Posted on 05/13/2008 12:22:24 PM PDT by Caleb1411
Is William Wilberforce your ancestor?
What does it mean to be an evangelical? Decade after decade new declarations and explanations emerge, and some are mouthfuls of mush. But the latest, titled "An Evangelical Manifesto: The Washington Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment," scheduled for unveiling on May 7 by a group including Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and leading lights Rick Warren, Os Guinness, Dallas Willard, Timothy George, and Richard Mouw, is likely to do some good.
Although "manifesto" is an arrogant-sounding word, this one's confessions are credible, its hopes holistic, and its goals generous. The declaration starts with admissions—"the confusions and corruptions surrounding the term Evangelical have grown so deep that the character of what it means has been obscured"—and later, confessions: All too often evangelicals "have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk."
So true. And the confessions keep coming: "All too often we have set out high, clear statements of the authority of the Bible, but flouted them with lives and lifestyles that are shaped more by our own sinful preferences and by modern fashions and convenience." Also true. So we need to scrape away the dragon skin, as Eustace does in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and come to the good definition that the declaration provides: "Evangelicals are committed to thinking, acting, and living as Jesus lived and taught, and so to embody this truth and his good news for the world that we may be recognizably his disciples."
As if in answer to a church question—"Evangelicals, what do you believe?"—the statement summarizes the basics: "Jesus Christ is fully God become fully man. . . . The only ground for our acceptance by God is our trust in Jesus Christ. . . . New life, given supernaturally through spiritual regeneration, is a necessity as well as a gift . . . the lifelong conversation that results is the only pathway to a radically changed character and way of life. . . . Scriptures are final rule for life and thought. . . . Being disciples of Jesus means serving him as Lord in every sphere of our lives, secular as well as spiritual, public as well as private."
There's more, but the declaration takes pain to note that evangelicals do not live by words alone: "To be Evangelical is a belief that is also a devotion. . . . Evangelical belief and devotion is expressed as much in our worship and in our deeds as in our creeds. . . . What we are about is captured not only in books or declarations, but in our care for the poor, the homeless, and the orphaned; our outreach to those in prison; our compassion for the hungry and the victims of disaster; and our fight for justice for those oppressed by slavery and human trafficking."
Those emphases are important (in my experience many non-Christian college students define "evangelical" as "anti-homosexual"), so it's important to stress that "the Evangelical message, 'good news' by definition, is overwhelmingly positive, and always positive before it is negative. . . . Just as Jesus did, Evangelicals sometimes have to make strong judgments about what is false, unjust, and evil. But first and foremost, evangelicals are for Someone and for something rather than against anyone or anything."
Then comes a key defining point: "Evangelicalism should be distinguished from two opposite tendencies to which Protestantism has been prone: liberal revisionism and conservative fundamentalism." Liberals "have tended to accommodate the world . . . to the point where they are unfaithful to Christ; whereas those more conservative tended so to defy the world that they resist it in ways that also become unfaithful to Christ."
Theological liberals, the declaration contends, typically have "an exaggerated estimate of human capacities, a shallow view of evil, an inadequate view of truth, and a deficient view of God. In the end they are sometimes no longer recognizably Christian." But the declaration also accurately criticizes the tendency of fundamentalism "to romanticize the past, some now-lost moment in time, and to radicalize the present, with styles of reaction that are personally and publicly militant to the point where they are sub-Christian or worse." What's important to remember: "The Gospel of Jesus is the Good News of welcome, forgiveness, grace, and liberation from law and legalism."
What does all of this mean concerning the key public affairs issues of our day? "We cannot back away from our biblically rooted commitment to the sanctity of every human life, including those unborn, nor can we deny the holiness of marriage as instituted by God between one man and one woman." At the same time, "we must follow the model of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, engaging the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emphasis."
The declaration does not call for big government, though: It asks us to remember and emulate the "vital but little known Evangelical contribution to the rise of the voluntary association."
