Pastoral generosity?

Let's think about this a moment. Is it really pastorally generous to offer that which Scripture proscribes? I will reiterate a point I've made in a previous note - pecusa has not in over six years offered a credible theological case for the blessing of same sex unions. So, given this, how can this act be pastorally generous? There is no good basis in Christian theology for this, it is proscribed not only in Scripture but in the Anglican Communion, so we must judge that this is not pastoral generosity. It is another case of flagrant pecusa unilateralism. ed.


'Pastoral generosity' comes to the Diocese of Massachusetts

from The Lead by Torey Lightcap

Starting Advent 1, clergy of the Diocese of Massachusetts are being given leave by Bishop Thomas Shaw to solemnize same-gender marriages for eligible couples.

In a letter posted to the blog Telling Secrets, Bishop Shaw clarifies:

Solemnization, in accordance with Massachusetts law, includes hearing the declaration of consent, pronouncing the marriage and signing the marriage certificate. This provision for generous pastoral response is an allowance and not a requirement; any member of the clergy may decline to solemnize any marriage.
Massachusetts clergy are not permitted to use the Prayer Book (in which marriage is described as "the union of husband and wife"), but, in keeping with resolution C056 from this summer's General Convention, are instead encouraged to use other liturgical resources. (That same legislation called on "bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, [to] provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members.")

Otherwise it's business as usual for clergy navigating rules for officiating at marriage services: Shaw notes, "We request that our clergy follow as they ordinarily would the other canonical requirements for marriage and remarriage."

Shaw was quick to point out that the people of the Diocese of Massachusetts had asked for just such provision at their diocesan convention in early November by providing a specific definition of "pastoral generosity" with respect to same-gender marriage.

h/t to Lionel Deimel

Always new ways

From the Mark Harris essay posted below:

"So just as the Presiding Bishop has had to find new ways to work with the canons to provide clarity that particular bishops have indeed abandoned the communion of this Church..."

New ways equals distorting the canons as many observers have noted. The P.B.'s non-canonical actions are not that much different from the distortions of scriptural interpretation that we also get from the left. Note that pecusa has not yet produced a credible theological defense for their innovations and it's been over six years. Also note the independence rather than interdependence that Harris and other pecusa liberals promote in their defense of pecusa unilateralism. The communion of the church means just pecusa and not the wider Anglican Communion. What ever happened to inclusivity?

Thanks be to God

Psalm 138

I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.

On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.

All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth, and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD.

For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

CIRCLING THE DRAIN

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri held its convention last weekend and Bishop George Wayne Smith wanted attendees to know just how gosh-darned spiffy Episcopal matters are around here:

"The work of mission becomes all the more crucial for a Church like the Episcopal Church, which continues its numerical decline. Over the last decade, our Church has lost 16 percent in Sunday worshipers. In the one year from 2007-8 average Sunday attendance declined 3.1% among domestic dioceses. These are not happy numbers. In that same one-year period the Diocese of Missouri showed a .4 % increase in Sunday worship, which continues the same pattern of radical stability this Diocese has seen for the past decade."

Less than 1%, huh? George, you and I both know that that’s a rounding error, buddy. But what’s the reason for the decline? It’s not about Robbie, insists George.

"I think it is important to say numbers like these out loud, and to do so without blame or scorn. Finding fault is not my purpose; telling the truth is. There are underlying reasons for the decline and they may be other than the supposed reasons—for example less to do with a gay bishop and more to do with the increasingly rapid secularization of American culture. More to do with the small number of babies Episcopalian parents tend to have. But I find that telling the truth about our Church’s decline takes away anxiety."

Mrs. Schori has already famously remarked that Episcopal moms don’t squirt them out as often as the Catholics do. But if “secularization” were a factor, wouldn’t other churches show similar freefalls?

What about those kids who do manage to make out of the womb, eventually decide that the Episcopal Organization has nothing to tell them and join other churches? Does that play a role at all? And then there’s the whole money issue.

"Another matter of numbers must be named, and that is the financial reality affecting people throughout this diocese. Clergy and laity tell me about lay-offs and underemployment, job transfers and job losses. These are pastoral and fiscal realities everywhere in this diocese. Parishes suffer economically whenever people lose jobs and parishes with investment income have seen that income diminish dramatically. Such has been the case for the Diocese of Missouri and our investments. Parish giving has mostly been meeting the anticipated marks—which is not to say that every parish has met the full assessment. But giving this year at least has been close to historic trends. The drop in investment income, however, has taken its toll. And in light of these realities Council has drafted a responsible budget to propose to you. I do not call it a balanced budget for two reasons. On the revenue side there is the realistic projection that the income from parish assessments will be underfunded, and on the expense side there are obligations and possibilities that will not be met—including the the fact of not funding a senior position on my staff. And so I balk at calling this a balanced budget. But even with all the pain involved, it is at least a responsible budget. I remain convinced that we have all the resources, human and financial, to do what God calls us to do. We will have to arrange our work differently than we have in recent years—but the greatest wealth of this diocese lies in the 14,000 Episcopalians living in the eastern half of the state. As we move ahead we will need to tap this human resource more closely."

Meaning: a lot of you are going to have to do a lot more volunteering a lot more often. Moving on, General Convention was a lot of fun without all those damned fundies around.

"The spirit of the General Convention was by far the most pacific of the three I have attended. Most of the the bishops and deputies tried finding ways to move toward one another, despite ongoing disagreement."

