[ToifvT5S]

I was reading one of my favorite blogs and saw this project. It seems to be a worthwhile cross-eclessiological venture to protect Life, marriage and liberty.

The Manhattan Declaration
A Call of Christian Conscience
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

the sanctity of human life
the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I admit I am more a follower than a leader and was somewhat skeptical when I first read about it. But then I saw my Bishop and Fr. Chad Hatfield had signed on and am more swayed by their participation. I am still a bit skeptical what all these various religious (christian) groups can accomplish unified if even on these 3 points. But glory to God if we are able to bring biblical teaching back around to this country and to the world.

I don't know how to link to a youtube link, but you can see Fr. Hatfield's speech under the December 27, 2009 post of Orthodoxie.

Paul

[singleGirl]

Please research this very important document and simple statement of belief everyone. Have a read of the signatories.

In any case makes a change on defrauding Native Americans.

[HotDolly]

I don't normally do this, but there are some excellent responses to this.

http://janotec.typepad.com/terrace/2...n-regrets.html
http://ochlophobist.blogspot.com/200...-projects.html

These better writers than I, give voice to my Manhattan Discontent.

[VYholden]

This was brought to my attention a few weeks ago and I signed it. I think the more signatures it has, the stronger the message will be.

[immoceefe]

I know Fr. Chad well and appreciate why he signed the declaration. But such declarations, in my limited mind, tend to discredit the essentially eschatalogical character of the Church, and diverts us from our true mission as such. The world is always going to hell, and while I think it is important for the Church to witness to certain cultural atrocities -- abortion comes to mind as perhaps the most egregious -- the problem with this declaration is, in a sense, its lack of radicalism, in the true sense of the term. Of course, you cannot get such disparate elements together to agree on a theological statement. And so they focus on what they can agree on in the social sphere only. But it is kind of a, well, conventional bourgeois approach. So what is the right approach? I think Christians should be wary of confusing liberal tolerance with our mission. The declaration is couched in those terms exclusively. It basically concedes the Gospel to the secular ideal, by arguing that Christians should not be persecuted for these beliefs. But Christians SHOULD be persecuted for these beliefs! That's why we exist. If we are not being persecuted for our beliefs, then we don't have any beliefs worth mentioning. If there is nothing to die for, then there is nothing to live for.

[VYholden]

I disagree. I think this is probably one of the most Christian countries in the world. I have lived in a couple of other countries in Europe, and the heart and soul of the American is not to be found anywhere else. When we see miracles as the most recent terrorist attempt, we should see God's hand and know that as long as there are enough devout Christian people, our Lord's protective veil there. I think that we need to be united in cause and as our confessors often tell us for private sin, while we may not always succeed in fighting a particular sin, our effort to keep God's tenets in society is not ignored by God. I think the same applies to our country and/or any other majority Christian country.

[immoceefe]

try this on for size:

The Areopagus Declaration
20 Centuries ago, St. Paul preached to the assembled at the Areopagus on Mars Hill in Athens, calling on the Greeks to recognize the Christian God as the unknown god whom they were seeking.

"Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands."

Significantly, the Areopagus was an institution designed by the Ancient Greeks as a public forum for the settling of certain legal disputes. So St. Paul is appealing to the court of public opinion.
Today it has become fashionable for Church representatives to make public pronouncements and declarations that are intended to have similar effects on public opinion, especially expressing certain "social concerns."
Unfortunately, such declarations are necessarily couched in secular terms, as if the Church needs to negotiate for a seat at the table of public opinion regarding the great moral issues of our day, while begging for "tolerance" in the court of public opinion for its views.
We, the undersigned, while recognizing the necessity to make a public witness regarding serious cultural problems, believe that our witness is better served by stating with clarity and boldness the true nature of the problem and its cure. We invite all believers to not only sign the following declaration, but to live according to its precepts:
1) America and the world at large struggle in ignorance of the true God and true faith.
2) Generic "spiritualities" will never satisfy the human heart and will continue to lead people astray.
3) Political efforts to embody the Rule of God on earth are doomed to failure, and always lead to discontent. Even more so when the promise of heavenly realities is couched in secular terms.
4) Whereas moral idealism can be a positive force in any society, there is no rational foundation for agreement on moral ideals apart from the Rule of God.
5) The power of God's rule is incomparably greater than any worldly or personal claim to power or authority. His power is made manifest in the hearts of believers and is evident to anyone with an open mind and an open heart.
6) The only reliable, meaningful and lasting force for change in the world is God's revelation to the human heart. The best any human institution can hope to do is recognize this power and try to adapt to it.
7) The Church does not exist as an institution competing at a worldly level for the attention of other worldly institutions. It is unique in its substance and its mission.
8) The Church's mission is to point all mankind to the Kingdom of God and away from the kingdom of man. Its substance is Christ's body.
9) Our society is sick and mired in sinful temptations. At the top of the list is the desire to usurp God's rule. But this has always been the case.
10) The only cure for this sickness is to forsake worldly temptations and to seek God and his Heavenly Kingdom as an ever-present, interior reality. By glorifying God in all things we too can become glorified, and our glorification becomes the world's only hope.

