by Os Guinness
At the same time, we repudiate the two main positions into which many are now falling. On the one hand, we repudiate those who believe their way is the only way and the way for everyone, and are therefore prepared to coerce others. Whatever the faith or ideology in question, communism, Islam, or even democracy, this position leads inevitably to conflict.
Undoubtedly, many people would place all Christians in this category, because of the Emperor Constantine and the state-sponsored oppression he inaugurated, leading to the dangerous alliance between Church and state continued in European Church-state relations down to the present.
We are not uncritical of unrestrained voluntarism and rampant individualism, but we utterly deplore the dangerous alliance between Church and state, and the oppression that was its dark fruit. We Evangelicals trace our heritage, not to Constantine, but to the very different stance of Jesus of Nazareth. While some of us are pacifists and others are advocates of just war, we all believe that Jesus’ good news of justice for the whole world was promoted, not by a conqueror’s power and sword, but by a suffering servant emptied of power and ready to die for the ends he came to achieve. Unlike some other religious believers, we do not see insults and attacks on our faith as “offensive” and “blasphemous” in a manner to be defended by law, but as part of the cost of our discipleship that we are to bear without complaint or victim-playing.
On the other hand, we repudiate all who believe that different values are simply relative to different cultures, and who therefore refuse to allow anyone to judge anyone else or any other culture. More tolerant sounding at first, this position leads directly to the evils of complacency; for in a world of such evils as genocide, slavery, female oppression, and assaults on the unborn, there are rights that require defending, evils that must be resisted, and interventions into the affairs of others that are morally justifiable.
We also warn of the danger of a two-tier global public square, one in which the top tier is for cosmopolitan secular liberals and the second tier is for local religious believers. Such an arrangement would be patronizing as well as a severe restriction of religious liberty and justice, and unworthy of genuine liberalism.
Once again, our choice is for a civil public square, and a working respect for the rights of all, even those with whom we disagree. Contrary to medieval religious leaders and certain contemporary atheists who believe that “error has no rights,” we respect the right to be wrong. But we also insist that the principle of “the right to believe anything” does not lead to the conclusion that “anything anyone believes is right.” Rather, it means that respect for differences based on conscience can also mean a necessary debate over differences conducted with respect.
Invitation to All
As stated earlier, we who sign this declaration do not presume to speak for all Evangelicals. We speak only for ourselves, yet not only to ourselves. We therefore invite all our fellow Christians, our fellow citizens, and people of different faiths across the nation and around the world to take serious note of these declarations and to respond where appropriate.
We urge our fellow Evangelicals to consider these affirmations and to join us in clarifying the profound confusions surrounding Evangelicalism, that together we may be more faithful to our Lord and to the distinctiveness of his way of life.
We urge our fellow citizens to assess the damaging consequences of the present culture wars, and to work with us in the urgent task of restoring liberty and civility in public life, and so ensure that freedom may last to future generations.
We urge adherents of other faiths around the world to understand that we respect your right to believe what you believe according to the dictates of conscience and invite you to follow the golden rule and extend the same rights and respect to us and to the adherents of all other faiths, so that together we may make religious liberty practical and religious persecution rarer, so that in turn human diversity may complement rather than contradict human well-being.
We urge those who report and analyze public affairs, such as scholars, journalists, and public policy makers, to abandon stereotypes and adopt definitions and categories in describing us and other believers in terms that are both accurate and fair and with a tone that you in turn would like to be applied to yourselves.
We urge those in positions of power and authority to appreciate that we seek the welfare of the communities, cities and countries in which we live, yet our first allegiance is always to a higher loyalty and to standards that call all other standards into question, a commitment that has been a secret of the Christian contributions to civilization as well as its passion for reforms.
We urge those who share our dedication to the poor, the suffering and the oppressed to join with us in working to bring care, peace, justice and freedom to those millions of our fellow-humans who are now ignored, oppressed, enslaved, or treated as human waste and wasted humans by the established orders in the global world.