Which there wasn’t any of.

"The tensions around the counter-balancing issues of the Anglican Communion and human sexuality did not resolve, nor is such resolution likely in the near term. Even so, my sense was of most people trying to move toward one another."

Are there any conservatives left in this diocese? If there are, I’ve got two words for you and both of them are neener.

"You should know that I remain committed to the Church’s full inclusion of the faithful gay men and lesbians among us, maintaining all the while the greatest degree of communion possible. It is no easy matter. And timing is everything, as far as I can tell. These issues do not always want to balance. I know that for many in the Diocese of Missouri the tension around these matters becomes too painful at times; it does also for me. I am, however, now mostly at peace with this tension, trusting that the Church remains in God’s hands."

I’m sure you are, George. I’m sure it keeps you up at night now and then. George Wayne Smith, if you need him.

another power grab by pecusa leadership?

From preludium (blog) via The Lead (another blog):

"The practice of the Christian life consists of the discernment of, and reliance upon, and the celebration of the presence of the Word of God in the common life of the world." William Stringfellow

11/24/2009

Moving from corporate governance to incorporated governance

The news that there will be a telephonic meeting of Executive Council on December 7th, called by members of Council to address the concerns of members about the anti-gay, anti-freedom of speech, homophobic legislation being considered in Uganda is good news. Difficult, but good.

The news is of course good because in its own strange way the church is getting itself together to make a statement of outrage at the slip back into rampant homophobic hate for which the Uganda's legislation is only an example.

It is difficult news because beneath the surface there are passionate currents running. Some of these passions concern the vision and "place of being" of the GLBT community in the life of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Some concern the matter of the international movement for justice and civil rights. Some concern the governance of The Episcopal Church. Some concern the persons and groups actually governing - The Presiding Bishop, the Officers of the Executive Council / Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, the Executive Council itself and the commissions / committees / boards and agencies of The Episcopal Church.

The news is difficult, in other words, because it points to a wide range of issues that, should they be explored, concern a systemic reevaluation of who governs in TEC and why.

The news is also good because the matters raised by the effort to articulate the position which is almost universally acknowledged as being TEC's regarding the repression signaled by the proposed legislation - namely that we oppose and strongly condemn the criminalization of homosexuals - also helps us focus our attention on the need to rethink the future forms of governance in this Church.

This Executive Council, with its particular makeup and with its symbolically important leadership in the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies, and with its feisty entering class of 2009, is in no mood to take past Executive Council patterns of action as normative. The fact that members, rather than the Presiding Bishop, would call a special meeting is significant. That they would do so concerning matters that in the past would have been either brought up in regular session of Executive Council or spoken to by the Presiding Bishop is also worth noting. And, to make matters even more interesting, the members of Executive Council are more and more participant members in a very different community of knowledge and authority - one based on knowledge and authority as shared rather than derivative of this or that matter of merit. All of which is to say that the Executive Council, formed as a mechanism for corporate organization is becoming a mechanism within an incorporated - that is to say incarnated - community.

The development of new senses of the role and function of Executive Council is in part a product of increasing tensions in the Anglican Communion and within the Episcopal Church, tensions that have not adequately been addressed by existing canons and procedures of the church. So just as the Presiding Bishop has had to find new ways to work with the canons to provide clarity that particular bishops have indeed abandoned the communion of this Church, the Executive Council has had to find new ways to deal with the possibility of constant communication and demands for action among its members. Communication beyond the confines of the meetings of the Council begin to yield in passions, concerns, matters of inquiry and even matters of political struggle that were not present when Council could only correspond by snail mail or fax and by telephone, and when the rigors of corporate behavior mitigated against such rash interaction.

So it would appear that Executive Council is on a cusp, to use old age of Aquarius jargon. We are moving from being the corporate board of a corporation - the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society - and the governing body between Conventions of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church - to being the incorporation of a broad based body of elected persons who will define for themselves the limits and actions appropriate to the Council.

Where before we might have expected the corporate board rules to prevail here there are too many "networking" linkages to make those rules of behavior work. Now new ways of communication, new lines of trustworthy or trust building linkages will develop, new sources of power and authority will develop. The Executive Council is no longer understood by its members as being modeled as a corporate board. The message of inclusion, on a board level, has begun to effect the workings of Executive Council itself.

I think this is to the good. But there is no way that it will not be painful. Persons whose offices have power precisely in a corporate model will find these changes very difficult. Others who have built their own position on allegiance to this or that officer will find themselves no longer having a court in which to move about with subsidiary powers. At the same time various factions will develop and at one time or another attempt to become the new corporate officers, not realizing that their powers derive not from the old values of the corporate board but from the new values of the incorporated community.

These are times of heady change and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. However the issue of responding to the the Uganda legislation plays out, the power shifts that result are signaling a move from corporate to incorporate, from carnation to incarnation, from a form of governance based on civil models (and what are bishops except ecclesial alternatives to civil administrators in the Roman Empire) to a form of governance based on a post modern projection of the best of reformation thinking in which the company of believers share the oversight collectively.

I think we are beginning to see in all this a movement beyond the mere shadowing and mimicking of civil structures to a new attempt to grasp the possibility of all the faithful working as an incorporated entity to do the work God has given them to do.

