80 evangelical leaders have released what they are calling an Evangelical Manifesto.
Among other items, the signers criticize professing Christians to the right and left of the political “aisle” concerning the politicization of the faith perhaps to the demise of the central message of the gospel. The opening statement of the summary reads as follows:
Keenly aware of this hour of history, we as a representative group of Evangelicals in America address our fellow-believers and our fellow-citizens.ii We have two purposes: to clarify the confusions that surround the term Evangelical in the United States, and to explain where we stand on issues that cause consternation over Evangelicals in public life.
The global era challenges us to learn how to live with our deepest differences—especially religious differences that are ultimate and irreducible. These are not just differences between personal worldviews but between entire ways of life co-existing in the same society.
The group identifies itself as evangelical, which has been used broadly for people like John Piper (a confessed Calvinist) as well as Clark Pinnock (a professed Open Theist). The singers attempt to define the word as follows in their opening summation.
Evangelicals are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth. (The Greek word for good news was euangelion, which translated into English as evangel.) This Evangelical principle is the heart of who we are as followers of Jesus. It is not unique to us. We assert it not to attack or to exclude, but to remind and to reaffirm, and so to rally and to reform.
Evangelicals are one of the great traditions in the Christian Church. We stand alongside Christians of other traditions in both the creedal core of faith and over many issues of public concern. Yet we also hold to Evangelical beliefs that are distinct—distinctions we affirm as matters of biblical truth, recovered by the Protestant Reformation and vital for a sure knowledge of God. We Evangelicals are defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally.
In identifying themselves they display their intentional political separation with either right or left. The document is bound to trigger much discussion and even controversy. Read the summary here. Read the entire document here. There is also a study guide that you can download from here.
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