We urge those who search for meaning and belonging amid the chaos of contemporary philosophies and the brokenness and alienation of modern society to consider that the gospel we have found to be good news is in fact the best news ever, and open to all who would come and discover what we now enjoy and would share.
Finally, we solemnly pledge that in a world of lies, hype and spin, where truth is commonly dismissed and words suffer from severe inflation, we make this declaration in words that have been carefully chosen and weighed; words that, under God, we make our bond. People of the good news, we desire not just to speak the good news but to embody and be good news to our world and to our generation.
Here we stand. Unashamed and assured in our own faith, we reach out to people of all other faiths with love, hope, and humility. With God’s help, we stand ready with you to face the challenges of our time and to work together for a greater human flourishing.
References
Author’s Introduction to the New Edition
1. Luke 18:8, NIV.
Memorandum 1: Operation Gravedigger
1. See Peter L. Berger, The Social Reality of Religion (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1973), p. 132; published in the United States as The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1969); see also David Martin, The Dilemmas of Contemporary Religion (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1978), p. 54; Roland Robertson, The Sociological Interpretation of Religion (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1970), p. 43.
2. Noel Annan, Leslie Stephen (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1951), p. 110.
3. Quoted in Ian Bradley, The Call to Seriousness (London: Jonathan Cape, 1976), p. 15.
4. Quoted in Paul W. Blackstock, The Strategy of Subversion (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1964), p. 51.
5. See Noel Barber, Sinister Twilight (London: Fontana Collins, 1970).
6. Romans 1:25, NASB.
7. “Letters on a Regicide Peace,” letter 1, in The Work of Edmund Burke, vol. 6 (London: Oxford University Press, 1907), p. 85.
8. H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper, Colophon Books, 1975), p. xi.
9. Peter L. Berger and Richard Neuhaus, eds., Against the World for the World (New York: Seabury Press, 1976).
10. See 1 Samuel 4:1-11; 2 Samuel 6:1-9; Jeremiah 7:1-15; Mark 3:1-6; Romans 1–7; Jeremiah 1:10.
Memorandum 2: The Sandman Effect
1. See Bernard Crick, George Orwell: A Life (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1982), p. 500.
2. Quoted in Herbert R. Lottman, The Left Bank (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1982), p. 23.
3. See Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1967), pp. 174ff.; Berger, The Social Reality of Religion, chap. 2.
4. 1 Timothy 3:15, NEB.
5. See Sidney A. Burrell, ed., The Role of Religion in Modern European History (New York: Macmillan, 1964), p. 95.
6. See Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, pp. 1-30.
7. Blaise Pascal, Pensées (3. 60), trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1966), p.
46.
8. In the Louvre Museum, Paris.
Memorandum 3: The Cheshire-Cat Factor
1. Quoted in Alistair Cooke, Six Men (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1978), p. 13.
2. Prospects for the Eighties (London: Bible Society, 1980), p. 12.
3. The Times Literary Supplement, December 18, 1981, p. 1461.
4. Ellul, New Demons, p. 2.
5. See Peter L. Berger, The Social Reality of Religion (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1973), pp. 113ff.; David Martin, General Theory of Secularization (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1978); Martin E. Marty, The Modern Schism (London: SCM, 1969); Bryan R. Wilson, Religion in Secular Society (London: C.A. Watts, 1966).
6. David Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1982).
7. Chadwick, Secularization of European Mind, p. 9.
8. Quoted in ibid., p. 18.
9. See Berger and Neuhaus, Against the World, chap. 1.
10. Ibid., p. 10.
11. See Chadwick, Secularization of European Mind, p. 97.
12. See Joseph N. Moody, “The Dechristianization of the French Working Class,” in Burrell, Role of Religion, pp. 89ff.
13. Quoted in Context, November 15, 1981, p. 6 (emphasis added).
Memorandum 4: The Private-Zoo Factor
1. See Peter L. Berger, Brigitte Berger and Hansfried Kellner, The Homeless Mind (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1974), chap. 3.
