Sign the Manhattan Declaration!

 
Attention! From the signers of Manhattan Declaration, being released today at Noon EST, in Washington D.C:

We invite you to join with other Christians across the nation who support the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty by endorsing the Manhattan Declaration.

Throughout the centuries, God has graciously provided His people with teachers and prophetic voices who apply His word to the critical issues of the day and who lead their hearers to embrace His life-giving authority and counsel in the midst of cultural madness. The Manhattan Declaration extends and honors that tradition, and we urge you to join us in affirming it. The Manhattan Declaration addresses with urgent eloquence the devaluation of human life, the corruption of marriage, and the erosion of religious liberty. With careful instruction, it brings light and clarity to all who read it. We trust that millions of believers will sign it, that countless others will be drawn or driven to give it fair consideration, and that our society will be changed by its strong yet sweetly reasonable message.

The Manhattan Declaration will be released this Friday, November 20, 2009, at a press conference in Washington D.C. It bears the signatures of many religious leaders, but this is just the beginning. The list of supports will grow dramatically in a short time and those who most need to hear this word will not be able to escape or downplay it. So please endorse this document by your signature and spread the word to others who might endorse it as well. Thank you.

Click here to view the Manhattan Declaration and lend your name to those who have already signed:  www.ManhattanDeclaration.org.

Who Signed?

Four of the original 145 signatories are Touchstone senior editors: Robert P. George, James Kushiner, Russell D. Moore, and Patrick Henry Reardon.

Robert George, Charles Colson, and Timothy George were the major drafters of the Declaration.

In addition to many Roman Catholic and (7) Orthodox signers, there are Baptists, Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterian/Reformed, Church of God in Christ, and many others.

22 Bishops signed, including:
14 Roman Catholic Bishops (Chaput, Cordileone, Dolan, Kurtz, Madia, Malone, Myers, Nuamann, Nienstedt, Olmsted, Rigali, Sheridan, Wuerl, and Zubik.)
2 Eastern Orthodox Bishops: Metropolitan Jonah (OCA) and Bishop Basil (Antiochian)

Heads (20) and faculty members (19) of Seminaries, Colleges and Universities: e.g. Albert Mohler, David Dockery, Robert Sloan, Duane Litfin, J. I. Packer, Tom Oden, Peter Kreeft, Cornelius Plantinga

46 Leaders of various ministries, associations, policy institutes and think tanks: e.g. Prison Fellowship Ministries, National Association of Evangelicals, Family Research Council, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Alliance Defense Fund, e.g. Charles Colson, Rav Zacharias, Maggie Gallagher, Ron Sider.

22 Pastors, e.g. Tim Keller

10 Publishers (Christianity Today, First Things, Kairos Journal, Touchstone, and World Magazine)

Various signers who are authors (e.g. Dinesh D’Souza) or work in other media or business.

You can sign it too, right here. Spread the word and take a stand with your Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ. It's not political. It's conscientious.

Comments

[Magister Christianus]

This is wonderful news! I have signed it and posted about it on my blog. It will be interesting to see how much press this gets. "Manhattan" is an important public declaration of position and should generate much good discussion.

[Gina M. Danaher]

I have sent this to most everyone in my Facebook account and of course voted myself. I will be posting the Declaration on my blog.

[GL]

I have signed the online version and have encouraged others to do likewise.

[Kamilla]

I plan to sign it after I have a chance to read it -- but I admit I would be more enthusiastic about it if the pastor you listed, Jim, wasn't Tim Keller.

Kamilla

[Christopher Hathaway]

I have a problem with "the sanctity of human life" as being a bit vague. Could this not, at the very least, encourage such pernicious ideas as the "consistent pro-life ethic" or "seamless garment" that equates abortion with capital punishment and war? Why was this not spelled out more clearly?

[Jim Kushiner]

""I have a problem with "the sanctity of human life" as being a bit vague. Could this not, at the very least, encourage such pernicious ideas as the "consistent pro-life ethic" or "seamless garment" that equates abortion with capital punishment and war? Why was this not spelled out more clearly?""

It's very clear in the document and the summary: Under Human Life: "The lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are ever more threatened." "Powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia." War etc isn't on the table.

[Christopher Hathaway]

I'm sorry. I missed that the link above wasn't to the full Declaration. I thought the brief thing linked to from here was all there was to it.

[Darrel Hoerle]

Signed it, and posted it to my Facebook account, whether or not this is something that the MSM will almost certainly choose to ignore.

[Juli]

It's very clear in the document and the summary: Under Human Life: "The lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are ever more threatened." "Powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia." War etc isn't on the table.

Are people a wee bit torn when war threatens the life and safety of the unborn, disabled, and elderly?

[James]

What do they mean by the rights of conscience and religious liberty? Is this an "agree to disagree" clause without name calling between differing schools of thoughts on these issues? If this is so, I would agree with that.

I agree with Juli. What about war? Doesn't this threaten the sanctity of human life? Isn't war an abortion? Isn't a lack of education, opportunity and sustenance for many of our children in the South Side of Chicago who are killing each other an abortion? Isn't any time the potential of human life is snuffed out due to violence and injustice an abortion?

