BLOG: Why the ‘Manhattan Declaration’ on religious liberty matters

by JAMES A. SMITH SR.

Executive Editor

Article Date: Nov 20, 2009

I’m planning to write more thoroughly on this matter in my editorial for next week, but I wanted to take the occasion of my blog to alert readers to an important manifesto released today at a National Press Club news conference in Washington, D.C.

The “Manhattan Declaration: A Call to Christian Conscience” puts on notice our government that there are some matters of biblical conviction for which compromise is not an option – and puts on notice some evangelicals leaders their need to understand there are a “hierarchy of issues,” as Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, tells The New York Times in a story published today.

According to its website, “The Manhattan Declaration is a 4,732-word statement signed by a movement of Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders who are collaborating around moral issues of great concern. Its 125 plus signers affirm the sanctity of human life, marriage as defined by the union of one man and one woman, and religious liberty and freedom of conscience. The Manhattan Declaration endorses civil disobedience under certain circumstances.”

The Manhattan Declaration was authored by Colson, widely respected evangelical leader, along with Timothy George, Southern Baptist minister and dean of the Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala., and Robert P. George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University.

According to the Times, which obtained a copy of the statement, the Declaration appeals to the actions of Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for civil disobedience as an example of the signers’ determination to refuse to comply with certain laws that would compel their participation in abortion or same-sex “marriage.”

“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 statement asserts, according to the Times.

“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 antilife act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent,” the Times reports the statement as saying.

The statement was the result of a September meeting of Christian leaders in Manhattan, from which the document draws its name.

The declaration was released at noon today. Having had the opportunity to read it, I have signed the declaration — and I hope you will join me in affirming this worthy statement.

The Manhattan Declaration is an extremely important statement that is worthy of the attention and support of all Christians, especially pastors and lay leaders of local churches. I have warned repeatedly – see, particularly, a May 7, 2009, editorial and a Jan. 26, 2009, editorial – about the religious liberty implications of certain public policies, especially those related to abortion and homosexual rights.

These are matters eventually that no true Christian will be able to avoid. Therefore, we ought to resolve now how we will live and witness.

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