2. See Peter L. Berger, Facing Up to Modernity (New York: Basic Books, 1977), chap. 11; Arthur Brittan, The Privatised World (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978)
3. See Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: New American library, 1953).
4. Berger, Facing Modernity, p. 18.
5. Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends (New York: Doubleday, 1973), p. 449.
6. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London: Faber and Faber, 1967), p. 248.
7. Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952), p. 269.
8. See Berger et al., Homeless Mind, pp. 167ff.
9. See ibid., p. 168; also Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979).
10. Christianity Today, 12 Nov. 1982, p. 80.
11. Bryan R. Wilson, Contemporary Transformations of Religion (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 87.
12. Os Guinness, “An Evangelical Manifesto: A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment,” Washington, DC, May, 2008, p. 14.
Memorandum 5: The Smorgasbord Factor
1. See Berger, Social Reality of Religion, pp. 138ff.
2. See ibid., chap. 2.
3. Martin, Dilemmas of Contemporary Religion, p. 168.
4. See ibid., pp. 1ff.
5. See Barrett, World Christian Encyclopedia.
6. See Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction of Reality, pp. 102ff.; Berger et al., Homeless Mind, pp. 64-65.
7. Quoted in The Observer, 19 Apr. 1981, p. 13.
8. Quoted in Peter Williamson and Kevin Perrotta, eds., Christianity Confronts Modernity (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1981), p. 12.
9. Ibid.
10. Quoted in Context, 15 Dec. 1981, p. 6.
11. See Peter L. Berger, The Heretical Imperative (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), chap. 1.
12. See Peter L. Berger, The Precarious Vision (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 17ff.
13. Lasch, Culture of Narcissism, p. 14.
14. See Wilson, Religion in Secular Society, pp. 51-52.
15. Quoted in Gill, Social Context of Theology, p. 100.
16. Quoted in The Times Literary Supplement, 28 Jan. 1983, p. 83.
Memorandum 6: Creating Counterfeit Religion
1. See Michael J. Malbin, Religion and Politics (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1978).
2. See Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus 96, no. 1 (Winter 1967); Robert D. Linder and Richard V. Pierard, Twilight of the Saints (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1978).
3. See Berger, Social Reality of Religion, chap. 6.
4. Quoted in Marty, Modern Schism, p. 139.
5. Benjamin R. Barber, Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (New York, W.W. Norton, 2007), p. 7.
6. Quoted in James S. Tinney, “The Prosperity Doctrine,” Spirit, Apr. 1978.
7. Quoted in Frank S. Mead, Handbook of Denominations (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1970), p. 217.
8. Quoted in Context, 15 Feb. 1982, p. 6.
9. See Raymond Williams, Communications (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1970).
10. David Rosenthal, “Kid Power?” Bostonia, Winter 1979, p. 13.
11. Quoted in Cynthia Schaible, “The Gospel of the Good Life” Eternity, Feb. 1981, p.21.
12. Jack Newfield, A Prophetic Minority (New York: Signet Books, 1967), p. 157.
13. Horace Bushnell, quoted in Marty, Modern Schism, p. 132.
14. Quoted in Schaible, “Gospel of Good Life,” p. 22.
15. Quoted in Martin, Dilemmas of Contemporary Religion, p. viii.
16. Quoted in P. Fitzgerald, The Knox Brothers (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 259.
Memorandum 7: Damage to Enemy Institutions
1. See Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), p. 90.
2. Andrew M. Greeley, The Persistence of Religion (London: SCM, 1973), p. 14.
3. See Berger, Social Reality of Religion, p. 133.
4. Martin, General Theory of Secularization, p. 71.
5. Peter L. Berger, “The Second Children’s Crusade,” The Christian Century, 2 Dec. 1959.
6. Lasch, Culture of Narcissism, p. 76.
7. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image (New York: Atheneum, 1962), p. 57.
