Religious leaders vow civil disobedience on anti-life issues

More than 150 leaders across a spectrum of conservative Christianity on Friday released a 4,700-word document vowing civil disobedience if they are forced to take part in "anti-life acts" or bless gay marriages.

Called the "Manhattan Declaration," the six-page, single-spaced document was drafted by Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, an evangelical, and Princeton University professor Robert P. George, a Roman Catholic, and included a bevy of Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox bishops, archbishops and cardinals as signatories along with dozens of clergy and laity.

More about this below; we have played possum too long and tolerated many evils too long. The culture of death will destroy us all unless we stand up and be counted.

www.lifesitenews.com
“We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right - and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation - to speak and act in defense of these truths,” reads the declaration.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

The document lays out the groups’ arguments against anti-life, anti-family, and anti-religious public policy as contravening “foundational principles of justice and the common good,” in defense of which the group says they are “compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act.”

In asserting Christians’ right to conscientious objection to such policy, the declaration says it is “ironic” that those who advance as “rights” various immoral practices “are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage.”

“Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family,” it concludes.

“We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

Co-author Timothy George, who is founding dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University and a senior editor of Christianity Today, said the Manhattan Declaration “represents an ecumenism of the trenches that has been going on for a number of years among many denominations and confessional traditions.”

“While we recognize that many important differences of doctrine and discipline still divide us, we nonetheless earnestly seek that unity for which Jesus prayed when he asked that his disciples be one in their love for God, for one another, and for the world,” said George.

On his radio show BreakPoint Wednesday, Evangelical leader Chuck Colson called the Manhattan Declaration “probably the most important document I’ve ever signed.”

we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family

I observe only one instance in the whole article where these unnamed institutions are actually compelled to do something contrary to conscience or prohibited from doing that which is mandated by conscience except a reference at the foot of the article:

The Archdiocese of Washington is under fire for saying it will not comply with a pending D.C. law that would force the Catholic Church to give health benefits or adoption services to same-sex couples.

Even in this illustration the conflict remains theoretical or potential rather than actual. I have no doubt, however, as leftists acquire more and more authority in this country they will begin to exercise their power against Christ and his servants. Normally churches do not perform abortions or assist in euthanasia but, as the illustration points out, their hospitals might be compelled to do so just as Democrats would compel doctors to train in abortions. Already in Canada and Scandinavia preachers have been prosecuted or threatened with prosecution for sermonizing against homosexuality.

Therefore this declaration, called the "Manhattan Declaration" and dubbed the most important document he ever signed by Chuck Colson, appears to be a declaration of intention to serve as a line in the sand upon which Christians across the country can and should rally and upon which the left should not trespass.

The sooner Christians in America can contrive to make their position resemble a civil rights movement, the sooner they will have possession of the high ground. The Manhattan declaration might in the future serve as a kind of Balfour Declaration for Christians as they battle for survival in their own land. That is, a document with moral force if not legal effect. Hopefully it will prove a rallying point for the faithful. It might even serve as a counterpoint to the attacks which will inevitably come from the mainstream media. Christians can point to the Manhattan Declaration as a justification for non-cooperation or even civil disobedience if necessary.

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