Manhattan Declaration

Michael Youssef, the head of Leading the Way Ministries and a vocal critic of Islam, today argued that the Episcopal Church is no longer Christian and “not Jesus’ church” as a result of the church's policies regarding gay-rights. Youssef is a signatory of the Manhattan Declaration, a largely anti-gay and anti-choice screed, which also laments the “decline in respect for religious values” in American society. However, Youssef’s diatribe against the Episcopal Church shows the Manhattan Declaration’s call for “religious liberty” and greater respect for religious values remains secondary to its unbridled anti-gay attacks. Youssef’s attack on the Episcopal Church keeps him in the company of other Religious Right leaders and groups who continuously smear mainline Protestant churches that back civil rights. In a column for the American Family Associations news service, Youssef declared that the Episcopal Church’s support for LGBT equality means that the Church has “defied God” and lost its status as Christian:

Episcopal Church: Christian?

Based on everything I am currently reading and what I experienced firsthand in that Church in the past, my answer to this question is a forceful, "No!"

Perhaps the last nail in the coffin of that once-vibrant Christian church came as no surprise to many of us when M. Thomas Shaw, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, kicked off the new year of 2011 by performing a lesbian marriage ceremony at St. Paul's cathedral in Boston. Two "priestesses" of the church -- Katherine Hancock Ragsdale (dean and president of Episcopal Divinity School, no less) and Mally Lloyd (canon to the Ordinary at St. Paul's) -- were united in homosexual bliss in the presence of 400 guests. The whole debate of homosexuality has deteriorated into an emotional argument on equality with total disregard to God's created order that marriage should be between one man and one woman.

But how can one be surprised at this defiance of church cannons when the Episcopal leadership has defied God? Once the fear of God and obedience to His Word are trampled underfoot, then any sort of church resolution is not worth the paper it's written on.

Back in 2004, the Episcopal Church, in an act of slight-of-hand (more likely a cunning maneuver), agreed to hold a moratorium in the practicing of all the sordid affairs of "ordaining, marrying, and uniting, and blessing" acts of sodomy. But that was merely a surface declaration. In reality, the blessing of same-sex marriage had been widely accepted in the American Episcopal Church before the time of moratorium.

Can anybody in his/her right mind believe that the Episcopal Church is the Church of Jesus -- the Jesus who left the glories of heaven, came to our broken and dark world, died on the cross to redeem us and give us power over sin, and then rose again to assure us of eternal life with Him? The answer has to be a resounding, "No!"

The Episcopal Church is not Jesus' church. The few...very few faithful ones left within this Church need to run for their lives lest they be held accountable for complacency on the Day of Judgment.

For weeks now, Chuck Colson has been warning about threat that President Obama poses to the religious freedoms of Christians, begging people to "understand the severity of the threats to our first freedom" which are coming from all sides and to "realize the kind of fight we're in and be prepared for what we may face in the coming months."

They key to protecting these liberties, Colson has been assuring everyone, is for them to sign the Manhattan Declaration which affirms the sanctity of "religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image":

In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded. Restrictions on the freedom of conscience or the ability to hire people of one's own faith or conscientious moral convictions for religious institutions, for example, undermines the viability of the intermediate structures of society, the essential buffer against the overweening authority of the state, resulting in the soft despotism Tocqueville so prophetically warned of. Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.

So imagine my surprise when I now see Colson telling Muslims to go build their mosques somewhere else:

Earlier this week, the proposed New York City mosque at ground zero cleared its final hurdle. Nothing seems to stand in the way of its construction.

I am appalled that peace-loving Muslims would want to do this on what is, for most Americans, hallowed ground. I am even more appalled that the mayor of New York is in favor of the idea ... the construction of the mosque at ground zero is not about tolerance. And it isn’t about religious liberty ... [I]t would not be an act of intolerance to deny the construction of a mosque at a certain location-particularly one, ground zero, where the mosque will serve as a daily reminder to New Yorkers of the terrorists, who, motivated by their Islamo-fascist beliefs, killed 3,000 innocent people in the name of Islam.

Go build the mosque somewhere else.

Colson has been frantically warning recently that their "first freedoms" are slowly slipping away and that they need to be willing and prepared engage in civil disobedience to defend them while simultaneously telling Muslims to "go build the mosque somewhere else."

And that is the Religious Right's understanding of "religious freedom" in a nutshell. 

If you thought the Manhattan Declaration was mainly an opportunity for the Religious Right to declare themselves heroes of the Christian faith ... well, you were correct.  But that doesn't mean that organizers were not entirely serious about their pledge to be ready to give their lives to fight Obama's looming Nazi-like dictatorship.

That is a point that Manhattan Declaration founders Chuck Colson and Timothy George make in his new video, as George compares those who sign this document to both Martin Luther and Martin Luther King while Colson begs people to "understand the severity of the threats to our first freedom" which are coming from all sides and "realize the kind of fight we're in and be prepared for what we may face in the coming months":

Here is the video from a few weeks ago that Colson references in this new video, in which he takes up the claim which we addressed yesterday that the Obama administration is systematically out to destroy "freedom of religion" in order to promote the gay agenda and destroy Christianity:

I realize that the Religious Right activists who produced and signed onto the "Manhattan Declaration" culture war manifesto view themselves as courageous voices standing against American's descent into Nazi-like totalitarianism, vowing never to forsake their beliefs even if it means exile, prison, or death.

Already they've compared themselves to Martin Luther and those who resisted the Nazis, and Chuck Colson even proclaimed that their press conference was like a gathering in Heaven and these sorts of over-the-top, self-aggrandizing comparisons, like this one from Jill Stanek, have really gone far enough:

In my mind, signing the Manhattan Declaration is the closest I'll come to understanding the thoughts and feelings of those signing the Declaration of Independence. Those men were willing to pay the ultimate price to stand against tyranny.