So the good news is that Executive Council is flexing its "incorporated" muscle. The bad news is that until it gets it all worked out there will be the odd wild punch and the occasional one well placed blow below the belt. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth and blood on the floor.

And after perhaps a new beginning.

POSTED BY MARK HARRIS AT 11/24/2009 10:11:00 AM

Church Fights for Assets, Members and Legitimacy

A parishioner gave me this story this morning. It's not that different from a number of stories on this subject, but it reminds us what's at stake in terms of property and financial assets. ed.

From the Wall Street Journal via TitusOneNine:

NOVEMBER 25, 2009

As Episcopal Parishes and Dioceses Break From the National Body, Ugly Court Battles Over Valued Property Have Followed

By AMY MERRICK

When the members of St. Luke's of the Mountains Church in La Crescenta, Calif., voted in 2006 to leave the Episcopal Church, they never meant they wanted to leave their church.

But last month, they got notice they were being evicted from the 80-year-old stone structure that had been their spiritual home.

The congregants lost a long legal fight for their building when a court ruled that the national Episcopal Church, which represents the world-wide Anglican Communion in the U.S., and the local diocese were the rightful owners of the property -- not the breakaway leaders.

Divided Congregation Fights for the Church

A sign pointed toward the chapel at Seventh Day Adventist Church. Breakaway congregation St. Luke's Anglican Church is renting the space temporarily.
More photos and interactive graphics
"For many of us, leaving here will be one of the most difficult things we have ever done for God," Rev. Rob Holman said in his last sermon in the building before renting the Seventh Day Adventist Church nearby.


The Vatican has offered Anglicans a chance to return to the Catholic church. Simon Constable speaks with three eminent scholars about the offer to bury the hatchet after a half-millennium.
In the past few years, individual parishes and four dioceses in the U.S. have voted to split from the Episcopal Church, which had about two million members before the split. In June, some of these groups officially founded a rival province, the Anglican Church in North America, which includes some 742 parishes.

The schism reflects arguments over church doctrine, such as the ordination of women priests and the elevation of an openly gay bishop in 2003. Each side argues it best embodies the values and beliefs of the Anglican Communion. The breakaway groups say they are holding true to the Anglican understanding of theology, as the U.S. Episcopal Church moves to the left. The national body says its positions may change over time, but the tenets of the denomination guide those actions.

The split has triggered some ugly battles over the assets. In civil courts nationwide, breakaway parishes are fighting local dioceses and the national Episcopal Church for church property, including financial accounts and endowments. A spokeswoman for the Episcopal Church said she couldn't give an estimate for the value of all church property because there are more than 7,100 congregations. The national body has argued that when local churches became its affiliates, they agreed to abide by its rules, including rules about property ownership.

In Religious Disputes, U.S. Courts Avoid Deciding Matters of Doctrine

The U.S. courts aren't taking a position about which faction is more legitimate -- unlike in Britain, where courts have generally considered which group held more closely to the church's original doctrine. The U.S. Supreme Court, as far back as 1871 and in subsequent cases as recently as 1979, has held that the courts shouldn't get involved in doctrinal disputes. In practice, that meant most times the national church would win such disputes.

Shortly after the 1979 case, the Episcopal Church adopted the "Dennis Canon," which says the national church and the local diocese have a "trust interest" in all local church properties. That trust interest, which says broadly that all parish property is held in trust for the diocese and the Episcopal Church, specifies that if a parish chooses to leave the national body, it must give up control of its property.

Some breakaway churches argue that the Dennis Canon is invalid because local parishes never consented to the arrangement.

Because of the Dennis Canon, courts frequently side with the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church was successful in its fight to reassert ownership of the $17 million Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., after a portion of its congregation voted to secede and took control of the property.

But state property laws vary, so sometimes local churches prevail. A September opinion from the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling and declared a breakaway congregation to be the rightful owner of its 60-acre property in a prestigious resort area.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intercede in a property dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach, Calif., a more conservative congregation that parted ways with the diocese. The case has returned to Orange County Superior Court.

The stakes are highest in cases in which entire dioceses split from the Episcopal Church. In the Fort Worth, Texas, area, conservatives, who aligned with the Anglican Church in North America, won the allegiance of about 15,000 of the 19,000 members of the original Episcopal diocese. The conservatives have control of nearly all church buildings and financial accounts. Neither side will estimate the value of the buildings and endowments at stake, beyond saying it is in the "many millions."

“Those - from one generation only - who decided to leave should not expect to take this common property with them. It belongs to those who went before -and those who will come after- those who who were and those who still are Episcopalians. ”
— Eric Thomas

Those loyal to the national Episcopal Church are suing to get the property back. The lawsuit also raises the question of which group may use the name and logo of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. Both sides say they are best able to carry on the tradition of the church.

"We're trying to be faithful stewards of what previous generations of Episcopalians have given to the church in good faith," says Bishop Edwin Gulick Jr., who was appointed by the national Episcopal Church after the break. "They intended those gifts to be used for the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church."

The court battles might do more than divide property. They could also determine which side in the theological dispute some congregants take.

Alice Monson, a 79-year-old member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Hurst, Texas, said she stayed with the conservative faction after the schism in part because it retained control of the sanctuary. She helped paint the Stations of the Cross there. When the church was short of funds, she cut flowers from her home garden to grace the altar.

"To me, it's home," she said. "It's my church. I will stay here."