8. Luke 6:26, NIV.
9. See Berger, Social Reality of Religion, pp. 143-48.
10. See Ivan Ilich, Disabling Professions (London: Marion Boyars, 1977).
Memorandum 8: Damage to Enemy Ideas
1. Quoted in TIME, June 7, 1976, p. 54.
2. Quoted in Schaible, “Gospel of Good Life,” p. 26.
3. Exodus 10:26, NEB.
4. Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003), chap. 4.
5. See Boorstin, Image, pp. 130ff.
6. Quoted in Sojourners, January 1978, p. 9.
7. G.K. Chesterton, “What I Saw in America,” quoted in Raymond T. Bond, ed., The Man Who Was Chesterton (New York: Dodd Mead, 1946), p. 235.
8. Quoted in Linder and Pierard, Twilight of Saints, p. 164.
Memorandum 9: Fossils and Fanatics
1. See Berger, Facing Modernity, pp. 175ff.; Berger, Social Reality of Religion, pp. 157ff.
2. See Martin, Dilemmas of Contemporary Religion, pp. 75ff.
3. See Berger, Rumor of Angels, pp. 17, 18.
4. See ibid., pp. 13, 14.
5. See Martin, General Theory of Secularization, pp. 111ff.
6. See Peter L. Berger, Invitation to Sociology (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1966), pp. 130, 131.
7. Quoted in Chadwick, Secularization of European Mind, p. 250.
8. Burrell, Role of Religion, p. 94.
Memorandum 10: Trendies and Traitors
1. See Berger, Facing Modernity, pp. 169ff.
2. Ibid.
3. See Henry Chadwick, “All Things to All Men,” New Testament Studies, 1954-55, pp. 261-75.
4. See Berger, Facing Modernity, p. 165.
5. Ibid., p. 168.
6. See Antoine Lion, in David Martin, John Orme Mills and W. S. F. Pickering, eds., Sociology and Theology: Alliance and Conflict (Brighton, UK: Harvester Press, 1980), pp. 163-82.
7. George Tyrell, Christianity at the Cross-roads (London: Allen and Unwin, 1963), p. 49.
8. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus (London: A. & C. Black, 1954), p. 398.
9. See Berger, Rumor of Angels, p. 41.
10. Ibid., p. 23.
11. Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic (New York: New American Library, 1959), p. 32.
12. Berger, Rumor of Angels, pp. 20, 21.
13. Alasdair Macintyre and Paul Ricoeur, The Religious Significance of Atheism (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1969), p. 46.
14. Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism, Religion and Death (New York: New American Library, 1976), p. 3.
15. Macintyre and Ricoeur, Religious Significance of Atheism, p. 29.
16. See Ellul, New Demons, p. 38.
17. Berger, Rumor of Angels, p. 12.
18. Berger, Facing Modernity, p. 163.
Afterword: On Remembering the Third Fool and the Devil’s Mousetrap
1. Czeslaw Milosz, Visions from San Francisco Bay (Manchester, UK: Carcanet New Press, 1982), p. 74.
2. Malcolm Muggeridge, Christ and the Media (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977), p. 76.
3. Reinhold Schneider, Imperial Mission, trans. Walter Oden (New York: Gresham Press, 1948), p. 93.
4. Ezekiel 20:32, NEB.
5. Pensées (4. 433), trans. Krailsheimer, p. 164.
6. Walt Kelly, Pogo comic strip.
7. Peter Shaffer, Equus, Act 2, in Three Plays (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1976), p. 274.
8. D. Martin, Dilemmas of Contemporary Religion, p. 88.
9. G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Image Books, 1955), pp. 260, 261.
10. “Holy Sonnet X,” in Donne: Poetical Works (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 297.
11. Sermo 130. 2.