WASHINGTON (RNS) — Evangelical Christians should be defined by their theology — and not their politics — to avoid becoming “useful idiots” of a political party, a group of leaders said May 7 in a new statement.
The document, “An Evangelical Manifesto,” reflects the frustration of some within a movement that claims about one in four Americans over how they are perceived by others and who can speak for them.
The 19-page document declares that evangelicals err when they try to politicize faith and use Christian beliefs for political purposes.
“That way faith loses its independence, the church becomes ‘the regime at prayer,' Christians become ‘useful idiots' for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form,” the document reads.
The statement, however, resisted calls to privatize or personalize the faith, saying there is an important place for evangelical voices in the public square.
“Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality,” the document says.
The manifesto, which at times upbraids evangelicals for contributing to their own image problems, comes about six months after a poll showed that many young people grade Christianity as being judgmental and hypocritical. Drafters of the new document said they knew other evangelicals who were “ashamed” or “reluctant” to describe themselves as evangelical.
A nine-member steering committee spent three years working on the manifesto. The document's initial 75 signatories are evangelical leaders from major coalitions, educational institutions and denominations. They include National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson, best-selling author and megachurch pastor Max Lucado and Jack Hayford, president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.
Evangelicals' primary identity “by definition is theological, not political, social or cultural,” said John Huffman Jr., pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport News, Calif. “Yet we are quite concerned that, because some of the more strident voices in our midst, we are increasingly perceived as people whose primary agenda is political. That simply is not the case.”
In its broadest sense, evangelicals are “men and women who endeavor to live our lives under the lordship of Jesus Christ, our Savior, a Christ who is above culture, is not subservient to any culture, and who desires to transform and serve in positive ways those cultures in which his people live,” Huffman said.
While some voices in society and the media identify evangelical Christianity with a specific moral or political agenda, evangelicals are at heart “Christians who define themselves, their faith and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus Christ,” the statement declares. “To be evangelical is to be faithful to the freedom, justice, peace and well-being that are at the heart of the Good News of Jesus.”
Critics claim some key names — including conservative evangelical leaders such as Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Southern Baptist public policy executive Richard Land — are missing from the statement.
“The select group drafting the manifesto apparently excludes traditional conservative, pro-life and pro-family evangelical voices,” said Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America, who also questioned the timing of the document's release at the end of the primary election season.
Huffman said the statement's steering committee had conversations with Dobson, though his board recommended he not sign it.
Dobson spokesman Gary Schneeberger confirmed this and said the board's reasoning was a private matter.
“Our umbrella is large,” said Huffman. “Not all will sign it, but we do feel we do need to bring our particular perspective.”
Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said Wednesday he had not seen the statement before it was released.
“People have a right to invite who they want to to their party,” Land said, but he added that the question about religious involvement in politics is a “false dichotomy.”
“It's not an either/or,” he said. “It's both.”
David Neff, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today magazine and a member of the steering committee, said the media's equating “value voters” with evangelicals have contributed to the confusion about who evangelicals are.
“If there's an election that this is about, it's the election of 2000, not the election of 2008,” said Neff.
The document is intended to explain evangelicals to those outside their fold, as well as to challenge evangelicals to better represent their faith.
“ … We are troubled by the fact that the confusions and corruptions surrounding the term ‘Evangelical' have grown so deep that the character of what it means has been obscured and its importance lost,” the manifesto reads. “Many people outside the movement now doubt that ‘Evangelical' is ever positive, and many inside now wonder whether the term any longer serves a useful purpose.”
The statement calls for a reaffirmation of evangelical identity — including the importance of sharing the belief that Jesus is the only Savior of mankind. It expresses concern that “a generation of culture warring” has created a backlash against religion in public life.
It also called for an openness to work with people of good will, including those of other faiths or no faith. The document also calls for reform of behavior within evangelical ranks.
“All too often we have set out high, clear statements of the authority of the Bible,” it reads, “but flouted them with lives and lifestyles that are shaped more by our own sinful preferences and by modern fashions and convenience.
“All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others, such as the killing of the unborn, as well as the heresies and apostasies of theological liberals whose views have developed into another gospel, while we have condoned our own sins, turned a blind eye to our own vices, and lived captive to forces such as materialism and consumerism in ways that contradict our faith.”
“Evangelical Christians have had this pattern of either giving up on the culture or we try to take it over,” said Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary. “It is not up to us to win all the victories. It is not given unto us to try and impose our will on a whole society, but rather to witness to the kind of justice, peace and righteousness that is part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, working alongside people of other faiths and of no faith for the common good.”
Others among the 75 initial signatories are Nueva Esperanza USA President Luis Cortes; Wheaton College President Duane Litfin; Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine; and Frank Wright, president of the National Religious Broadcasters.
The group's website, anevangelicalmanifesto.com, offers visitors the opportunity to join an online dialogue about the document, add their names to the list of signatories and download a guide for further study of the issues involved.
Baptist Press contributed to this story.