Asked what she would do if the more liberal faction gains control of the church building, Ms. Monson shook her head. "I'm afraid to address that. It's too painful," she said. "We just keep praying and let the courts take care of it."

In La Crescenta, an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, the breakaway group renamed itself St. Luke's Anglican Church. Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church is reorganizing in the disputed building under the church's earlier name, St. Luke's of the Mountains.

On Oct. 18, the church held a reconciliation service. "The message was that everyone is welcome," including members of the breakaway congregation, says Rev. Bryan Jones, the new pastor. "The Episcopal Church never required them to do anything that they in conscience couldn't do."

That message attracted people like Arthur Braudrick, who used to attend St. Luke's with his wife but stopped going when the church started discussing whether to secede. "Female clergy, gay clergy, those things just aren't issues for us," he says. The tone of the reconciliation service impressed Mr. Braudrick.

"There was nothing negative said about the people who left," he says. "If that had been said, we probably would not have returned."

-- Stephanie Simon contributed to this article.

Healing the Fault Lines in Christianity - Introduction - Robert S. Munday

from VirtueOnline

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2009 the Fault Lines in Christianity - Introduction
It has been my conviction (indeed, my passion) for quite some time that those of us who are serious about the unity of the Church for which our Lord prayed in John 17, and who are concerned for the contribution that a renewed, orthodox Anglicanism can make to the future of the universal Church, need to take the lead in healing the "fault lines" that have separated Christians for most of the past 1000 years.

Orthodox Anglicans, possessing as we do a comprehensive grasp of the Church—ancient and modern, east and west, catholic and reformed—are uniquely positioned to be the focal point of Christian unity. But to be truly effective as an instrument for uniting the rest of Christianity, we must get our own house in order.

While various jurisdictions in Anglicanism have conducted ecumenical dialogues with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, etc. the great theological divide between Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Anglicans has been left untended (ostensibly with a sort of benign neglect) and even occasionally displayed as a sign of Anglicanism's amazing comprehensiveness. The problem is that the neglect in healing such a gaping wound in the Body of Christ is anything but benign.

Why do I consider this to be a gaping wound instead of simply a healthy sign of diversity? For one thing, there is the attitude of suspicion and even hostility with which Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals sometimes regard each other. I have lived among Anglo-Catholics who use the term "Evangelical" as an epithet. And I have lived among Evangelicals who regard Anglo-Catholics as near pagans in need of conversion. I am not referring merely to fringe movements or isolated incidents--the problem exists among church leaders, theological colleges, and church societies associated with Anglo-Catholicism and Anglican Evangelicalism on every continent where there is an Anglican presence. These attitudes (and sometimes actions) are not healthy displays of diversity, they are a reproach to an institution that exists to manifest God's grace and love.

A second reason this division is a gaping wound and not a healthy display of diversity is the magnitude of the theological issues that remain unresolved. I am not going to argue any of these issues for the time being, but merely list some of them.

The nature of justification,
the nature of sanctification,
grace and works,
the nature of a sacrament,
the nature and effects of Baptism,
the nature of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper,
the role of the Virgin Mary,
the authority of the Scriptures in relation to Tradition,
Apostolic Succession,
the nature of the Priesthood (Presbyterate), etc.

Knowledgeable Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals will immediately recognize the point of controversy in each of these issues and also recognize that this is far from a complete list. Just as obvious is the fact that these are not trivial issues.

One might well ask, given the magnitude of the issues, whether reconciliation of the differing viewpoints is possible. But are we willing to say that something for which our Lord prayed is impossible?

I have long maintained that what unites Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals is far greater than that which separates them. The simple tenets of the Apostles and Nicene Creeds are more than sufficient grounds for a very formidable unity:

belief in and worship of the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
the Incarnation of the Son in the Person of Jesus Christ,
His virgin birth, atoning death, and resurrection,
the Holy Spirit and His work in the life and ministry of the Church,
belief that there is one holy catholic and apostolic Church,
that there is a resurrection of the body and everlasting life for all who believe these things

This much (and more) we have in common already, and it is of major consequence in establishing both our unity and the basis for our proclamation to the world.

The third reason I believe that orthodox Anglicans must take the lead in overcoming our divisions and manifesting the unity of the Church is that our disunity impairs our witness. It is only a united witness to the truth of the Gospel that can reach a world that is slipping into post-Christianity precisely through the compromise of the message of the Gospel by the western Church in the face of challenges from materialism and secularism on the one hand, and militant Islam and other world religions on the other hand.

To accomplish unity for the sake of the Gospel will entail a healing in our spirits, a working out of theological differences, and a renewed commitment to the integrity of our witness.

To achieve this unity will mean laying aside much of the baggage that characterizes the various parties in Anglicanism. It will require a methodology that enables us to recognize and hold fast to what is essentially Christian. It will call for passions of equal intensity for unity and truth. And it will demand a greater love for God and our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ.

This is a beginning of my thoughts along these lines. I will have more to say in future installments.

posted by Robert S. Munday @ 12:49 PM

Advent is coming; are you 'in'?

from The Lead by Torey Lightcap

Advent Conspiracy (as noted by the Cafe in late November 2007 and 2008) is a site in search of a movement, and it's beginning to gain ground.

