The Manhattan Declaration calls Christians to stand up and out

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The Manhattan Declaration calls Christians to stand up and out Posted: 02 Dec 2009 08:53 AM PST Approximately 150 evangelical Christian, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox leaders have taken a stand for Christ and Christian values by signing the “Manhattan Declaration.” The document,  signed on November 20, 2009, is an example to members of their denominations and others to keep defending three main biblical principles: the sanctity of human life; traditional marriage by the Bible’s definition of one man and one woman; and freedom of religious expression. The Manhattan Declaration is subtitled “A Call of Christian Conscience.” Regarding the assault in American society and the current government against the above three values, the text states: “…we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their [the three values] defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them.” According to a Florida Baptist Witness Newspaper editorial by Editor James A. Smith, the authors of the Declaration are Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship; Timothy George, a Southern Baptist minister and dean of Alabama’s Beeson Divinity School, and Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence. The group is not politically affiliated. The Declaration states the signers’  unconditional commitment is to Christ only, and recommends acts of civil disobedience when absolutely necessary (see the Summary of the Manhattan Declaration in the paragraph “Unjust Laws”). The Manhattan Declaration clarifies that its followers will not stand by or comply with any edict that enables mistreatment of human life from the unborn to the elderly, including abortion, euthanasia or destruction of human embryos for research; will not bless immoral sexual partnerships, and will not be silenced on the grounds of religious objection. The Summary ends with this succinct statement: “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.” This echoes the Hebrew leader Joshua’s call to faith: “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:14-16, NIV). When the apostle Peter was given strict orders by the governing body, the Sanhedrin, to stop preaching in the name of Christ, he declared “We must obey God, not men” (Acts 5). Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. also advocated civil (peaceful) disobedience for the Civil Rights movement and accomplished much in this manner. He stood on the fact that all men are created equal, both in the Declaration of Independence and in the Gospel (Galatians 3:28-29). If all men are created equal, then Christians have the right to voice their opinion as much as anyone else. Whom will we obey as Christians? Will we silently go along with the crowd so as not to make waves, or will we stand by the signers of the Manhattan Declaration to come out and be separate as Jesus commanded?

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