[popsicesHoupe]

It basically concedes the Gospel to the secular ideal, by arguing that Christians should not be persecuted for these beliefs.

I don't see that in the declaration at all. The text - unless I somehow missed something in two readings - makes no call upon the government to not persecute. Rather, while mentioning existing pressures on believers to sacrifice their beliefs, the point made is that these pressures will not be bowed to under any circumstances.

In Christ,
Michael

[immoceefe]

I find the following passage to be a case in point -- which appears to me to contradict the fundamental purpose of the Church by couching the manifesto in terms of liberal tolerance, republican government, et al. Are we talking about "religious values," or are we talking about the Church???? This exposes the whole document to a liberal/secular counter argument. And while it is a poweful pledge to say that you are willing to go to jail for your beliefs, what are the theological foundations for such a pledge? I fear that in couching it in terms of passive civil disobedience we are simply being asked to go along with another cultural shibboleth. Christ was not engaged in passive civil disobedience in the modern conventional sense of the term. And on what basis does a Christian claim that the "overweening authority of the state" is a problem? Christ was not campaigning against the overweening power of the state. He stated quite clearly that the representative of the government had no power over Him that God had not permitted him to have.

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.1 Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.

[Q0KmoR8K]

I agree with Michael. While it is marred by certain secular influences, I don't think there is anything in the declaration that aims to effect a change in the government or even to prevent persecution, though I'm sure some of the drafters and signatories have such goals. It is more a commitment to resist the pressures in secular society to effect changes in our " institutions", whatever that means. The problem is that the statement still carries assumptions in it that reflect a compromise with worldly politics, especially the talk of "rights" and "religious liberty" as eternal "truths" to be defended. Unfortunately, much of American Christianity is tied up in ideology stemming from the Enlightenment age. Defending the Gospel in terms of "rights" and "liberty" reinforces this situation, and reinforces the perception of the Gospel as one option among many. This statement will be forgotten pretty soon.

[immoceefe]

The declaration is important for a couple a reasons, and not because it is going to influence the secularists. It is important for the signers, and it helps other believers who may be weak in the knees. So I don't condemn the statement. But there is this underlying problem of trying to square the circle, so to speak, or to stretch for another metaphor, to have our cake and eat it to. It's not that I am against Christian people being engaged in politics. What I am concerned about is that the declaration, as it stands, is intellectually incoherent. It tries to defend itself by appealing to two competing sources of authority: a) the Gospel and b) the Enlightenment, as Ryan as pointed out.

[ToifvT5S]

This Declaration in and of itself is all well and good. It's purpose is nobel in that it pulls people of different religious backgrounds together for a common "moral" goal. We can have all 316 million people in this country sign it. Great. If the government will not listen to its people, what good is it? I do not want to get side tracked into politics and especially Chrisitan politics or God forbid Orthodox christian politics in a secular government. But the purpose of this document from what I can see is to pull people of faith together who have a common belief and allow their voices to be heard. Heard by whom? The muslim majority in this world WANTS us to continue in our downward spiral. The want us to commit genocide as they breed us (Christians) out. The US governement is proving right and left they don't care what "the people" think. So to whom is this Declaration drafted? Is it for show? Is it supposed to have "teeth"? What is the desired outcome and is it realistic?