Banking on the notion that the stickiest of ideas are quite often the simplest, the concept behind Advent Conspiracy -- and an associated site, Rethinking Christmas -- is easily understood: "Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All." As to the third of these:

Before you think we’re getting all Scrooge on you, let us explain what we mean. We like gifts. Our kids really like gifts. But consider this: America spends an average of $450 billion a year every Christmas. How often have you spent money on Christmas presents for no other reason than obligation? How many times have you received a gift out of that same obligation? Thanks, but no thanks, right? We’re asking people to consider buying ONE LESS GIFT this Christmas. Just one. Sounds insignificant, yet many who have taken this small sacrifice have experienced something nothing less than a miracle: They have been more available to celebrate Christ during the advent season.
Meanwhile, conspirators can donate saved monies to the charities of their choosing. (The site touts partnership with Living Water International.)

Last Wednesday, Wired contributor Jonathan Liu noted,

I know, not all of our readers are Christians or celebrate Christmas: on behalf of those of us who have been in-your-face with our “Reason-for-the-Season” buttons..., I apologize, and I hope that this year maybe a small percentage of people will start a new holiday tradition for their families, making Christmas just a little more enjoyable for everyone—especially those who can’t stand it.

Editor's Note: I've been reading the book Advent Conspiracy in preparation for Advent (I know, Advent is preparation for Christmas, but one can't get started too early). It is in the same vein as Ron Sider's work, particularly Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. I find it challenging.

Homophobia in Africa: The Real Truth Please

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
November 21, 2009

The headlines screamed loudly enough: "A Groundbreaking PRA Investigation Exposes Influence of U.S. Religious Conservatives in Promoting Homophobia in Africa....U.S. Christian Right mobilizes African clerics in U.S. 'culture war' over ordination of LGBT clergy."

This would hardly be news except that the man who wrote it is an African, designed deliberately to add credence to the "fact" that Africans still hover in the Dark Ages, have multiples marriages, (Christians not Muslims that is,) and as soon as Africans devolve into 21st Century post-modernity with Palm Pilots and 500 channels of mindless television, they will come of age and accept sodomy as good and right in the eyes of God.

"Sexual minorities in Africa have become collateral damage to our domestic conflicts and culture wars as U.S. conservative evangelicals and those opposing gay pastors and bishops within mainline Protestant denominations woo Africans in their American fight," according to a groundbreaking investigation by Political Research Associates (PRA).

"Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia", is a new report by the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, PRA Project Director and an Anglican priest from Zambia, who also leads churches in the ultra-liberal Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Following a 16-month investigation, Kaoma offers the following thesis:

* The U.S. Right promotes an agenda in Africa that aims to criminalize homosexuality and otherwise infringe upon the human rights of LGBT people while also mobilizing African clerics in U.S. culture war battles. U.S. social conservatives, who are in the minority in mainline churches, depend on African religious leaders to legitimize their positions as their growing numbers make African Christians more influential globally.

* The Ugandan parliament considers the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. Language in that bill echoes the false and malicious charges made in Uganda that western gays are conspiring to take over Uganda and even the world.

* U.S. conservatives are imposing their own concerns about homosexuality on Africa.

* "Renewal" groups in The Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church USA, and Presbyterian Church USA; U.S conservative evangelicals; and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a neoconservative think tank that for decades have been undermining Protestant denominations' tradition of progressive social justice work.

* U.S. conservatives have established with religious leaders in Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya and are exporting homophobia from the United States to these Anglophone countries.

* The U.S. Right - once isolated in Africa for supporting pro-apartheid, White supremacist regimes - has successfully reinvented itself as the mainstream of U.S. evangelicalism. Through their extensive communications networks in Africa, social welfare projects, Bible schools, and educational materials, U.S. religious conservatives warn of the dangers of homosexuals and present themselves as the true representatives of U.S. evangelicalism, helping to marginalize Africans' relationships with mainline Protestant churches.

"We need to stand up against the U.S. Christian Right peddling homophobia in Africa," said Kaoma. PRA executive director Tarso Luís Ramos in the report's foreword says "Africa's antigay campaigns are to a substantial degree made in the U.S.A."

Leaders within mainline Protestant denominations hailed the report.

"The exploitation of African Christians by right-wing organizations in the United States is reprehensible. Where were these individuals and organizations and their leaders during the struggles against colonialism and apartheid? They certainly were not standing in solidarity with the people of Africa. Today, they use a variety of corrupt practices and methods in a vain attempt to turn back the tide of history. This report reveals the truth about what is going on and should be required reading for American church leaders," said Jim Winkler, the general secretary of the international public policy and social justice agency of The United Methodist Church.

Political Research Associates (PRA) described itself as a progressive think tank devoted to supporting movements that are building a more just and inclusive democratic society. "We expose movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights, with a focus on the U.S. political Right."

The report features a cover photo of CANA Bishop Martyn Minns embracing Peter Akinola, Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. CANA is an orthodox Anglican Church plant out of Nigeria that broke away from the Episcopal Church over lax faith and even laxer morals. The report argues that it's the Western conservatives who are pushing the anti-gay line into Africa -- not the other way around -- resulting in anti-gay legislation and homophobia that wasn't there before.

So let us look at the claims of the Rev. Kaoma and the PRA.

1. Mainline Protestant churches are slowly but surely succumbing to the siren call of pansexuality. The undisputed leader is the Episcopal Church, followed by the United Church of Christ, more recently the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and The Presbyterian Church USA. One hold out is the United Methodist Church. The laity are pushing hard against their leaders not to go down the rocky road of allowing non-celibate gay pastors and blessing same-sex unions.