[Kamilla]

Juli,

War isn't an intrinsic evil. Abortion is.

Can you give us an example of a war or battles within a war when the life and safety of the "unborn, disabled, and elderly" was a deliberate and conscious target (or even if the war was prosecuted with clear disregard for the safety of such)?

I can think of one, but it doesn't help your case, in fact it disproves it.

Kamilla

[Jonathan]

I think some words from one of the signers of this document, Metropolitan Jonah, are quite apropos:

"All the sins against humanity – abortion, euthanasia, war, violence, and victimization of all kinds – are the results of depersonalization. Whether it is “the unwanted pregnancy,” or worse, “the fetus,” rather than “my son” or “my daughter;” whether it is “the enemy” rather than Joe or Harry or Ahmed or Mohammed, the same depersonalization allows us to fulfill our own selfishness against the obstacle to my will. How many of our elderly, our parents and grandparents, live forgotten in isolation and loneliness?

"How many Afghan, Iraqi, Palestinian and American youths will we sacrifice to agonizing injuries and deaths for the sake of our political will? They are called “soldiers,” or “enemy combatants” or “civilian casualties” or any variety of other euphemisms to deny their personhood. But ask their parents or children!

"Pro-war is not pro-life! God weeps for our callousness."

[TimC]

> What do they mean by the rights of conscience and religious liberty? Is this an "agree to disagree" clause without name calling between differing schools of thoughts on these issues? If this is so, I would agree with that. <
James, you may want to take a glance at the document. It gives a pretty good answer to your question. In summary: no, this is not a document by middle-schoolers, so name-calling is really the least of their concerns. The issues they raise are at least slightly more substantive.

> What about war? Doesn't this threaten the sanctity of human life? <
Possibly, but not necessarily. In any case the document was written about issues that are currently under debate within the U.S. It was written (ahem) prophetically--addressing the most urgent needs of our society at this time.

> Isn't war an abortion? <
Nope, see your nearest dictionary for details.

> Isn't a lack of education, opportunity and sustenance for many of our children in the South Side of Chicago who are killing each other an abortion? <
Nope, see above for hints.

> Isn't any time the potential of human life is snuffed out due to violence and injustice an abortion? <
You'll have to clarify what "potential of human life" means. If you're suggesting that forced contraception and sterilization is a grave evil and closely tied to abortion, I think you'll find most of the signers to agree. Again, though, that is not currently an issue here. In China, yes. The U.S., thankfully, no.

[Juli]

Civilian deaths don't count as much if they're not the main target? Even if they're unavoidable "collateral damage"? I just tried unsuccessfully to post a link to an LA Times article about civilian death tolls in past wars; the numbers are staggering. I couldn't post the link, so I'll try pasting in a quotation:

Civilian deaths during the Vietnam War, for instance, were estimated to be in the millions, helped along by such atrocities as the massacre of between 300 and 500 villagers by U.S. soldiers in My Lai in 1968, and by carpet bombings of the countryside that indiscriminately killed whoever was below.

In World War II, nearly 40 million noncombatants were killed, according to historian Niall Ferguson, thanks, among other things, to the mass starvation tactics adopted by the Germans on the Eastern Front, the devastating firebombing by the Allies of Japanese and German cities and the bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. World War I killed more than 6 million noncombatants, by most estimates, and about 50,000 civilians died in the Civil War, according to historian James McPherson.

(The Rules of War, Nicholas Goldberg)

[Juli]

For some reason I kept getting weird error messages for any comment, so posting the URL wasn't the problem. The article titled "The Rules of War," about civilian deaths and casualities in wartime, is here: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/26/opinion/oe-goldberg26

[Kamilla]

Juli,

No one said anything about certain deaths not "counting" as much as others. Your refusal to make distinctions in the intentions of the killer and the effects of the act would reduce us to necessarily penalizing the following equally:

A drunk driver who runs over and kills a pedestrian.

An armed robber who kills the teller at the bank he is attempting to rob.

A neighbor who delays, by one day, fixing a hole in his fence giving a toddler free access to the pool where the child drowns.

The mechanic who neglects to properly replace a key brake part causing the death of the car's driver when he slides off a mountain pass in a snowstorm.

A distraught father who fatally shoots the man who brutally raped and murdered his daughter when this criminal was released due to a careless legal technicality.

An abused wife who loses touch with reality and murders her husband in his sleep.

A cop who kills his wife and engages in a conspiracy with others to cover up the act.

An anesthesiologist whose patient dies during surgery due to a fatal, and previously unkown, drug allergy.

Every life is precious, every life counts -- but we make distinctions as to the punishment (or not) of the person instrumental in causing a death.

Kamilla

[FW Ken]

War is always a bad thing; it's not always the worst thing. To not prosecute a just war is intrinsically unjust; how many lives might have been saved had Chamberlain not sought "peace in our times"?

[James]

"War is always a bad thing; it's not always the worst thing. To not prosecute a just war is intrinsically unjust; how many lives might have been saved had Chamberlain not sought "peace in our times"?"

