Evangelical Manifesto?

When I'm bored at work, I like to surf the Web for some interesting news articles, and this one takes the cake on interesting. I ran across an article in the Dallas Morning News religion blog that interviews Os Guinness about a new "Evangelical Manifesto" that was published last week. It caught my eye because we just finished reading his book "The Call" in our DCM class, and much of the stuff in there caught my eye. His point in the book is that, as Christians, we are called by God to live out the nature of grace in our lives. His call is central to our very existence as Christians, first to surrender ourselves to His will, and second to live out that grace in a day-to-day life in our dealings with others. Careers, occupations, and things of that nature may not necessarily be a part of our vocation, our call to service Christ. So after discussing that, I realized that I like what he has to say. I think that it's very very Biblically based, theologically sound. So when I saw that he had been one of the people to write the "Evangelical Manifesto", I got curious.


Another reason I got curious was because we had studied the Evangelical movement in my American Church History class this semester. It's a curious thing... this movement. It was designed to get away from the radical Fundamentalist movement that portrayed God as vengeful and not loving (of course, He is a wrathful God because He's holy, but that's another issue altogether).

It's a good read. It has some very good points as far as finally settling doctrinal issues that evangelicals have been struggling over for months. The Church in America is suffering. It's on the brink of collapse, as a matter of fact. We don't know what we believe. We don't know doctrine, we don't know Scripture, and ultimately we have no idea of what God desires us to be. It's laxidaisical, lazy, apathetic, and just plain screwed up. We've focused far more on privatizing our religion and getting people in the doors than discipling them in accordance with Scripture ("teaching them all that I have commanded you".) We don't know theology. We don't know Christology. We don't know anything. And it's frustrating.

We also don't know how to get along with other people. We're so focused on saying that we're right and they're wrong that we forget how to civilly dialogue with someone from another religion or even another denomination. This Manifesto calls for a civil public square-- where we can discuss our different opinions with civility and gentleness, like we're called to do ("Always be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.") Too many fundamentalist Christians (*cough* Pat Robertson *cough*) just end up putting a bad name on Christianity by calling for assassinations or protesting gay marriage outside funerals for fallen soldiers. Every time they open their mouths it's to take out their foot and stick the other one in. There's a time and a place to vote against moral measures, and there's no time or place to publicly call for Christians to pressure the government into assassination. So many non-Christians look at these kind of actions and reject Christianity altogether, simply because it's a bad representation of what a relationship with Christ really means.

By calling for a civil public square, this Manifesto puts religion back into the public light, since it has been hidden in the darkness of privatization for way too long. My faith is not private. My faith is a part of who I am... my Jesus and His call are all that I am. Neither should we make other religions privatize their faith in favor of our own. I hate to tell you this, but America was never founded on Christianity. It was founded on the concept of religious liberty, for all religions. Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, Christians, Sikhs, Taoists, Shintos, and religions I can't even think of... all religions are supposed to have the freedom to practice their religion (as long as it doesn't transgress civil law, i.e. ritual human sacrifice) and to freely speak about it (see the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States). It's what sets our nation apart from other nations, because we don't have one single religion that it recognized above all the others. I'm tired of the Pat Robertsons of this country calling for us to return to our Christian roots. I'm tired of the Jerry Falwells of this country calling for everyone to automatically become Christian, because it's the American thing to do. They may be wrong, but it's not our place to tell them to give up their beliefs without a shred of evidence why they should. The Gospel of Christ is compelling, the grace of God is irresistible, and we are His messengers... but we are not His enforcers. We do not convert anyone. The Holy Spirit converts people, with or without us. We tend to speak out of both sides of our mouths on this point. We say that we should be given the forum to speak, but no one else is allowed the same forum.

Secondly, this Manifesto calls for us to de-politicize religion. Nowadays, unless you're a part of a certain party, you're pretty close to being called a heretic! Our allegiance is not to any party platform, civil group, world cause, or anything of the sort. Our allegiance is to Christ and Christ alone, to His Gospel and the spread of it, to preaching freedom in Christ and redemption through His blood. We've forgotten that in modern America. This is not to say that we should remove ourselves from all politics. In fact, we should be involved in getting a Christian voice into major issues. We're called to stand up for injustice, the weak of society, the millions of murdered unborn babies, the victims of horrific genocide. It's what Jesus did. But Christianity is not a weapon for political points, to use Guinness's words. We're not to use the Bible to get across a political message. We're not to become terrorists for Jesus. There is a method to getting what needs to be done in politics. It's called voting. It's called litigation. It's called lobbying. Not simply on the basis of "Well, Jesus said so," but on the basis of "It's morally right." Christianity is to never, ever, ever be synonymous with one party or another.

I don't know about you, but I am so ready to be taught what I believe. I'm ready for someone to finally stand up and say, "The church in America needs help." I think that this Manifesto is a good thing (I wished they had picked another term... anything other than Manifesto. I have visions of Communism when they say that.). It's a call to change the way that we think. It's a call to change the way that we behave. It points out things that are wrong with our Church these days. It's a call to get back to actually understanding theology and examining what the Bible really says. It finally stands up to say that Fundamentalism got things wrong, and Liberalism got things wrong. It stands up and says that it's time for civil dialogue between Christians and other religions in this world.

But don't take my word for it. Read it for yourself.

http://www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com/docs/Evangelical_Manifesto.pdf