The declaration also calls for neither a Christian America nor a secularized one, neither a sacred nor a naked public square, but rather "a civil public square—a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths too. Thus every right we assert for ourselves is at once a right we defend for others. A right for a Christian is a right for a Jew, and a right for a secularist, and a right for a Mormon, and a right for a Muslim, and a right for a Scientologist, and a right for all the believers in all the faiths across this wide land."
The declaration's bottom line: "We should neither privatize nor politicize faith; the church should be identified neither with the religious right nor the religious left." In contrast with "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. . . . Evangelicals part company with reactionaries by being both reforming and innovative, but they also part company with modern progressives by challenging the ideal of the-newer-the-truer and the-latest-is-greatest by conserving what is true and right and good."
Will the declaration lead to the useful reform of American evangelicalism? It takes as a model Britain's William Wilberforce (see WORLD, Feb. 10, 2007), the evangelical who two centuries ago fought both slavery and moral decline by asserting that Christians should "boldly assert the cause of Christ in an age when so many who bear the name of Christian are ashamed of Him. Let them be active, useful, and generous toward others. Let them show moderation and self-denial themselves. Let them be ashamed of idleness. When blessed with wealth, let them withdraw from the competition of vanity and be modest, retiring from ostentation, and not be the slaves of fashion."
Wilberforce proceeded boldly but not arrogantly, knowing that he could commend belief but not command it. He stated, "the national difficulties we face result from the decline of religion and morality among us. I must confess equally boldly that my own solid hopes for the well-being of my country depend, not so much on her navies and armies . . . as on the persuasion that she still contains many who love and obey the Gospel of Christ. I believe that their prayers may yet prevail." This new declaration, which takes aim at slavery to fashion on both the left and the right, should hearten those who love and obey the gospel of Christ.
He, like Jimmy Carter, likes to meet with the dictators of the world.
What’s Up I agree 100 percent! Rick Warren reminds me of Oprah, they have their own religion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMo8feQdKuc
The whole idea is a waste of time. Manifestos are things written by the Ted Kazynskis of the world hiding out in their Montana bunkers.
Not necessarily. Years back Francis Schaeffer wrote “A Christian Manifesto”. By the way Os Guinnes is his son-in-law.
It really doesn’t look bad but I just wish they had left out the word “innovation”. That has become a very “loaded” term to me personally and, I am sure, many others. Really a small quibble.
Blah, blah, blah, more hot air and blather issuing forth from self-important, self-appointed, so-called evangelical “leaders,” who normally can’t downplay the Gospel and the name of Jesus Christ or compromise with the world fast enough. Just stick with the Bible, folks. Much simpler.
The evangelical manifesto was written a long time ago and finished around 2000 years ago.
read later
Amen. Let me quote a little from it:
Matt 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Matt 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Acts 1: 6 So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
I disagree with this paragraph in particular:
“The declaration’s bottom line: “We should neither privatize nor politicize faith; the church should be identified neither with the religious right nor the religious left.”
So the Church should be apolitical. That’s good as a general goal, but the Church is also preach righteousness and if one or more parties support sin, the Church ought to oppose that.
“In contrast with “being unquestioning conservatives and unreserved supporters of tradition and the status quo, “
This is a straw man. Neither Christians nor conservatives are unquestioning nor “unreserved supporters of tradition and the status quo.” This is a false assumption and statement. A quick counter example: slavery was the status quo when Christians challenged it and changed the western world within a hundred years.
“being Evangelical means an ongoing commitment to Jesus Christ, and this entails innovation, renewal, reformation, and entrepreneurial dynamism. . . . “
Rather vague and odd to use the language of business. It is better to use the Biblical language—go to all the world, preach the gospel in season and out of season, follow the Holy Spirit wherever He leads.
“Evangelicals part company with reactionaries by being both reforming and innovative, but they also part company with modern progressives by challenging the ideal of the-newer-the-truer and the-latest-is-greatest by conserving what is true and right and good.”
This last could be said of any conservative. Another straw man and erroneous assumption.
Why do these people have the right to define evangelism, why should their opinion matter, and what difference will it make? Answers: they don’t have the right to define it, their opinion doesn’t matter, and they will make no difference to the work of God.
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