A Manifesto - Schaeffer Already Wrote OneThe President and scholar extraordinaire and one of my favorite Theology Professors has pretty much summed up (in a very nice way) two basic problems with "An Evangelical Manifesto." This "Manifesto" is an attempt by it's signatories to "reclaim the definition" of the term Evangelical and to rescue the term from political entanglements and meanings gathered while rolling about the political landscape (among other things).
Mohler writes in his blog:
In the end, I cannot sign the document for several reasons. These reasons are rooted in my own concern for Evangelical identity, and my belief that this document says far too much on the one hand, and far too little on the other.First, I suggest that anyone interested in this topic should read Mohler's Post on the issue. It is a good starting point.
Secondly, I would point you to a reading of the document itself:
The link above uses PdfMeNot.com - thus my subject line suggesting you can "Read [it] Here" - it's a pdf file - but now you can read it in your browser without downloading the document itself (try the link - it's an excellent way to share pdf files).
Finally, I am going to post a bit more in reaction to this in the future. However, my reaction is to go back to book which IHMO is a bit more studied and relevant (even though it's content has been somewhat dated).
That would be Francis A. Schaeffer's "A Christian Manifesto."
The late Francis Schaeffer already has put the ideas to print - though his call sounds more "manifesto" in nature than does the current offering.
Certainly, Schaeffer's book is more radical ... more hard hitting ... and honestly much deeper in content and scope. The link above will take you to the book itself on google's difficult to use - but full text copy of the book - so you can read it for yourself.
I also content that Schaeffer's books avoids Mohler's insightful assessment that "An Evangelical Manifesto" "... says far too much on the one hand, and far too little on the other."
From Schaeffer:
"The people of the United States have lived under the Judeo-Christian consensus for so long that we now take it for granted. We seem to forget how completely unique what we have had is a result of the gospel. The gospel indeed is, "accept Christ, the Messiah, as Savior and have your guilt removed on the basis of His death." But the good news includes many resulting blessings. We have forgotten why we have a high view of life, and why we have a positive balance between form and freedom in government, and the fact that we have such tremdous freedoms without these freedoms leading to chaos. Most of all we have forgotten that none of these is natural in the world. They are unique, based on the fact that the consensus was the biblical consensus. And these things will be even further lost if this other total view, the materialistic view, takes over more throughly."and one more bit from Schaeffer
"First we must make definite that we are in no way talking about any kind of theocracy. Let me say that with great emphasis, Witherspoon, Jefferson, and the American Founders had no idea of a theocracy... We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country... We should not wrap Christianity in our national flag. "
In the past I used to have several blogs - more topical in nature. Due to my job at the time, the content for my blogs came naturally as a part of my work. I was already writing, doing studies and research ... so it took no extra time to put content from those efforts into various blogs. Today, I have less time to enjoy such ease ... and thus I have moved all content here.
For now, I offer the above links as fodder for thought to those who are interested.
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