Recently a group of representatives from various groups considered to be historically Christian came out with a manifesto called the Manhattan Declaration. The Declaration, as such Declarations are want to do, has created a buzz in the Christian community. I have read the Manhattan Declaration (henceforth MD) and it is a document, in my estimation, that is concerned with the deterioration and the destructive pursuit of Christendom in America. The MD focuses on three specific areas of life, religious liberty, and marriage.
Having read the document, I also took the time to read Albert Mohler’s reasons for signing the document, as well as James White’s, John MacArthur’s, and R. C. Sproul Jr.’s reason for not signing the document. I even took the time to read Andrew Sandlin’s criticism of MacArthur’s reasoning. Having read all that I’m ready to have a go at the Manhattan Declaration.
I will offer some criticisms thus explaining why I could not sign the document, though I wholeheartedly agree with the necessity to defend the idea of Christ’s Lordship and authority over civil-social institutions. Further, even though I could not sign this document I would be more than happy to work hand in hand with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Communists, Muslims, Hindus, and followers of the Stay-puff Marshmallow Man as well as any and all others who would subscribe to what is being pursued in this document in a matter of co-belligerence. However, I would be telling them the whole time they must repent, confess their sins, and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.
Criticisms
MD soon moves to this line,
A.)
We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities.
There is a great deal of presumption that is loaded into that opening pronoun. Since “We” collectivizes the Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical into one big pot one begins to wonder if the different members of the “We” have put aside their historic differences on what makes a Christian a Christian. The Drafting committee of the MD might have made the manifesto easier to sign for those of us who want to uphold Christendom if they had instead said, We, as those who are the inheritors and now defenders of a Christian Ethic, have gathered … As it stands the document assumes far to much common ground that doesn’t really exist between Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical distinct faith communities.
B.) MD later compliments Christians by noting that,
And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement.
It should be noted that there were likewise many Christian women who stood against the woman’s suffrage movement. They stood against the woman’s suffrage movement because they understood that such a position was not in keeping with historic Christendom. The reader can access this link for one such impassioned and well reasoned trope.
http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/susan/suffrage.html
It is passing strange that a document that is a defense in favor of traditional Christian ethics has in it a reference to the glories of woman’s suffrage, for the accomplishment of woman’s suffrage was a great success in the early assault on Christian civilization. Susan Fenimore Cooper, in the link previously cited nailed the problem exactly when she wrote,
“An adventurous party among us, weary of the old paths, is now eagerly proclaiming theories and doctrines entirely novel on this important subject. The Emancipation of Women is the name chosen by its advocates for this movement. They reject the idea of all subordination, even in the mildest form, with utter scorn. They claim for woman absolute social and political equality with man. And they seek to secure these points by conferring on the whole sex the right of the elective franchise, female suffrage being the first step in the unwieldy revolutions they aim at bringing about. These views are no longer confined to a small sect. They challenge our attention at every turn. We meet them in society; we read them in the public prints; we hear of them in grave legislative assemblies, in the Congress of the Republic, in the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain. The time has come when it is necessary that all sensible and conscientious men and women should make up their minds clearly on a subject bearing upon the future condition of the entire race.”
Cooper understood, as seen in the emboldened portion above, that Female suffrage that the draft committee of the MD so boast in was but the beginning salvo in the attempt to dismantle Christendom of which the MD laments.
Consistent with this one of the things I find disturbing about the MD is the number of women signatories. This alone shows the egalitarian emphasis, which has led to the very issues the document seems to decry (and which some of the signatories who are on the Biblical Council for Manhood and Womanhood ought to find troubling).
I would go so far as to say that the egalitarian emphasis that bleeds through this document eviscerates everything that the MD is trying to accomplish. It is a poison pill.
C.) “We have compassion for those (homosexuals) so disposed (to their illicit vices); we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity.”
There is a great deal of talk in the MD about the inherent dignity of humans and most of it is couched in language that ascribes that inherent dignity to being image bearers of God. But there are a few places where that isn’t articulated and this is one of them. It should be clearly said that the only being who has inherent dignity is God. Any dignity that humans have is derivative dignity that comes from being it being assigned to them by God. (Hat Tip R. C. Sproul Sr.)
D.) The Section on Religious liberty
This section seems to assume that a society and culture can be successfully built upon a idea of religious liberty that allows all religions to be equally valued and allowed. Let it be observed that no culture has ever been successfully built or maintained where all religions are equally predominate and where no one religion has preeminence. Such a belief would result in utter societal chaos.
For a proper understanding of religious liberty I offer these two links,
https://ironink.org/index.php?blog=1&title=the_difference_between_toleration_aamp_r&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
https://ironink.org/index.php?blog=1&title=a_christocratic_nation_w_o_an_establishe&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
E.)
“There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself.
I find it odd that the drafters of the MD cited Martin Luther King as an example. Martin Luther King was no more a Christian than Mahatma Gandhi. Is it possible for someone to write from an explicitly Christian perspective who denied the fundamentals of the Christian faith?
Overall the document has some stellar points and solid reasoning. However these weaknesses, especially the first two, prohibit me from signing the document.
Where did you see RC Jr’s reason(s) for not signing? I agree with all of your criticism, but I nonetheless find it worth signing. The many flaws do not outweigh its potential to make a unified statement about the things we do believe concerning abortion and civil disobedience. I grant that this is a statement and not an argument. However, I do not grant that the mere finding of flaws within the document cause it to be not signable.
Hello Rich,
R. C. Jr. posted this on facebook,
Rich,
I agree that there is a sort of moral unity that binds different branches of Christendom. However, that moral unity does not imply a theological unity. After all, many Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses could just as easily sign the document as Catholic, Evangelicals, and Eastern Orthodox and just as clearly we have no more in common with them theologically than we do Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox.
I understand why people would want to sign this document, and I don’t fault them in the slightest for wanting to uphold the notions of Christendom. I just don’t think co-belligerence requires me to sign a document that more than implies that I think that Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy are legitimate expressions of the undoubted Catholic Christian faith.
It would have been better if each distinct faith community had written up the same manifesto from and to their particular faith communities and then had members of those distinct faith communities sign the particular manifestos and issued them together. In such a way a unity of purpose between the different faith communities could have been seen without communicating a unity of identity.
“After all, many Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses could just as easily sign the document as Catholic, Evangelicals, and Eastern Orthodox and just as clearly we have no more in common with them theologically than we do Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox.”
As bad as the RomCath’s & EO’s are, they do believe the Apostle’s & Nicene Creeds & Chalcedonian formulations. Similarly, our societal ethics are mutual as well, and this in a way that is more true than with the Mormons, etc (I think this is in large part due to more shared presuppositions). So I do see much more unity of identity with them than w/ JW’s & Mormons, etc.
Nonetheless, I tended to think that the document was really about “unity of purpose” with a minor stance of “unity of identity.” I understand your position, though. It does gloss over those issues in a way that seems to presuppose that it has been worked out. To me, it reads more that the basis of the unity expressed within the document was our common ethic (despite a couple odd sentences here and there).