Rather than issue another “Declaration,” the Manhattan (is that Kansas?) Declarers are soliciting more signatures for their efforts to identify Christianity with the ongoing fights about the culture. I received an email from the folks at Christianity Today, no less, asking me if I have yet to sign MD. (It did make me wonder how many times Old Bob has signed it.)
So I went back to read the Declaration and gave up after going through the “wouldn’t-it-be-nice” historical narrative that apparently justifies the statement and is supposed to reassure non-Christians that Christianity has always been a source of sweetness and Golden Retrievers:
Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our
societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in recent decades to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.
Sorry, but “while fully acknowledging Christian “imperfections and shortcomings,” the Declarers acknowledged nothing. I see nothing about Michael Servetus, the German nobles response to the Peasant’s Revolt, Edgardo Mortara or Prohibition. This is a Peter Marshall, Light and the Glory, Hallmark version of Christian history. It does nothing to persuade me to sign. If Christians can so selectively and self-centeredly recount their past achievements, I have no reason to trust their assessment of the times in which we live.
Meanwhile, this kind of history does nothing to school Christians about the kind of reception they may face when talking to folks who live in Manhattan. It may even promote idolatry.
Old Life 
“Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our
societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.”
They left out the part about us killing each other.
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“And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement.”
…but then went nuts and asked to be ministers…
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“. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.”
Except for the white Christians in the South that didn’t.
Sometimes Northern liberals and Jews can kind of look like Christians.
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“bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa,”
American homosexuals who we can use for fundraising…not so much.
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But we have to sign to oppose Barack Obama. History has shown that he at least as dangerous to Christianity as Nero, Stalin, and Pol Pot.
O.K., would you believe he is at least as dangerous as Lyndon Johnson?
Jimmy Carter?
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Rockin’, Darryl! I love declarative sentences.
I wonder if any of the signers of the pan-denominational Christian “Manhattan Declaration” will find your objection worthy of debate, or even reply.
To use one of your own analogies, Barack Obama finds it necessary and advantageous reply to–nay, refudiate–Rush Limbaugh. You can be Obama or Limbaugh here, pick your poison. Mostly I wonder how much resonance your objection will have.
I think I could argue your “radical” 2K objection here sympathetically, or at least help your argument. Mebbe it’s God’struth and Will that the Manhattan Declaration is Constantinism’s last gasp here on earth.
I mean this without snark. it’s starting to look that way to me. Perhaps it’s God’s Will that Biblical morality become persecuted rather than control the culture. I don’t claim to know His Will. At this moment, it sure looks like it’s getting time for Christians to be fixing to return to the catacombs, keep their heads down and mouths shut. Two Kingdoms, baby. FU and F Me too.
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Tom,
I think the problem lies more in seeing Christianity as a top down movement, to be organized and controlled, whether by politicians, popes, or the organizers of the Manhattan Declaration. We can only be ecumenical subject to the truth — of Scripture and of history.
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Very good, E: “…but then went nuts and asked to be ministers…” And got booze outlawed. On another note, the trailer voiceover for new movie about TVD’s crusade: “IN A WORLD of declining morality and Old School Calvinist obfuscation one man has the guts stand against the tide — THE REFUDIATOR.”
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….And his faithful sidekick, DOUG “LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT WHAT GOES ON AT TRUCKSTOPS” SOWERS….
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Obama is at least as dangerous as Chet Arthur.
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Erik, do you have a grade nine school project you are currently working on that has taken over all of your mind, and you have the urge to tell everyone you meet all about it, never ending…????
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kent,
I’m obsessed with Oldlifery, or midwifery. One of those.
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Oldlife.org is great, I get free teaching from DGH and completely ignore what the Ferengians have to say.
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Stole the words right off my smartphone, Kent (emoticon).
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A wee groupie limerick for thee, Erik.
There once was a man named Charter
who thought that old Darryl was smarter
than all of the popes
and transformer dopes
Which Rome and Grand Rapids could quarter.
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“Sorry, but ‘while fully acknowledging Christian imperfections and shortcomings,’ the Declarers acknowledged nothing. I see nothing about Michael Servetus, the German nobles response to the Peasant’s Revolt, Edgardo Mortara or Prohibition.”
— This objection is unfair. The authors’ goal was to highlight the good the believe Christians, individually or institutionally, have pursued. Their goal was not to offer a comprehensive history of Christianity.
Please do criticise their goals, their theology, their philosophy, or the history they articulate, but complaining that they didn’t do something other than they intended seems unfair.
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^ the above ‘Paul’ isn’t me. If he were, he would have said something like:
So is this post the passive aggressive way of telling everyone you got invited to the cool kids’ party, so that every knows you’re on the A-list?
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Chortles,
I like it. Maybe someone can come up with a tune and more verses and it can go in the new URC/OPC hymnal.
