Just google the phrase "useful idiots" on any news page tonight and you'll see why we think the release of the Evangelical Manifesto will prove to be a hurtful experience in the Body of Christ. That's the phrase the document actually uses! Surely the drafters must have realized that would be the sound bite most likely pulled from their document when they crafted it.
I write this with absolute despondency. These are my heroes; mentors; even my friends.
I've sat writing raptly as they preached, taken their Hebrew tests in seminary and shared meals with them. They are giants of the faith; names we'll be talking about long after God brings them Home. Most have spent their lives building reputations of love and sacrifice and great spiritual beauty.
So it's almost impossible for me to imagine myself begging them to pull back from this effort. In no small way my spiritual life has been shaped by the names attached to this document. I can recognize their individual writing styles in the document from reading their books, know the terms from hearing their lectures, recognize their urgency in the bold strokes drawn from their own courage; I can almost peg the words to the person who ghosted them.
In fact, as I read the document through, and then read their invitation to sign it, I had the feeling I was being asked to make a choice. Almost everything in the document's early pages reflects my own personal beliefs, and even the frustrations and behaviors they disdain in the later pages are opinions I've often held.
Which is precisely why this Manifesto is not good for the Body of Christ: It makes you feel like you have to choose sides!
To be fair, they do attempt to mask the unflattering terms as self-descriptive, but the men and women whose names are attached to the bottom of this document have seldom if ever been guilty of the behaviors they condemn, so the shots fired across others' bows remain just that: Shots fired across others' bows. And nearly everyone in the culture, especially the media, have a good idea who they are targeting. No one should be surprised to see and hear the celebrations already beginning outside the Evangelical community and reported in the media and on web pages and blogs worldwide.
Whatever else it is intended to do, the document (intentionally or unintentionally) presses Christians to pick sides, especially evangelical Christians. We strongly encourage you to read the entire writing for yourself, as there is much to commend in the early pages. It is the later part of the document that shifts this from momentous to troubling. Found at http://www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com/, the document starts out marvelously. In fact, were it to have refrained from its assault on those behaviors they've deemed harmful to the term "evangelical", we'd be discussing this as one of the most important documents in the past 200 years of the Church.
Unapologetically committed to the truths of Scripture, the document (I can't even bring myself to use the word "manifesto"; it bears such a hugely negative connotation) clearly and wonderfully defines what it means to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. It then ventures forward in surprisingly frank and remarkably courageous fashion to declare what it means to be an Evangelical Christian. In this section, there is much to celebrate. Rarely in our culture has the term been so admirably defined! Had the document only done this, it would have leapfrogged the Body of Christ forward, giving it a fighting chance to redeem the phrase "evangelical" from its rapidly diminishing status in culture.
But sadly, the document doesn't stop there.
Guilty of the Same Charge?
Are we, by critiquing the document ourselves, not guilty of the very same kind of activity that makes us so uncomfortable with this effort?
It's a fair question, and we've prayerfully wrestled with it for many hours. In the end, we believe the public nature of the document's release, the private way in which it was developed (there are reports the drafters imposed a news embargo on media members who were part of the process), argue for a public discussion.
More to the point, while many of the signers of the Manifesto are household names inside the Evangelical bubble, most of them will be names that are unfamiliar to the body of Christ at large. While they term themselves leaders in the Evangelical movement, their leadership is largely behind the scenes. Because of this, we think we're positioned to communicate who the signers of this Manifesto are; to affirm to Christians who may not know them that they are men and women of unquestionable character and spiritual depth; while seeking to explain in lay terms just what dangers rest in the Manifesto's later pages, especially.
While we think parts of the Manifesto, and most of the way it was organized and released, are harmful to the church at large, we don't believe most of the drafters intended to be harmful or even hurtful. It's our hope to comment on their action while still affirming their marvelous contributions to the faith of so many.
We do so with humility and without animosity; but we do so convinced this effort must be altered to avoid the kind of in-fighting which historically plagues denominations
We're fully aware this may be too narrow a slicing of our rationale; that we may well find ourselves in need of repentance. We're also aware of the deep emotions on both sides of the issue of how Christians should engage their culture, especially the political areas of that culture, and that neither side will likely find comfort; the drafters with our objections to the process and hurtful language; the targets of the drafters for our belief these things needed to be said, but in a much less public process that mirrors the conflict resolution and restoration principles espoused in Scripture.