You might have heard about the Evangelical Manifesto published this week by some of the stalwarts of USAmerican Evangelicalism. Dallas Willard and Os Guinness in particular are two Evangelical leaders that I could get behind on virtually any topic.
My friend Keith Giles though says the Manifesto will make no difference on the Evangelical church in the US as a whole. Pastors won't preach on it, the document won't be read by many. Oh, I'm sure some will read what Jim Dobson say about it or what Gary Bauer says about it or some other leader, but few will take the time to read and disect it's message.
I hope you'll take the time to read both the Manifesto and what Keith wrote about it.
1 comment:
Like Keith, I like it. But I think the reason very little will come of it is because it is not a document that was drafted by delegates to a council, convention, or summit of evangelicals. Who chose this steering committee? The Introduction claims that it is "a representative group of Evangelical leaders who do not claim to speak for all Evangelicals." That was the mistake. Had they really organized a summit of American evangelicals - with delegates from each denomination and a group of superdelegates (non-denominational pastors, authors) - with the purpose of drafting a document, one that would speak for all of us, like the First Continental Congress, it would have carried a lot of weight.
Second, "manifesto" may be a neutral word, but I wonder if people will think "Evangelical Manifesto" sounds like a call to arms, the beginning of an intensified culture war on American society. Maybe I'm crazy but that was my first thought when I saw those two words together.
I really like it. It's well-written but it's not born out of a grassroots movement to create a defining credo of who we are and who we are not. We'll have to try again.
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