This is a good point which would largely reflect an Eastern Orthodox perspective on war (minus the whole just war phrase - if war is always a bad thing, can we ever call it just?). I would also agree that abortion is the destruction of an innocent human life, although I could understand why a mother would be driven to such a horrible decision from time to time - pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother, rape, gravely deformed and ill unborn children that would cost thousands upon thousands in health care costs, to name a few. Keep in mind, I'm not justifying abortion as a moral good in any of these situations.

I think the last situation especially calls for the need for a more consistent ethic on the sanctity of life - that we as a society will provide the health care for the family that wants to save the life of their unborn child. This is why I won't be signing this declaration. It's inconsistent. The same people who preach the sanctity of human life also support the death penalty, supported the Iraq War and want to keep health care right where it is. I will not sign any declaration that seeks to defend the sanctity of human life while "war is off the table." I wish more in the pro-life movement would take Bishop Jonah's view and be a little more consistent about the dignity of all human life.

[Rob G]

"The same people who preach the sanctity of human life also support the death penalty, supported the Iraq War and want to keep health care right where it is."

While this may be true of some of the signers, it's certainly not true of all, Metropolitan Jonah, for instance, and Fr. Reardon. Are you implying that you can see its alleged inconsistency while they do not?

[Christopher Hathaway]

The same people who preach the sanctity of human life also support the death penalty

You mean like God?

[James]

Rob, I mentioned Bishop Jonah in my post, didn't I?

Mr. Hathaway,

Ironically, you're comments reflect the view I take towards scripture. Yes, the God of scripture both preaches the sanctity of human life yet justifies not just the death penalty but genocide. This is why we need to think for ourselves and not simply parrot whatever scripture says. We have a choice and any action we take to either uphold or destroy the sanctity of life is our personal responsibility. I know this make things more ambiguous and difficult, but that's life.

[FW Ken]

As it happens, I oppose the death penalty, though from a "conservative" direction: I don't trust the government with the power of life and death. I also work in the criminal justice system and very aware that justice, like franks, is made of many odd parts.

That said, it's a profound error to compare the death penalty with abortion. The former involves matters of objective guilt and the right of a community to protect itself. Sometimes (not as often as portrayed on TV, I suspect), the death penalty slides into vengeance. Abortion always involves the murder of a helpless person. The death penalty is the act of a community seeking to counter severe social disruption; abortion is the ultimate breakdown of the most basic human community, that of mother, father, and child.

And yes, we can call a war "just", if it meets the criteria of preventing a greater evil. What we can't do is love war for itself. In a broken world, we may need to make war to achieve peace; we must not forget that war is a mirror of our brokenness, not our natural state.

It is a fact of life that we spend a fair amount of time parroting one source or another, sometimes several in one speech and "thinking for ourselves" is often a delusion in which we simply choose another source to parrot. Why I should parrot the New York Times or Oprah (for example) and not the scriptures is a question we should all ask ourselves from time to time.

[Kamilla]

I'm still of two minds about signing the declaration - simply because I don't generally get excited about signing such statements. But the more I think about it, the more I am inclined to sign simply because I know how much these sorts of things irritate the Egalitarians. I can hear them huffing and puffing now, "What no women pastors signing?! Well, I have other problems with it, but do they really care that much about protecting their male privileges that they won't include women pastors?"

Makes me want to sign it, just for spite.

Kamilla

[Rob G]

"I mentioned Bishop Jonah in my post, didn't I?"

Yes, you did. But he signed the document, correct? The same one that you find inconsistent, and won't sign?

[albert w loescher]

The Holy Spirit is behind this. The reawakening is beginning. By the time the signature count hits 666,000, will Satan attempt to quash the movement?

AW Loescher of PIOLMOA

[vito a. walls]

god bless US all

[Don Marsden]

There's a reason why America has become the greatest nation in the world in such a short period of time compared to all other nations in the world. A belief in the one true God and His son Jesus Christ, and the freedom of man to worship this God without hindrance, or interference from the governing body of the land.
Since our foundation was built on this basic principle, God blessed this country over the years. There is no other country in the history of the world that has grown so large and so fast as ours, and to have the dedication to freedom as we have had. As President Reagan once said "if freedom dies here, it dies forever, for we are the last stand on earth". This document stands for some of our founding principles, "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". I believe that the Lord has taken His hand off our country for a season so that we WAKE UP and restore our commitment to God, so we can once again be the light on that hill which the world so desperately needs. True, God can restore His church anywhere He finds openness, but I believe He put us, as a country, here right now on this earth for a reason. Don't let the enemy/Devil win! I will sign this document with hope that God does not let this country go.

[Ernie Nearman Sr.]

Come on church get up out of your pews and begin to stand firm for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.Pray, sign this document, do whatever the Lord has you do but DO.

[paulthieman]

Do the right thing support moral standards, make them your own.

[imran14826]

Can you give us an example of a war or battles within a war when the life and safety of the "unborn, disabled, and elderly" was a deliberate and conscious target (or even if the war was prosecuted with clear disregard for the safety of such)?
I can think of one, but it doesn't help your case, in fact it disproves it.

Imran14826
http://www.livetv.pk