Where We Stand

The Manhattan Declaration Draws a Line at a Front Already There

On November 20, 2009, Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical leaders released the Manhattan Declaration at a press conference in Washington, D.C. Among the 148 original signatories are fourteen Roman Catholic bishops, two Eastern Orthodox bishops, and Evangelical leaders from various ministries, churches, seminaries, and colleges, many quite well known, including J. I. Packer, Charles Colson, and James Dobson. The coalition of signatories is the strongest expression yet seen in this country of the new ecumenism of Christians dedicated to the Great Tradition.

The Declaration (www.manhattandeclaration.org) is a statement of principles upon which the signatories will not compromise, even if civil disobedience is required on their part. Signatories pledge that they will not be intimidated by the state and that they are willing to suffer loss to defend religious liberty and the sanctity of life and marriage.

Christians have opposed abortion for decades and denied the legitimacy of “gay marriage” since it became an issue. Why issue a Declaration now?

The State Squeeze

Because, by slow degrees, through legislation, regulatory policies, and court rulings, the state has been putting the squeeze on the consciences of believers and infringing on the free exercise of religion. For example, as the Declaration notes, a court in Massachusetts has mandated that all adoption agencies in that state—including Catholic Charities—must be willing to place orphans in the homes of “gay couples.” In New Jersey, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax-exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In many places, pharmacists and health care workers are being pressured to participate in abortions either directly or indirectly. If abortion is “health care” to which all women have a right, how dare Christian hospitals deny abortion to any woman?

People and institutions have lost their jobs, licenses, and freedom of conscience and religion over these matters. The sanctity of life issues of abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia, and assisted suicide, along with “gay marriage,” are the focus of the Declaration because the state has forced them upon us.

Throughout history, the state—whether through monarchs, elected bodies, totalitarian dictators, or collectivizing tyrants—has often looked rapaciously on three targets in its quest to acquire more power: the individual, the family, and the local community. The philosophical view of the state seems to be that:

1. A human being is not necessarily created in the image of God. That is merely a religious opinion.

2. The family, that is, the male-female “one-flesh union” of marriage with the children born of that union, is not a unique and irreplaceable unit of society to be protected.

3. Local communities, associations, churches, and businesses no longer have the right to maintain long-held views about man and marriage, and they may be coerced to adopt the new views of the secular state.

James M. Kushiner is the Director of Publications for The Fellowship of St. James and the former Executive Editor of Touchstone.

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