Evangelical Manifesto

Here is a most curious document. This Evangelical Manifesto sets out "A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment". There is much to be said for it: the authors do not presume to speak for anyone other than themselves, but seek to be inclusive and invite others to sign. It defines an "old school" evangelicalism, concentrated upon the good news of Jesus Christ, and doesn't stray into fundamentalist territory. Nor is it a proof text fest, as I expected it to be: in fact, I don't think there's a single direct bible quotation or reference.

And this purpose seems good:

For those who are Evangelicals, the deepest purpose of the Manifesto is a serious call to reform—an urgent challenge to reaffirm Evangelical identity, to reform Evangelical behavior, to reposition Evangelicals in public life, and so rededicate ourselves to the high calling of being Evangelical followers of Jesus Christ.

So it doesn't focus simply on identity, but also calls Evangelicals to reform their behaviour. So, for example:

All too often we have prided ourselves on our orthodoxy, but grown our churches through methods and techniques as worldly as the worldliest of Christian adaptations to passing expressions of the spirit of the age.
All too often we have failed to demonstrate the unity and harmony of the body of Christ, and fallen into factions defined by the accidents of history and sharpened by truth without love, rather than express the truth and grace of the Gospel.

And many more passages in a similar vein.

But (and you knew a 'but' was coming, didn't you...) the very lack of presumption about it makes it, well, presumptive. The preamble is long on explanations about "we who sign this declaration do so as American leaders and members of one of the world’s largest and fastest growing movements of the Christian faith". But isn't that curious? They define Evangelicalism as a theological category (so presumably its expression shouldn't be contingent upon culture), and emphatically see it as a world-wide movement, but sign "as American leaders". Why not simply "as leaders"? Something doesn't stack up. I think that what they have written is an American Evangelical Manifesto, even if the title doesn't say so.

The prose is by turns very lofty, and then third rate. Perhaps it smacks of having been written by a committee: for a twenty-page document striving for clarity, it lacks sufficient structure. I somehow expected more. Perhaps this is why it hasn't achieved a higher profile. That, and the curious web-site design making it hard to find out who has drafted and signed it.

But, those criticisms aside, perhaps the most interesting observation for me comes from Tony Jones: he notes that, especially in America, "Evangelical" can be either a theological or a cultural category. In practice, most of the time, for most people, it is surely the latter (how many members of my local Evangelical church could unaided come up with the list of seven Evangelical distinctives from the Manifesto?). Yet, these (and perhaps most) leaders define it theologically.

However, I'd go further than Jones: they may define themselves theologically, but the document is emphatically a call to action, to praxis, to being Christ's people: the deeper message is anything but a dry, definitional, systematic, confessional, faith. It is heading towards being incarnational and missional. I find that rather encouraging.

Have I signed my name to the document, using the web site? No. Will I do so? Let me get back to you.