Paul

[HotDolly]

Alice, being a Christian nation does not gain God's favor. He causes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. It is a curious thing, for cities have been saved by faith, but martyrs have also been put to death because of their faith. However, it is both theologically and practically dangerous to equate success with blessedness. I could also debate what you mean by Christian... but that takes this thread even further off. I will say that it is strange that a nation who's slaughtered a number of children greater than the population of her largest state California... would be called a Christian nation by anyone.

I can't agree with Owen, I think the negative far outweigh the possible "pedagogical" value. A sermon from our Bishop when he visits saying simply that abortion is a sin, as is supporting abortion and there is no equivocation for 2000 years of tradition on this matter, would be more effective than a piece of paper covered with heterodox signatures.

To write such a "common" document it was required to avoid all the messy business of how we all disagree and in fact though we happen to agree in some reasonable sense on particular social issues, we cannot commonly defend those positions because our rationale is different... in fact, often opposing. If we were forced by the powers of progressive secularism to defend this declaration it would fold like a house of cards because there is no foundation for it.

Yes, abortion is sin, perhaps the most grievous horror outside genocide as it has been implemented as social policy. However, this declaration will not stop abortion. If the activists among us really want to stop abortion they will have to take up arms to do so. Legally, it is a finished matter in 1st world nations, and culturally the support for it has too much at stake (the entire liberal agenda rests on this issue).

This is all a game we play instead of really doing the hard world of living a Christian life. Instead of giving alms to the poor and praying, and going to services, and living pious, sober lives of necessity (not luxury) the game of thrones we play is a substitute and a charade. Let us take half the energy we put to signing declarations and joining facebook groups and sending money to support "causes" or religiously involving ourselves in the body politic (watching cable news when we should be praying) and put that energy towards loving our neighbor.

I'm sorry if this seems to border on polemic. As I said, the posts I linked to said this much better than I.

Let us see when they come to arrest the dissenters which of us will march off to prison (or worse) and which will fold. I suspect the loudest voices have the least endurance.

I am going to say something a large number of people will not listen to (because it is terribly inconvenient) I have PERSONALLY spoken to some of the most conservative members of the American Supreme Court (when they came to visit where I work). They universally agree that while some minor modifications to Roe v Wade as law might be possible (even liberals admit that there are some legal difficulties with the decision)... abortion on demand will NEVER (did you see that word?) NEVER become illegal in the United States.

That fight is over. Done, finished. And don't give me that out "if God wills it" ... does a doctor keep pounding on the chest of a dead man for hours thinking "if God wills this man will live". This has nothing to do with what God can do. Of course, God can do anything. But He has chosen not to, nor gives any reason to believe He will do something greater.

I am beginning to see why so many of the early fathers sought martyrdom. There is clarity in it. There is nothing but confusion coming out of the "Manhattan Deception"

[popsicesHoupe]

Methinks we're overthinking this document a bit too much.

[VYholden]

I am going to say something a large number of people will not listen to (because it is terribly inconvenient) I have PERSONALLY spoken to some of the most conservative members of the American Supreme Court (when they came to visit where I work). They universally agree that while some minor modifications to Roe v Wade as law might be possible (even liberals admit that there are some legal difficulties with the decision)... abortion on demand will NEVER (did you see that word?) NEVER become illegal in the United States.
I know that. Abortion is also legal in other countries such as Greece. Abortions will always happen, legal or illegal. Most abortions in th is country are sought by unmarried young girls and women. In Greece, one hears of abortions by married women and married men think nothing of asking their wives to have one. That is sad. All abortions are sad. However, a young girl giving birth to a child (notice Sarah Palin's daughter) is ostracized by society, her church community, her friends, and even by her family and/or her family will also be the object of ostracization, gossip and shunning...the unmarried young girl is the object of ridicule, shame, and become a pariah of sorts...that is sad, and very hypocritical. I remember with great sorrowt how many Christians (Orthodox and other) were scandalized and critical of Sarah Palin's daugher's pregnancy...which brings us to the real root of the problem of abortion which is the sexual culture we live in and the blinders some older people have to what is really going on out there. I blame Hollywood for this culture of sexual promiscuity, and its tentacles of promoting all that is sinful have reached Orthodox and Catholic countries as well...

