Ronald L. Caravan

As the recently released Manhattan Declaration slowly overcomes the left-leaning prejudice of the mainstream news media and begins to capture widespread attention in spite of rather than because of that media, an ironic and compelling truth will probably be lost on most observers, especially those whose world views and values are diametrically opposed to those that the document represents

The irony is that for most of the first 200 years of our nation’s 233-year existence, if it had been suddenly faced with a federal-government majority as committed as the current one to imposing leftist public policies on its citizenry and dismantling long-standing foundational pillars of the republic, the Manhattan Declaration is exactly the kind of public expression that could, and quite likely would, have rallied the nation back to its roots and more well-reasoned policy directions in proper constitutional context.

Released last Friday, Nov. 20, the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience was drafted by a consortium of “Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians” who gathered in New York City between Sept. 28 and Oct. 20. Their stated purpose was to “reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them.”

The fundamental truths are “the sanctity of human life,” “the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife,” and “the rights of conscience and religious liberty.”

The 164 signatories to the document reflect a virtual who’s-who of contemporary Christian leaders, including names such as Rt. Rev. David Anderson, CEO of the American Anglican Council; Dr. Mark Bailey, president of Dallas Theological Seminary; Gary Bauer, president, American Values; Joel Belz, founder, World magazine; Chuck Colson, Christian author; Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family; Most Rev. Timothy Doland, Archbishop, Catholic Diocese of New York City; Dr. William Donahue, president, Catholic League; Dinesh D’Souza, author; Dr. Richard Land, Southern Baptist Conference; Tony Perkins, president, Family Research Council; Alan Sears, president, Alliance Defense Fund; Fr. Robert Sirico, founder, Acton Institute; and Ravi Zacharias, author and evangelist.

Early in this ground-breaking document, the signers state, “We are Christians who have joined together (sic) across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation (emphasis theirs)—to speak and act in defense of these truths.”

In the section of the Declaration asserting the sanctity of life, the authors note, “Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as ‘the culture of death.’… A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature, or inconvenient are discardable.”

Beyond the obvious abomination of abortion, they cite laboratory creation and destruction of human life for embryo research and the trends toward euthanasia as additional manifestations of the life-cheapening cultural direction since Roe v. Wade. “We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry.…And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.”

In the section on marriage, the Declaration notes the biblical origin and design for marriage as well as the more recent cultural trends that contradict the Bible as well as most of human history. “Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves,” the document notes. “The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple-partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law.”

The text also notes, “Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman…” Toward the end of this section, they declare, “No on has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage.”

Central to the Declaration’s section on Religious Liberty is a counter to the current momentum in government to compel people of faith, most notably health-care workers or institutions, to engage in procedures they believe are contrary to their religious faith, most notably abortion. “No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions.”

The strongest words of the Manhattan Declaration come at the end where the issue of civil disobedience arises. “Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required.” Citing Dr. Martin Luther King’s moral consistency against corrupted authority, and his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, the authors note that “just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King’s willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.”

The Manhattan Declaration is itself a truly inspired expression—inspired by ultimate truth in the face of steadily increasing cultural decay and institutionalized evil that has swelled to a breaking point. It should also be an inspiring expression—inspiring an ecumenical mass of Americans who recognize the breaking point, especially as represented by the current political majority in Washington, and are ready to declare “enough is enough.”

The entire Manhattan Declaration, and an opportunity to sign onto it, can be accessed on the internet at manhattandeclaration.org.