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The Manhattan Declaration
The Manhattan Declaration was released today at noon:
More than 150 Christian leaders, most of them conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Roman Catholics, issued a joint declaration Friday reaffirming their opposition to abortion and gay marriage and pledging to protect religious freedoms.
The 4,700-word document, called “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.
While acknowledging that “Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage,” the group rejects same-sex marriage. The declaration states that opening a legal door for gay marriage would do the same for “polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships.”
Currently, the web site of the declaration appears to be overloaded with traffic, so make sure to check back later in order to read through this important document.
You can also read it at First Things here.
ADDENDUM: WORLD Washington Bureau reporter Emily Belz attended today’s announcement. Read her report here.
back to top61 Comments to “The Manhattan Declaration”
Well I can hear those on the Left going nuts over this.
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I think it will take more than another document from 150 (not really an overwhelming number) “Christian leaders” (yes, scare quotes) to make the entire Left “go nuts.”
What I am trying to decide on is whether I feel more like making fun of the nuclear imagery in their rhetoric or the irony that they named their declaration after a part of the country that is overwhelmingly pro-gay and pro-choice.
Thoughts?
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Wow 3 paragraphs in and they use the word “barbarian”…to describe actual people…I can’t wait to read the rest!
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mynock – “What I am trying to decide on is whether I feel more like making fun of the nuclear imagery in their rhetoric or the irony that they named their declaration after a part of the country that is overwhelmingly pro-gay and pro-choice.
Thoughts? “
2. Well Sin is sin and that is what is going on with pro-gay and pro-choice.
people.
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Mynock the word “barbarian” is historically actuate. That’s what they were called and that’s where the word came from.
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Kbells, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard! That is like defending use of the n-word because “that’s what they were called and that’s where the word comes from.” A barbarian is still something you do not want to be called.
While there might not be a whole lot of people who consider themselves to be ethnic Goths remaining to take offense, if I were writing a preamble (no seriously, there is a preamble!) about my “long legacy of righteousness”, I would have steered clear of derogatory terms for anyone!
It’s not the biggest problem with the declaration mind you. It’s just that I think it nicely punctuates the different starting points that fundamentalists and thinking people have when they sit down to read something like this.
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Mynock, the word originally meant “not Greek”.
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Actually, Mynock, the use of the word ‘barbarian’ is entirely accurate, although far too low-key. The word originates from the Greek ‘babble’ (i.e. speaking incomprehensibly and without intelligence).
Note the Left-wing propensity to babbling that the brutal murder of children is ‘not’ murder.
The stupidest thing I have ever heard is a person who supports butchering children pretending they think at all.
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Kbells: You are correct – and to the Greek, any one who did not speak Greek, babbled. From this we get ‘barbarian’, in the vicissitudes of linguistic evolution and devolution.
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And it was derogatory when the Greeks used it! Who are the moral relativists here?
Why do people who spend half of their time saying that common sense has gone from morality have a problem with a simple ethical code of conduct like “don’t use derogatory names for anyone”?
This history lesson about the Greeks (yeah because ancient Greeks weren’t racist xenophobes at all) calling everyone else babbling idiots doesn’t make the word’s appearance in a Christian document talking about how great you all are less laughable!
2400 years from now you’ll all be chirping away…“Well they were called the rag-heads…because to Americans their head wrappings resembled rags…it’s all historically accurate.”
NO!
They were the Goth, not the “Barbarians”…the Goths.
Don’t use ethnically derogatory names for anyone. It’s a really easy rule to follow. What do Christians have against easy to follow ethical rules?
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4700 words to say THAT?!?!?
Let me shrink it for ya.
Preamble:
We’re really nice people who not nice people hate.
Declaration:
We’re right and you’re wrong. About everything.
Life:
If you’re pregnant and you know it clap your hands! But if you don’t want / can’t raise the baby, pop it out anyway and hope for the best. We’ll help. We swearz.
Marriage:
If you want to get to sexin’, get married. But no gay sexin’ or marriage. Kthxbai!
And BY THE WAY – religious and civil marriage are the same exact thing, so gays can’t have either. We say so.
Religious Liberty:
We can’t shut up, we won’t shut up, you can’t make us shut up. Furthermore, we will break the law when we disagree with it. Because everyone should do that when they think they are right. Traffic lights? Stoptional.
Taxes? Optional.
Shoplifting Jiffy Pop? Poptional.
Amen.
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What an absolutely moronic argument.
