Hegel Would Be Delighted

Continuing with a discussion of the Manhatten Declaration (Go here to read it), one evangelical, who happens to be the president and CEO of Focus on the Family, wrote this. I emphasized two of the words.


Some have referred to these as “threshold issues,” meaning they represent the foundation of our faith and the pivot point from which everything else flows. This is the bedrock. If we can’t agree on these areas of doctrine, everything else will be of reduced value. These four areas are:

1. The sanctity of human life.
2. The sanctity of marriage.
3. The protection of religious liberty.
4. The rejection of unjust laws.


I thought our foundation was what Christ did at the cross. 'Pivot point from which everything else flows?' I guess I was wrong. It's precisely "doctrine" like this that is turning off many Christians, especially younger ones and turning them toward the "New Christian Left." Why? Because it is a retread of the Christian Right rhetoric of "let's put laws on people to change them." I understand that we need to stand up for our beliefs, but when the unbelieving world constantly think that our beliefs are the four tenets above, it's just sad. We can have both, if our CHristian leaders would just have courage. By both I mean Deeds AND Creeds. In other words, Christ's substitutionary death AND why we believe the above four things as an outcome of us receiving grace to participate in God's new life is what we need to be voicing.
This is called...gasp.....conversion. I realize this is the dreaded word (along with "born again") in evangelical coolness today but we need to say it anyway. The proper teaching should be "Deeds follow Creeds." And then there is this pesky ecumenalism question that is disturbing to many Christians (I am also questioning it). This truly is a Hegelian synthesis dream.