Getting Our White Little Buns Into Heaven

Okay, then, the Manhattan Declaration. Things have been busy, and I just now got around to reading it. I want to take the odd stance of applauding and supporting something that I could not sign.

In order to make sense of this, I have to dump a few things out on the table first. I share John McArthur’s inability to sign it (and Alistair Begg’s), as well as their appreciation for some of those who did. Charles Colson was one of the drafters of the document, and he very kindly spoke this last summer at our ACCS conference. Robert George from Princeton was another member of the drafting committee, and he will be speaking this coming spring at NSA’s commencement. So what follows is a discussion of theological conviction and broad strategic outlook, and not a discussion about who has the most cooties.

At the same time, I agree with Al Mohler, who did sign it, along with his statement that he was not required to compromise any of his convictions to do so. I believe this is accurate. Put another way, I agree with Mohler that a conscientious Protestant could sign this declaration without doctrinal compromise. But doctrinal compromise is not the only kind of compromise there is — there is also such a thing as strategic compromise, which is where my concerns would lie. It is not a doctrinal compromise (on what the word Christian means, for example), because in order for these statements to work, the Protestant understanding has to take the upper hand. I have written for Touchstone before, for example, which is a journal of “mere Christianity,” and it is a magazine that has evangelicals, RCs and EOs all working happily together. Why am I willing to do that, me being a starchy Protestant and all?

The answer to the question posed above the asides is that the phrase mere Christianity comes to us from Lewis, who got it from the Puritan Baxter. Mere Christianity is a thoroughly Protestant idea, and if we come together under that banner, we are not the ones compromising.

But my strategic concern is two-fold. The first concern is the result of the proximity of this Declaration to the Evangelicals and Catholics Together muddle. Someone could set his name to this document without compromise, as Mohler did. But the strategic issue is that this is comes out of a world that has demonstrably shown its inability to follow certain key doctrinal distinctions, when doctrinal distinctions actually are being attempted. For that reason, I want to keep my distance.

The second strategic concern has to do with the actual deployment of the gospel (if I may speak that way), as distinct from mere abstract definitions of it. The only way our nation is going to be saved is if preachers of the gospel get out there and start preaching it in a way that calls this nation to true repentance and sincere faith in Jesus Christ. In order for that to happen, the gospel that we train young men to preach must be studied, lived, taught, defined, and preached. If we want the Word to cut between joint and marrow, then our task should be one of sharpening, not dulling and blunting. Please note that the concern here is not how accurate a man must be in his understanding of the gospel to be saved (an interesting doctrinal question), but rather how much anointed precision must come upon the preaching of the gospel such that a preacher becomes an effective servant in a day such as ours. This is the strategic question.

So we are admittedly in a weird situation; we live in weird times. This declaration (almost certainly) rests upon a muddled understanding of the gospel, but has a crystal clear understanding of how that gospel should intersect with our culture. At the same time, there are those with a high-precision definition of “the gospel” as a stand-alone means for getting our white little buns into heaven, but who don’t have any notion of how the gospel could work as actual leaven in our day, in our time, in our culture. This latter group would include some who would refuse to sign the declaration. When I look at the former group, I stand with Frank Turk. When I look at the latter group, I stand with Al Mohler. And so, in the spirit of compromise, with Frank Turk, I respectfully decline to sign it. And with Al Mohler, I want to be identified with what is happening here in some fashion.

So, with all that said, let me get to my applause for the declaration. The declaration highlights three major areas where Christians must speak to the bloody ones, to those in unrighteous possession of their instruments of coercion. A holy word needs to be spoken to those who intend to continue their Herodian slaughter of the innocents, who intend to normalize sodomy now and other perversions later, and who intend to criminalize believers who object to being coerced into participation in such evils. And the money quote near the end of the declaration is genuinely worthwhile. The phrase “we will not comply with any edict” that perpetrates injustice in these three areas gets the tone we need exactly right.