2. In all these churches the laity is overwhelmingly orthodox, but they are led by a cadre of vocal liberal bishops and clergy who are pushing for change as they see society move in the same direction on sexuality issues. The truth is evangelical (conservative) laity are more socially conservative and reject homosexuality. In the case of The Episcopal Church, while orthodox clergy and laity were building churches, a small group of liberals and their homosexual pals were taking over the levers of power. Presiding Bishop Edmund Browning was the first of a new breed of bishops that paved the way for homosexual acceptance. He was followed by Frank Griswold and now the appalling Katharine Jefferts Schori.

3. In a book by Miranda K. Hasset, "The Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Episcopal Dissidents and Their Allies are Reshaping Anglicanism" (Princeton University Press, 2007) she argues that North American Anglicans (Episcopalians) reached out to the church of the Global South and Africa, in particular, for help in resisting the drift of The Episcopal Church into the gay-rights culture and that in so doing genuine bonds of affection were formed. (Hasset cannot, by any stretch be considered orthodox in her personal views. She teaches at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.)

4. Theologian missiologist (Rev. Dr.) Stephen Noll who has lived for the past decade in Uganda as V-P of Uganda Christian University notes that the formation of alternative Anglican bodies in North America came as a direct response to the failure of Episcopal leaders to discipline Bishop Walter Righter. "The acquittal of Righter ended the last attempt at inner discipline within the Episcopal Church." Thus began a slow but steady advance of orthodox overseas Anglican jurisdictions onto American soil. What caused this gradual drift toward overseas alliances and "interventions" Noll stated was the steadfast stubbornness and petty meanness of Episcopalian leadership (illiberal liberals marching in lockstep). The secondary cause has been the collaboration between the national Episcopal Church in New York and Anglican Communion office in London, with the consent of the current Archbishop of Canterbury. The final nail in the coffin of Canterbury-led Anglicanism came as Rowan Williams set about to overturn the Feb 2007 decision of the Primates at Dar es Salaam. Rather than calling the Episcopal bishops to a final account as that meeting intended, he invited them all to an "ndaba" at Canterbury (ndaba is Kwazalu for "sensitivity group").

5. In her book, Hasset shows how Anglicans on both sides of the ocean came to appreciate each other. They both share a basic Evangelical theology, although their churchmanship may be quite different. The Revival movement brought with it a kind of Methodism - no drinking, no smoking, conservative dressing - but they had a common deference to Scripture. The question is, did North American Anglicans thrust their sexual agenda on the Africans? Noll notes that a decade ago many African church leaders thought homosexuality was an odd Western custom that was irrelevant to them. The influence of Western media and NGOs made them think again. Furthermore, the devious politics of the New York-London axis made them suspicious of Episcopalians bearing gifts. (Uganda has cut off all Episcopal donations and missionaries since 2003.)

6. The advent of the Internet with world class LISTSERVS like Virtueonline and Anglican Mainstream have countered the spin from ENS and ACNS, bringing the latest string of heresies and apostasies directly into dioceses and bishops e-mails.

7. Countering Kaoma's claim, Hasset, a sociology of religion and globalization expert, says that the liberal paradigm of globalization, according to which nations invariably become more liberal culturally as they develop economically, does not fit Global Anglicanism. In fact, African Anglicans find in the conservative culture of the Anglican tradition some ballast against rampant westernization and support of traditional mores. "In this sense, the North American conservatives may be offering Africans a genuine choice for their future. Many sociologists thought that after independence, Africa would cast off Christianity as so much colonial baggage. Just the opposite has happened: now Africa represents what Philip Jenkins' calls "The Next Christendom". As Noll observes, African Anglicans met up with a congenial body of Western Christians who appreciate their African culture and Evangelical heritage and who bring certain of the the modern gifts - funds, expertise, technology - without the Trojan horse of cultural liberalism.

8. A number of other things should be noted. EDUCATION. There are more bishops with earned Ph.D.s in the Anglican Province of Nigeria, mostly earned in the UK and USA, than in all the House of Bishops in the U.S. Canada, Australia and NZ put together. To argue, as Kaoma does, that Western Anglicans have imposed their views of sexual morality on Africans is not only a colonialist mentality it is also racist. African leaders were and are quite capable of reading the Bible and to exegete it without the help of Western liberal theologians with a pansexual bent. They have politely stood up to the Archbishop of Canterbury and rejected his stand that you can hold private and public views on homosexuality.

9. The birth of GAFCON came from African initiatives not Western, with the single biggest input of bishops and material coming from Nigeria. This Anglican province raised over $1 million in a few short weeks to send a large contingent of African bishops to the Middle East paying for many who could not pay their way.

10. The Ugandan parliament considers the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. Language in that bill echoes the false and malicious charges made in Uganda that western gays are conspiring to take over Uganda and even the world. This is patently false. Now let us be clear that two Western pan-Anglican gay groups - Integrity USA and Changing Attitude (UK) -- have made repeated allegations about violence towards gays in Nigeria (incited they say by orthodox Anglicans) that have proven false. One of their leaders, Davis Mac-Iyalla, a Nigerian Anglican Gay activist, was exposed as a homosexual predator while touring seminaries in the US. He was roundly condemned by his pro-gay minder for his bad behavior.