At one time, the word ‘Viking’ had an EXTREMELY negative connotation to the English, Scottish, and Irish (meaning marauder or invader). And for good reason. Now we have a pro football team named ‘Viking’.
Bad connotation. As did ‘doughboy’ in WWI. Or ‘GI’ in WWII. Or ‘Yank’ to the British. All used with honor later.
And what of the ‘Slavic’ languages and people (rooted in ’slave’)
Etc. Etc.
When the Leftist has no argument (most of the time) they resort to the most asinine and bizarre attempts to shut down meaningful dialog.
Why don’t we just outlaw ALL words, Mynock? After all, somewhere, somehow, someone in the course of human history might have been OFFENDED by ANY word. You would like that, I suppose, being a leftist – and a lover of censorship and stifling truth. Words are dangerous, to the Statist.
As I noted, the word ‘barbarian’ is a weak and marginal word to describe the idiot babblers of the Left.
I suppose, though, it is well-suited for the use of a gathering of genteel clergy who are trying not to offend the various and assorted monsters who prey so openly these days on the human race.
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Oh Mynock, “barbarian” is not used as an “ethnic slur.” That’s rather humorous, methinks. Did you know that the word “bedlam” came from an insane asylum? If you go into a room of chaos and refer to the bedlam in it, are you calling everyone in it lunatics? No, because the word no longer literally means “a place called Bedlam.” And “barbarians” has likewise changed its connotation and denotation.
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Thanks, Drill. We were posting at the same time, but you said it better.
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Thomas1 11.20.09 AT 2:51 PM
4700 words to say THAT?!?!?
Let me shrink it for ya.
Preamble:
We’re really nice people who not nice people hate.
Declaration:
We’re right and you’re wrong. About everything.
Life:
If you’re pregnant and you know it clap your hands! But if you don’t want / can’t raise the baby, pop it out anyway and hope for the best. We’ll help. We swearz.
Marriage:
If you want to get to sexin’, get married. But no gay sexin’ or marriage. Kthxbai!
And BY THE WAY – religious and civil marriage are the same exact thing, so gays can’t have either. We say so.
Religious Liberty:
We can’t shut up, we won’t shut up, you can’t make us shut up. Furthermore, we will break the law when we disagree with it. Because everyone should do that when they think they are right. Traffic lights? Stoptional.
Taxes? Optional.
Shoplifting Jiffy Pop? Poptional.
Amen.
—
wow so much hate towards your fellow Christ.
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sorry meant to say
wow so much hate towards your fellow Christian.
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Mynock,
Ditto Drill and Cheryl.
That’s about the silliest, weakest, and most ridiculous argument I’ve ever heard.
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I don’t hate anyone, Pastor Roy. I do hate bigotry. And florid, overwrought prose that takes forever to make a simple point.
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Thomas1 11.20.09 AT 3:19 PM
I don’t hate anyone, Pastor Roy. I do hate bigotry. And florid, overwrought prose that takes forever to make a simple point.
–
fun post #11 sounds like you hate your brother in the Lord
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Actually, the word ‘foreigner’ also had a very bad connotation originally (15th century and before – in France).
So don’t use that word either.
And don’t even get me started on the word ‘Hottentot’.
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funny post #11 sounds like you hate your brother in the Lord
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Pastor Roy: “Sorrow is better than laughter, For when a face is sad, a heart may be happy.”
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PROVERBS 17:22
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine!
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Thomas1 – did I take your posting the wrong way?
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Cheryl, I think the context if Conan the Barbarian we can all get over it. But the Christian church will have to come to grips at some point with the fact that they no longer get to be the only authors of history. It’s at the very least…poor scholarship.
I don’t use the word foreigner. It still has a negative connotation!
And Hottentot is a horribly offensive term!
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Wow, talking about selling your soul for a mess of pottage.
The document abounds with phrases that are at certain odds with the signers of the declaration:
A good read of Jean Bethke Elstain’s Sovereignty will disabuse one of the notion that Catholics were out there challenging the divine claims of kings. I realize they want to do the ecumenical, conservative Christian civil religion Kumbayah, but they do so only by mocking their own separate and sometimes painful histories.
There is no generic Christian history, but rather specific Christians acting in specific historical settings.
This problem is further compounded by the Declaration’s own hermeneutic. To wit:
Note that there are three sources of authority at work here: Scripture, Reason, and Nature. The only thing they left out was Tradition. The trouble here is that these same foundations are those that theological liberals also claim. So what we end up doing is lowering our own intellectual barriers in order to march out to war. Hey! swell job that.
