syncretism; anti-intellectualism; racial segregation; catering to the rich and powerful; capitulation to postmodernism.

I am not suggesting that evangelicals are sinless. But that we are human, and therefore sinful, is not an instructive observation. Most of us gather that knowledge simply by looking around us.

Furthermore, by conceding stereotypes of evangelicals, succumbing to self-flagellation, and reducing our convictions to the lowest common denominator, the document in places celebrates all that is worst about evangelicalism. For example:

Yet far from being unquestioning conservatives and unreserved supporters of tradition and the status quo, being Evangelical means an ongoing commitment to Jesus Christ, and this entails innovation, renewal, reformation, and entrepreneurial dynamism, for everything in every age is subject to assessment in the light of Jesus and his Word. (page 10)

Well, yes. But why pick on conservatives? For every unquestioning conservative evangelical one can identify at least one unthinking liberal evangelical. Furthermore, tradition (and even the status quo) has enormous value. Indeed, evangelical aversion to tradition got us into this mess in the first place. There are so many disparate voices within evangelicalism, and so many evangelicals being blown about by winds of change, in large part because we have no Evangelical Magisterium, no unbroken chain of tradition and authority stretching back to the Apostles.

The "light of Jesus and his Word" means something very different to Os Guinness than it does to Jim Wallis. Indeed, notice that the Manifesto makes no attempt to define what that phrase means. If it did so, you would not see both of those signatures on it. I'm not being a papist here (okay, maybe a little), I'm merely observing that tradition, whether or not evangelical, or even Christian, or even theist, has significant meaning and value.

The Manifesto further disappoints by equivocating where it should stand firm. It commends our "biblically rooted commitment to the sanctity of every human life, including those unborn" and affirms the "holiness of marriage as instituted by God between one man and one woman." (page 13) Those statements should precede a full stop. End of story. Shut off the lights on your way out.

However, in the same paragraph the document calls "for an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue politics, such as abortion and marriage, and a fuller recognition of the comprehensive causes and concerns of the Gospel, and of all the human issues that must be engaged in public life." In particular, it lists the "global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness."

This is extremely unfortunate. The fact is that almost no one other than Christians is today willing to defend the intrinsic value of human life and the intrinsic value of conjugal marriage. Abortion, embryo-destructive research, same-sex marriage, and polygamy are all significant, current moral issues about which Christian conviction is clear and on which Christians have something valuable to say qua Christians.

By contrast, nearly everyone in contemporary America is vehemently opposed to "conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness." Our difference on those issues are not moral disagreements. Rather, liberals and conservatives (and others, such as libertarians) have prudential disagreements about how best to address those problems.

Disease, for example, is not a moral issue in America. Reasonable evangelicals all agree that Christians have a moral obligation to help the infirmed and, where possible, to prevent disease. We disagree about the best means to accomplish those goals. Those of us who adopt conservative views on these prudential questions are not guilty of carelessness toward the poor and the sick, nor are we engaging in single-issue politics merely because we distrust government. With this sort of language, the Manifesto renders itself impotent. The drafters had an opportunity to strike a blow for Christian principle, and they blew it.

On the other hand, the Manifesto is not completely watered down. It condemns in unequivocal language the "evils" of "genocide, slavery, female oppression, and assaults on the unborn." (page 18) It scolds reactionaries for their fundamentalism and "progressives" for their failure to conserve "what is true and right and good." (page 10)

So, as I stated at the outset, I am ambivalent. On balance, the Manifesto does not, in my mind, accomplish much, and it has the potential to do much harm, serving the relativism to which Wallis and his disciples have succumbed. After careful consideration, I have decided not to sign it. And that disappoints me, because I wanted to sign it. I have great respect for Guinness, Mark Noll, Alvin Platinga, and other signatories to the Manifesto. However, it appears that those voices were lost during crucial moments in the document's creation.

UPDATE: Scanning the list of those who have signed the document since its public release anneals my resolve not to sign. An Evangelical Manifesto that can command the assent of self-described wiccans and atheists is a document capable of infinite interpretations, so watered down as to have no real meaning.