The Church of Uganda upholds the sanctity of life and does not support the death penalty proposed in the bill. The irony should not be missed that those who engage in risky sexual behaviors expose men and women to HIV-AIDS often leading such persons to a gruesome death. The church however has been clear in its stand. The Rev. Canon Aaron Mwesigye, speaking on behalf of Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, wrote that the position of the Church of Uganda is that, in Christ, people and their sexual desires are redeemed, and restored to God's original intent. Repentance and obedience to Scripture are the gateway to the redemption of marriage and family and the transformation of society. (Position Paper on Scripture, Authority, and Human Sexuality, May 2005)

Furthermore, The House of Bishops resolved in August 2008 that "The Church of Uganda is committed at all levels to offer counseling, healing and prayer for people with homosexual disorientation, especially in our schools and other institutions of learning. The Church is a safe place for individuals, who are confused about their sexuality or struggling with sexual brokenness, to seek help and healing."

Not surprisingly, Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi in April said he was "appalled to learn that the rumours about homosexual recruiting in our schools and amongst our youth are true. I am even more concerned that the practice is more widespread than we originally thought. It is the duty of the church and the government to be watchmen on the wall and to warn and protect our people from harmful and deceitful agendas." The Ugandan Church also echoed the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1:10 that "Homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture."

"Homosexual behaviour is immoral and should not be promoted, supported, or condoned in any way as an 'alternative lifestyle.' This position has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the House of Bishops and the Provincial Assembly of the Church of Uganda."

What about this echoes of Western interference or "the religious right peddling homophobia in Africa"? It is a complete fiction. Africans are quite capable of thinking for themselves and don't need Westerners to tell them what to believe. They read the Bible in accordance with accepted hermeneutical principles. They are certainly not buying the revisionist nonsense of Bishop John Shelby Spong or the self-absorbed, self-centered homosexual whine of Bishop V. Gene Robinson.

It is also a dead give away that the growth of the Anglican Communion in Africa is in direct relationship with gospel proclamation, while the slow but accelerating death of Western pan-Anglicanism is in direct relationship to its failure to articulate the gospel and Mrs. Jefferts Schori's public repudiation of the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

God is not mocked. The West is reaping what it is sowing. So is the Global South. The only difference is that one is bringing eternal life, joy, peace and hope while the other is sowing the seeds of eternal death, destruction and damnation.

END

Rowan in Rome; Retreat from Reason

by Charles Raven

Apparently unabashed by the chaotic state of the Communion he represents, Rowan William's provocative address to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in Rome last Thursday was noted by the media for its strong challenge to the Roman Catholic Church's position on the ordination of women, but its real significance is that it reveals an Archbishop who, far from being discouraged, does really seem to believe his own propaganda, even to the extent that, the recent humiliation of his non-consultation over the Ordinariate notwithstanding, he offers recent Anglican practice as a model for the Vatican to follow in ecumenical relationships.

For an Archbishop with such a strong reputation for thoughtful scholarship and learning, this represents an alarming retreat from reason and will reinforce the concerns of those like Archbishop Bob Duncan who commented earlier this week. In the year 2000, the Archbishop of Canterbury was the second most important Christian leader in the world. In a short space of time that office has utterly been diminished. It shows that the British model of Anglicanism has failed.?

Williams ransacks ecumenical statements since Vatican II to claim that dialogue has led to ?strong convergence? on the essential nature of the Church as a community, in which human beings are made sons and daughters of God, and reconciled both with God and one another. The Church celebrates this through the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion in which God acts upon us to transform us 'in communion'. He then questions whether "the issues that still divide us have the same weight" - issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the Pope), and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance).

Each of these three areas which divide Rome from Anglicans - authority, primacy and the ordination of women - are examined in turn and Williams concludes that they are all open questions in the light of the need to serve the greater goal of ?filial and communal holiness as the character of restored humanity? and on this basis calls for greater openness on the part of Rome to practical convergence with non Roman Catholics in a "community of communities" and a "communion of communions."

It is at this practical point that the implausibility of Williams position starts to become evident when, presumably without blushing, he commends the Anglican Covenant process, claiming that "The current proposals for a Covenant between Anglican provinces represent an effort to create not a centralised decision-making executive but a 'community of communities' that can manage to sustain a mutually nourishing and mutually critical life, with all consenting to certain protocols of decision-making together." This is seen as a more ambitious approach than the Anglican Ordinariate of which Williams says somewhat dismissively that "it does not build in any formal recognition of existing ministries or units of oversight or methods of independent decision-making, but remains at the level of spiritual and liturgical culture, as we might say. As such, it is an imaginative pastoral response to the needs of some; but it does not break any fresh ecclesiological ground."

But if the Ordinariate is such a modest step - Williams refers to it as a "chaplaincy" - why was he not able to support the formation of such a structure within the Church of England under his own leadership, as the Anglo-Catholic constituency in the Church of England have repeatedly requested? Instead the Church of England seems set upon a legal framework which will drive them out and foreclose the debate in a way which makes a mockery of the model of a "community of communities" reflecting "filial and communal holiness" which Williams is so keen to commend to the Vatican.

The reason for such a glaring contradiction is of course that what Archbishop Duncan describes as "the British model of Anglicanism" now has no coherent theology and is driven by pragmatism. Williams' claim for the Lambeth Communion is that "a degree of recognizability of 'the same Catholic thing' has survived: Anglican provinces ordaining women to some or all of the three orders have not become so obviously diverse in their understanding of filial holiness and sacramental transformation that they cannot act together, serve one another and allow some real collaboration. It is this sort of thinking that has allowed Anglicans until recently to maintain a degree of undoubtedly impaired communion among themselves, despite the sharpness of the division over this matter."