I much prefer the honesty of sola Scriptura.
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mynock 11.20.09 AT 3:45 PM
Cheryl, I think the context if Conan the Barbarian we can all get over it. But the Christian church will have to come to grips at some point with the fact that they no longer get to be the only authors of history. It’s at the very least…poor scholarship.
I don’t use the word foreigner. It still has a negative connotation!
And Hottentot is a horribly offensive term
–
sorry the Church was never the the only authors of history.
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Pastor Roy, Not the wrong was so much as treating it with excessive seriousness. Lighten up.
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Oh no. Mynock used the word ‘poor’. He accused Christian scholars of ‘poor scholarship’. Poor is a derivative in Old English of the word ‘pauper’ which had (and still has) distinctly pejorative overtones. How gauche of Mynock.
Perhaps, Mynock, it would be safer for you not to actually use any words at all.
Maybe you could communicate using sign language.
On second thought, scratch that idea.
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Gauche means ‘Left’ in French, by the way.
Kind of serendipitous, isn’t it?
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Kudos to Olasky and Belz for signing the Declaration!
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Thomas1 11.20.09 AT 3:55 PM
Pastor Roy, Not the wrong was so much as treating it with excessive seriousness. Lighten up.
–
sorry I took it so seriousness.I am still getting use to your posting.
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Mynock’s using his situational ethics again. You know, what ever fits the situation. Today it’s-
“Don’t use ethnically derogatory names for anyone. It’s a really easy rule to follow. What do Christians have against easy to follow ethical rules?”
and,
“I don’t use the word foreigner. It still has a negative connotation!
And Hottentot is a horribly offensive term!”
But yesterday it was-
“Well then Cheryl you are forfeiting your right to request that you not be referred to as an “anti-choice misogynist”!”
I think he might be one of those hippocritters. But that may just be another offensive word like barbarian, so I may be reported for sayin’ so.
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The Declaration should have called the Christian community to boycott marriage licenses altogether. The Constitution declares Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Since Christian marriage is a fundamental religious practice, the act of getting a ‘license’ from the state gives up this first amendment protection, and the Church is guilty of allowing it.
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Insulting living people in an effort to be Politically correct toward people who have been dead for over 1000 years? Strange.
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DRILL
You are killing me here.
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WORLD Washington Bureau reporter Emily Belz attended today’s announcement. Read her report by clicking here.
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#37 I just read the article
WOW!
and
AMEN!
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Hey, this is actually fairly significant. It’s not just a group of evangelical leaders saying “this is what we believe” – it’s Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican leaders as well. A strong step forward in a good ecumenical cause. That’s pretty authoritative, to have that wide of a swath of Christianity saying this with one voice. The next step of “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” – very cool.
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Oh, and CCC – marriage is not fundamentally a religious practice. It has religious implications, but it is deeper than simply flowing from one religious creed.
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Mynock, I don’t understand your post 25. What is poor scholarship–if Christians are the only ones writing history? That would be poor scholarship on the part of those not writing history, not on the part of the Christians . . . but then, rewriting history just to be sure it doesn’t align with the Christian worldview is hideously poor scholarship.
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Cheryl D. – what Mynock,it was the Christian who saved many of the past written during the dark ages.
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what Mynock, does not understand it was the Christian who saved many of the past written during the dark ages.
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Mynock, you’ve done it again.
I’ve heard laughter extends your life.
Thanks for the lulz. I’ll be sure I make good use of the time.
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Actually, this thread on a whole has likely added whole days to my life.
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Was there a point to this post and comment thread?
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#46: I’m sorry: your point?
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So, the left has rewritten history and Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan are no longer barbarians. Is that it?
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Correct NJL! That’s too derogatory a term. Henceforth we will refer to them as educationally challenged. They were only uncivilized barbarians because didn’t have the educational choices that civilized people have access to. They didn’t know any better. They can now claim victim status. The Thought/PC Police have said so. Within a year Pelosi will tack it onto the hate crimes laws as an ammendment in a defense bill. It will become a very serious crime to even think the word barbarian. Good times for all!
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It’s true.
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Hessian is here.
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Oh my, it worked. It wasn’t supposed to work.
