“And in the morning, behold, it was Leah!”
On November 24 I posted an article about the Manhattan Declaration. At that stage it had 73,000 signatories, now it has 217,000.
While the document seemed a positive and needed statement, later examination suggested that everything was not necessarily as it should have been. Just think of eager Jacob in Genesis, expecting Rachel and waking up to discover poor Leah.
In the earlier post I noted some commentary stating that, despite the significant nature of its statements regarding human life, marriage and human liberty, some were already indicating an inability to support the document as a whole because it seemed to affirm a confused view of what constitutes a Christian. In addition, the document is not clear on the sole authority of the Scriptures as a determiner of moral and ethical truth.
Following are a series of posts from Christian leaders and writers who have reservations about the ‘primary affirmations’ (my term) that undergird the Declaration.
John MacArthur maintains that signing it would: ‘also tacitly relegate the very essence of gospel truth to the level of a secondary issue.’
Alistair Begg states that: ‘my reservation is not with the issues themselves, or in standing with others who share the same concerns, but it is in signing a declaration along with a group of leading churchmen, when I happen to believe that the teaching of some of their churches is in effect a denial of the biblical gospel.’
At PyroManiacs Dan Phillips posts ‘Nineteen Questions For Signers Of The Manhattan Declaration’. Among the questions, he asks: Which is more important and more critical in our day: to define marriage, life, and civil liberty; or to define the Gospel?’; ‘Can any civic gains that this document achieves for the issues of abortion or marriage offset the spiritual damage it causes in blurring the line between a true, Biblical, saving Gospel, and a false, un-Biblical, damning distortion?’ and, tellingly, ‘If your [the signatories] son or daughter were to tell you that he or she wants to join the Orthodox or Roman Catholic church, “Because anyway, you said they were Christians just like you are, except for ‘ecclesial difference'” — how would you respond?’
Kevin DeYoung concedes that the reservations expressed could be read into the Declaration while asserting that it does not have to be read in that manner.
The Declaration says more than it needs to in areas which were not even central to its intent. It is inexplicable that people the caliber of those who framed this document could be as careless with language as has appeared here.
After all, they were not writing for themselves, they were writing to declare their belief to wider society. Their intent was not primarily to edify themselves, but those who would read the Declaration. Those who have little knowledge of Christian history or theology would not be able to distinguish anything other than that all expressions of Christianity are understood to be equivalent.
That oversight would seem to be one of intent, not accident. And that’s why the Declaration is useful in some areas, but not acceptable in others.
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