So, diverting a bit from the Manhattan Declaration, which I find to be an 'effort' to combat sin and an effort to be heard, (and I believe that God is as pleased with our righteous and noble efforts to combat sin, both privately and publicly), I believe the real enemy we should all be fighting (but nobody is anymore) is the filth, the garbage, and the sin which Hollywood presents, television presents, magazines of all sorts present, advertising wherever the eye looks present, etc.....this influence is great, just as the influence of wholesome family values was great when my generation of baby boomers were young. We watched television and emulated the characters, and whether we want to accept it or not, the characters our collective children and teens and young adults see and the way those characters act and the things those characters do, are the ones which influence and set society's standards.

Just some thoughts on a unusually chatty day for me.

May God bless us, one and all, in the new year,
Alice

[HotDolly]

Michael, you think that I'm over-thinking; I contest that the signers of this document aren't thinking enough. We are not mindful, watchful of our hearts as we should be. We are not working to keep ourselves unstained by the world if we waste our time chasing after the wind. At best these are momentary distractions from the real battle, at worst such activist occasions are a flattery... even idols.

Alice, in this forum concerned with the fathers, can you find one quote from such a pillar of the Church which supports such a public proclamation, particularly with heterodox? Certainly many of proclaimed the Gospel and many individuals have been martyred for not bowing to various corrupt kings or even women for refusing pagan marriages. But these are sacrifices, of a personal nature, not political movements. Did Saint Maximos the Confessor travel from town to town organizing opposition to Monothelitism? In fact he gave up political life and ended his days in exile.

Part of the attraction to Orthodoxy was reading saint after saint denouncing the pride and self-righteousness that comes from such social movements. I read again and again of the internal war against sin. That's the battlefield, our own hearts. Do I need to quote what we all already know? I am flummoxed by so many Orthodox that have had this wondrous treasure all their lives and would surrender even a speck of it for the dust that I knocked off my feet when I converted.

The only exception I can think is criticism of the government from the pulpit, as preaching and teaching the faithful. This isn't that. That I could support.

[popsicesHoupe]

Michael, you think that I'm over-thinking; I contest that the signers of this document aren't thinking enough. We are not mindful, watchful of our hearts as we should be.

I wasn't thinking of you in particular. I was thinking that in general we are ascribing more to this declaration than it warrants, whether good or bad.

I am flummoxed by so many Orthodox that have had this wondrous treasure all their lives and would surrender even a speck of it for the dust that I knocked off my feet when I converted.

And I don't see that having something good to say of this declaration is requiring anyone to surrender anything of the treasure of Orthodoxy. That whole argument makes no sense to me, especially since I do not see this as a "social movement". No calls for marches, monthly meetings, regular petition drives, call your Congressman, etc. - just a statement of principles.

I certainly do not see anything in the declaration which indicates that by becoming a signatory I have abandoned "the hard work of living a Christian life". That, to me, is a false dichotomy.

In the end, I think the impact will be modest. Some will think more deeply about the potential cost of their faith, which is good. Some will get energized towards social action, which may be good or bad depending on what form it takes and how they handle it. Many - probably most - will say "OK" and then let it pass out of mind, without effect. In the end - as Ryan pointed out - it will be forgotten pretty soon. Which makes it really hard for me to get at all worked up about it.

In Christ,
Michael

[HotDolly]

Pray for me Michael as I judge the intent and character of this and those associated with it. That is the truth of it. I have my reasons (as I mentioned before). But truthfully, I don't trust anything even remotely associated with political activism or social/cultural engineering. At least I don't trust anything beyond a real (not staged, theatrical) town hall meeting dealing with local communities local problems with local solutions. Everything else my heart despises.

Forgive me.

[Plulpangepler]

What gives the game away for me is the mention of 'rights'. Rights are a human construct and imply that if you are denied rights you take action to enforce them. All very secular.

[MormefWrarebe]

It's my old stomping grounds and I'm just wondering if anyone knows how they came up with that name.

In Christ,
Andrew