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Do I actually have to be leading anybody to qualify for the list of “Religious Leaders Signatories”?:
Click to access list_of_religious_leaders.pdf
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Paul So is this post the passive aggressive way of telling everyone you got invited to the cool kids’ party, so that every knows you’re on the A-list?
I trust all of us were never part of the cool kids’ clique, and gave up worrying about it decades ago
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PLM, and you continue to wonder why you’re tagged as aggressive. For such a smart guy you can be pretty dense sometimes.
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Kent, then explain Darryl’s bow tie.
Zrim, I don’t continue to wonder that. But if that comment is considered “aggressive,” then perhaps Hart was right in wondering whether or not you’re a little light in the loafers. But I must say, I simply *love* the guy who tries to point out that another guy is “aggressive”, but denies that of himself, and yet calls the other guy “dense.”
But I’ll say it again for you, this time with feeling. I’m clearly not aggressive with everyone. Why (many of) the people here? Ed Feser says it perfectly, so I’ll quote him:
“Here I must digress to address a pet peeve. Something called “Feser’s tone” is the subject of occasional handwringing, not only among some of my secularist critics, but also among a handful of bed-wetters in the Christian blogosphere. But there is no such thing as “Feser’s tone,” if that is meant to refer to some vituperative modus operandi of mine. Sometimes my writing is polemical; usually it is not. I have written five books and edited two others. Exactly one of them — The Last Superstition — is polemical. Of course, some of my non-academic articles and blog posts are also polemical. But that is an approach I take only to a certain category of opponent, and typically toward people who have themselves been polemical and are merely getting a well-earned taste of their own medicine. Complaining about this is like complaining about police who shoot back at bank robbers. I’ve addressed the question of why and under what circumstances polemics are justified in this post and in other posts you’ll find linked to within it.”
Just make the appropriate mutatis mutandis substitutions.
Cheers,
Paul
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Bow tie daddy, dontcha blow your top
everything’s under control
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And Zrim, you really should work on your constitution. It’s clear that I *purposefully* made that remark in order to get a *rise* out of people; and I specifically had you in mind. Perhaps you should wonder why it’s so *easy* to get your goat. Are you off your meds again? 😉
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Kent, and you said you were never one of the cool kids.
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Tom, I think the problem lies more in seeing Christianity as a top down movement, to be organized and controlled, whether by politicians, popes, or the organizers of the Manhattan Declaration. We can only be ecumenical subject to the truth — of Scripture and of history.
I dunno. Even Presbyterians have “elders.” There’s a certain necessary “top-down” that we’d call leadership. Certainly not every one is a genius or a scholar–there’s going to be a certain division of labor in a church, and indeed it’s not always the best theologians who are the church leaders. In fact, the Catholic instigator, Robbie George, holds no post in his church and neither does evangelical theologian Timothy George.
The list of 500,000+ signatories is personal, not “corporate.” The various bishops, clergy–and laity–sign their own names, and there are of course bishops, clergy and laity from those very sects who oppose it.
R.C. Sproul did not sign the Declaration because he disagrees with the document’s identification of Catholics and Orthodox as “Christians.”[
And then there’s that. ;-O
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But I’ll say it again for you, this time with feeling. I’m clearly not aggressive with everyone. Why (many of) the people here? Ed Feser says it perfectly, so I’ll quote him:
“Here I must digress to address a pet peeve. Something called “Feser’s tone” is the subject of occasional handwringing, not only among some of my secularist critics, but also among a handful of bed-wetters in the Christian blogosphere. But there is no such thing as “Feser’s tone,” if that is meant to refer to some vituperative modus operandi of mine. Sometimes my writing is polemical; usually it is not. I have written five books and edited two others. Exactly one of them — The Last Superstition — is polemical. Of course, some of my non-academic articles and blog posts are also polemical. But that is an approach I take only to a certain category of opponent, and typically toward people who have themselves been polemical and are merely getting a well-earned taste of their own medicine. Complaining about this is like complaining about police who shoot back at bank robbers. I’ve addressed the question of why and under what circumstances polemics are justified in this post and in other posts you’ll find linked to within it.”
Just make the appropriate mutatis mutandis substitutions.
Cheers,
Paul
Feser rules.
http://calvinistinternational.com/tag/edward-feser/
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yeah, that was part of the albums the cool kids had…
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Paul, I freely admit to having a passive-aggressive streak. (After all, I am a firstborn.) I may be light in the loafers, but at least I can admit my streaks.
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Paul, you got me. I have taste for some worms today.
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Tom, time to head to the catacombs? Is that where I’ll find affordable health care?
I don’t know what you’re talking about. So far our churches worship freely, women may have as many children as they want, and homeschooling thrives. I wouldn’t have thought you a doomsdayer. Then again, you and Doug seem to think in similar ways.
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Paul, my objection stands. When my students “take” the other side of an argument in a phrase, they lose points.
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Paul M., exactly. Being on CT’s mailing list is very, very exclusive. Jealous?