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No culture is complete without the barbarian. One cannot appreciate decency unless there is some uncooth rabble to haze and malign and carry out God’s sovereign will. Darkness came first in the Genesis account. There is a mysterious necessity to the barbarian. We don’t have the manger unless we first get the barbarian inn-keeper. We don’t have the cross unless we first have the barbarous Roman form of execution. And without barbarism, there are no battles, no Vikings, no Mongols, Goths, Germans, Assyrians, Babylonians (remember God called Nebuchadnezzar His “servant”), Huns, you know, no Caesars, Pharaohs, etc. What would life be without the bad guy?
I’ll tell you.
Pleasant, but boring. We would create them if they didn’t exist. Risk can only satiate the craving for battle for so long before one wants to take the field.
I’m not sure, but perhaps there is even the off chance we wouldn’t have grilled meat without the barbarian. They gave us the lance, the sword, the horde, armor, barbeque, siege warfare, museums, war novels, spears, skilled horsemanship, battle cries, golf perhaps, the NFL, Crusades, Elephant tanks, cannons, animal skin apparel, strong drink, camping, team crew, Capital One advertisements, cigars, domestication of animals, cheese, hunting, archery, croquette, bowling, animal horns as decoration, and many other things.
Joseph’s brothers acted barbarously and yet their actions actually lead to their eventual gracious salvation. Genesis 50:20 takes the worst the barbarian has to offer and demonstrates it as something God intended for good.
Amen on that.
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“Christian” was once a derogatory term, from the Greek kristoi meaning “little Christs,” it was used to ridicule the believers in Antioch. Will Mynock reconsider its use in an effort to avoid offending anyone? I think that would be the fundamentally fair thing to do.
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Hessian #53 Valid comments.
I don’t think you said it but someone might infer that God needs evil. God certainly is Holy (other than) and nothing can neither add to nor detract from His being.
Having said that, as humans, one of the primary ways we learn is by contrast. Our understanding of God’s righteousness is enhanced by our understanding of our own depravity. I believe that God’s angels understand God’s grace only by observation. Our experience of God’s grace is enhanced by our experience of sin. So, it is ultimately true that God does use our evil for good.
In summary, a barbarian might understand more the civility of a Greek city in contrast to the barbarity of his home village. (I realize the gross generalization) Likewise, a Christian with a high view of God’s glory might better understand the darkness of the world ignoring God.
The world will criticize me as self-righteous. I will answer that by seeing and admiting my own unrighteousness I am captivated by the Righteousness of God and the magnificence of His Gift of righteousness to me. My detractors will never understand if all they consider is my hypocrisy, and refuse to look at the God Who loves me and them supremely in spite of our mutual barbarity.
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The signers claim to feel compassion for homosexuals yet can’t express it. The signers fail to describe the cause, reason, and content of their compassion. The first step in expressing compassion is saying what your compassion is about. The reason they can’t is because they don’t have it. If they did, they would not conflate homosexual love and polyamorous love. They would acknowledge the history of homophobia. They would correctly state the case for equal rights, even if they disagree.
“The Manhattan Declaration” is the first step in a long campaign to persecute, punish, and imprison homosexuals and take away their rights to petition for redress of grievances. The signers want to turn back the clock, no less than the terrorists of 9/11.
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Moth – 56
You have made up your mind by pretending not to understand, thinking the rest of us really believe you’re confused about our beliefs.
The homosexual issue and your demand for understanding encompass a number of issues.
1. You want the Christian Believers to accept homosexuality and the right to marry, even though the marriage between to same sex is nothing but a counterfeit.
2. Compassion for homosexuals does not include embracing their lifestyle.
3. Homophobia is a childish word, used to stamp the feet of those who cannot persuade Believers or others into blessing their sin.
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#57
1. I find it telling and nasty to oppose some reasonable arrangement such as domestic partnership or civil union instead of “marriage.” Forbidding legal unions does not change people from being homosexual. It just harasses homosexuals and makes their lives more unpleasant for no good reason.
2. Compassion for homosexuals includes leaving them alone and not hassling them because you need some scapegoat in society to make yourself feel better. You don’t have to “embrace” their lifestyle any more then you need to embrace them; you just need to mind your own business.
3. I agree that “homophobia” is not the best word to use. That’s why I have chosen to use “homohysterical” which I think accurately describes the style and psychology of many people at this web site.
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Random Name
“Compassion for homosexuals includes leaving them alone and not hassling them because you need some scapegoat in society to make yourself feel better. ‘
Tell GLTB Community to stop forcing their moral values, view and ideas onto society then maybe society will leave them alone.
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Keep it up – twill have the same effect Pat Buchanan’s GOP-convention “culture war” speech had on the ‘92 election.
It helped get Clinton elected!
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