Alliances: Cooperation or Compromise

I came into the office today, admittedly with a heavy heart. I knew I'd have to address an issue that the recent Manhattan Declaration has forced to the surface again. I'm heavy-hearted because no matter how carefully and humbly I may try to respond to this I grieve that some will be offended. I also grieve because every time similar conversations occur, I am reminded of how subtle and covert the Enemy's assaults are, and how hard it is to make sure that we recognize them and are not deceived by them.

Likewise I am very much aware of my own fallibility and limited perspective (it's possible that I am seeing an Enemy assault that is not really there at all!). Aware of my inability to see all things clearly, I feel a high-level hesitancy in declaring my views, lest I in ignorance miss something of significant import in the conversation.

With that said I need to respond to this development for the good of the flock entrusted to my care. I admire the views and the courage of all those who have signed on to this declaration. I am in whole-hearted agreement with their views on the moral issues they raise, and think that I have lived and pastored in such a way as to prove that claim. I have long preached and lived and counseled and insisted on the values that this declaration proclaims and seeks to defend, and have done so at some personal cost and sacrifice--in full expectation that more suffering is soon to come.

I recognize that we are on a cultural trajectory that in my judgment, is leading inexorably to an ever-darkening culture of death and also to an inevitable persecution of the church. I do not believe we can ignore this or be silent about it. The Church must be salt and light in the world of our day. We must say all that God would say to this generation--for we are His voice in our times. And we must be willing to back up our words with lives marked by blameless character, fearless witness, and tireless love.

Martin Luther's famous words are apropos for this moment:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

But oddly as it may seem to many, it is this very commitment to confess Christ at the "point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking" that keeps me from being ready to sign the Manhattan Declaration. Friends, I will agree that all the concerns addressed by the framers of this declaration are points of Satanic attack in our times. But what I really do believe is that there is another point of Satanic attack even more critical for the cause of the gospel and glory of Christ that this very same declaration (perhaps unwittingly) may actually assist.

I believe there are aspects of this document that undermine the very heart of the gospel, that One Thing that matters most, and for this reason I cannot in good conscience sign on. I'll have to explain further in a later post since this one is long enough already.

But for your consideration let me ask some questions, questions that I would ask that you think long and carefully about before you actually try to answer them in a comment: "If the Bible calls people Christians when they trust in Christ alone for their salvation, in no way trusting in their own merit for that salvation...and if those who preach another gospel other than a gospel of God's free justifying grace by faith alone through Christ alone receive apostolic anathemas (which is what Paul's letter to the Galatians is all about, see Galatians 1:6-9) do we not need to be very careful in how we describe those who so distort the gospel? Can we really, under any circumstances call one a "Christian" or a "brother" whom Paul would anathematize? And does not the Manhattan Declaration do that very thing?

My concern with the Manhattan Declaration is not in what it says on paper so much as what it assumes about those who signed it. I really do believe that those underlying assumptions undermine the integrity and essence of the gospel (because they suggest that people that proclaim another gospel are nonetheless brothers in the faith). And I am convinced that in the long run this kind of blurring and fuzzying of the gospel will do more harm to the cause of all that is good, than all other cultural threats to morality ever will.

I know that this is controversial, but for reasons I'll expand tomorrow (and until I am presented with reasons I've not yet considered) I seem bound by faithfulness to the gospel to take my stand here. I truly am open to sound reasons to convince me otherwise, but thus far, I have not been convinced by any I've seen.