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Zrim, pshaw. Paul smart?
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Paul, BS. Don’t give yourself too much Feser credit. I remember your first appearance here, you started out by “merely” asking questions. And of course you were trying to back folks into a corner. You’re passive aggressive like the best woman.
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Tom, the signatures include the organizations for which these persons work (or lead). It is hardly personal. It’s not like they listed Joel Belz, Davidson, NC.
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Tom – Even Presbyterians have “elders.”
Erik – In the URC & the OPC authority is bottom up, vs. top down, however. Authority lies in the Consistory/Session (local churches) with advice from Classis/Presbytery (groups of local churches).
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D.G. – and homeschooling thrives.
Erik – Iowa just loosened the laws so that homeschoolers need have no supervision from the public schools, can teach up to 4 unrelated kids, and can teach their kids drivers ed. And this is in a divided legislature. Republicans basically bought off the Democrats with more money for public schools.
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Speaking of patriots and all, does a middling pagan NFL player now have cause to sue the Patriots owner over religious discrimination?
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/13/tim-tebows-spirituality-no-small-factor-for-patriots-owner-robert-kraft/
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Tom, the signatures include the organizations for which these persons work (or lead). It is hardly personal. It’s not like they listed Joel Belz, Davidson, NC.
True, but they don’t bind their organizations, for instance
142. Parker T. Williamson
Editor Emeritus and Senior Correspondent, Presbyterian Lay Committee
______________
Tom, time to head to the catacombs? Is that where I’ll find affordable health care? I don’t know what you’re talking about. So far our churches worship freely, women may have as many children as they want, and homeschooling thrives.
It’s a secular shari’a–they’re are fine with religion as long they get to control the culture. Be a good little boy and keep that stuff in your churches and houses.
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Tom, but if as you say the people are Caesar then what do the people have to worry about? Besides, the Bible portrays Christianity as thriving under the gun, contrary to some Memorial Day sermons and sentiments. Not that I want any form of oppression, but the way the Bible speaks there are spiritual downsides to civil liberty.
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Editor Emeritus and Senior Correspondent, Presbyterian Lay Committee
What they heck is that? Sounds riveting. How can I subscribe?
Tom,
For someone who’s not “secular” you sure are nondescript when it comes to your own confession of faith. Generic religion – yay!
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I believe Mr. Williamson is a leader of “conservatives” in the PCUSA and head of the “Last, no — really — this is the final last straw, or one of the last anyway…” committee (PLC), aka “When they ordain goats we’re outta here committee”.
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Chortles,
Speaking of that, even the Mormons are getting squishy:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324600704578407020865769616.html
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When a church site calls itself Layman Online, it’s no surprise about their stance on conventional marriage and behaviour.
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“Last, no — really — this is the final last straw, or one of the last anyway…” committee (PLC), aka “When they ordain goats we’re outta here committee”.
Heh. ^5, Mr. Weakly.
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BTW, ran across this @ Fea’s and thought of y’all. 😉
http://moralminoritybook.com/2013/06/03/help-mom-there-are-arminians-under-my-bed/
From a customer review: “We bought this for our three boys, Beza, Calvin, and Van Till! They loved every minute of this book! Buying this book will root my children in a holy fear of the Arminian heresy!!! The joy they got out of this book made me almost as happy as when little Calvin started quoting the Institutes, little Van Till argued for the existence of God by assuming He existed, and little Beza threw rocks at that Methodist kid in his class! I know that God has predestined them to great things!!! I am so proud of my three little supralapsarians!!!”
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Tom,
I would expect nothing less from a metrosexual who teaches at Asbury University. Tell him to say “hi” to his bishop the next time he sees her.
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Tom, I would expect nothing less from a metrosexual who teaches at Asbury University. Tell him to say “hi” to his bishop the next time he sees her.
Actually, it’s on Amazon. And I got the link from John Fea.
Somebody’s got to cure you of this ad hom thing, man. It’s not just me. Anybody sez anything you don’t like, you instantly get personal.
So to be consistent, go after John Fea.
http://www.philipvickersfithian.com/2013/06/help-mom-there-are-arminians-under-my.html
Me, I just thought it was funny. So did John.
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Erik – Iowa just loosened the laws so that homeschoolers need have no supervision from the public schools, can teach up to 4 unrelated kids, and can teach their kids drivers ed. And this is in a divided legislature. Republicans basically bought off the Democrats with more money for public schools.
Brian — Are there 4 unrelated kids in Iowa?
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
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Brian,
You’re thinking of Missouri. One state to the south.
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Decided to stop by after my last comment. Patted myself on the back for commenting at just the time Darryl was off his meds.
Oh, and don’t misread things. I came to merely ask questions. Saw the anti-intellectualism. Read Darryl admit to me that he doesn’t seriously interact with arguments. So I decided to play the game. I’ve been playing it ever since. Batter up!
I may not be a smart man, Darryly, but I do know what snark is.
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