The problem is that "the same catholic thing" which can be expressed in the generalised terms of ecumenical statements rapidly dissolves when exposed to questions of actual practice unless there is a clear understanding and practice of authority within the Church. Behind Williams? passing concession to reality in his commendation of Anglican practice - "until recently" - lies the unspoken issue which is even more fundamental than that of women?s ordination, the acceptance of clergy in openly homosexual relationships.

The Windsor covenant process is a pragmatic response to this particular problem and over six years and three drafts has failed to restrain the North American provinces who have been setting the pace in promoting the gay/lesbian agenda and developing a syncretistic form of Christianity behind the facade of tradition. Moreover, the Lambeth "Instruments of Unity" are widely held to have failed - most clearly reflected in the non-representation of some two thirds of the Communions' practising Anglicans at the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

The Covenant process itself is now stalled and the current Ridley Cambridge Draft is still very weak on any form of discipline, the key clauses being liberally peppered with the qualification "may"; moreover, it cannot provide a theological basis for the communion because the key theological content of the introduction is explicitly excluded from the Covenant itself as "it may provide challenges to some." Williams commends the Anglican practice of finding "carefully crafted institutional ways of continuing to work together"; the Anglican Covenants have certainly been carefully crafted, but in the interests of short term institutional survival, not long term theological coherence.

So how does the Archbishop find the nerve to commend to the Vatican a model of "doing Church" which is so clearly broken backed? Part of the answer may be in the supportive leader comment of today?s London Times, echoed by other establishment voices, which accuses the Vatican of mounting "a direct challenge to the unity of the Anglican Communion." The liberal British Establishment is rediscovering its anti-papal instincts as it comes to the defence of British Anglicanism.

No doubt Dr Williams takes heart from this endorsement, but it comes with a price tag. The Times comment continues "there is every good reason, in theology and natural justice, for the Church to embrace the ministry of women and homosexuals. Anglicanism will be richer for it. Dr Williams will be a bigger man for espousing it unreservedly." Taking "homosexuals" to mean those actively in such sexual relationships (otherwise the reference would be pointless), this rather overlooks the point that if Rowan Williams were to act as The Times urges him to, he would himself be a direct challenge to the unity of the Anglican Communion, but Rome may quite properly, on the basis of his address this week, wonder whether he has convinced himself that with enough time the agenda of British Anglicanism can still be established in a global communion and even beyond.

Rowan Williams is creating a myth of unity and it is becoming all the more urgent that orthodox global Anglicans committed to confessional unity do not give credence to such a retreat from reason.

Charles Raven
21st November 2009

Christian leaders issue 'call of conscience'

From AP via The Lead:

By The Associated Press (AP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — More than 150 Christian leaders, most of them conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Roman Catholics, issued a joint declaration Friday reaffirming their opposition to abortion and gay marriage and pledging to protect religious freedoms.

The 4,700-word document, called "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.

While acknowledging that "Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage," the group rejects same-sex marriage. The declaration states that opening a legal door for gay marriage would do the same for "polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships."
President Barack Obama's desire to reduce the need for abortion is "a commendable goal," but his proposals are likely to increase the number of elective abortions, the document contends.

"The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense," it says.
Obama has said he wants to strike a balance on abortion coverage in the health care overhaul.

The declaration also cites threats to health care workers' conscience clauses and anti-discrimination statutes it argues impinge on religious freedoms.
Signatories include 15 Roman Catholic bishops, including New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl; Focus on the Family founder James Dobson; National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson; seminary leaders, professors and pastors.

Christian Leaders Unite on Political Issues

From the New York Times via The Lead:

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: November 20, 2009

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says.

The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush. The signers include nine Roman Catholic archbishops and the primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

They want to signal to the Obama administration and to Congress that they are still a formidable force that will not compromise on abortion, stem-cell research or gay marriage. They hope to influence current debates over health care reform, the same-sex marriage bill in Washington, D.C., and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

They say they also want to speak to younger Christians who have become engaged in issues like climate change and global poverty, and who are more accepting of homosexuality than their elders. They say they want to remind them that abortion, homosexuality and religious freedom are still paramount issues.

“We argue that there is a hierarchy of issues,” said Charles Colson, a prominent evangelical who founded Prison Fellowship after serving time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. “A lot of the younger evangelicals say they’re all alike. We’re hoping to educate them that these are the three most important issues.”

The document was written by Mr. Colson; Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, who is Catholic; and the Rev. Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, an evangelical interdenominational school on the campus of Samford University, in Birmingham, Ala.

They convened a meeting of Christian leaders in Manhattan in September to present the document and gather suggestions. The 4,700-word document is called the “Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience.” The New York Times obtained an advance copy.

The document says, “We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other antilife act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent.”

Ira C. Lupu, a law professor at George Washington University Law School, said it was “fear-mongering” to suggest that religious institutions would be forced to do any of those things. He said they are protected by the First Amendment, and by conscience clauses that allow medical professionals and hospitals to opt out of performing certain procedures, and religious exemptions written into same-sex marriage bills.

The most likely points of controversy, he said, could involve religious groups that provide social services to the public. Such organizations could be obligated to provide social services to gay people or provide spousal benefits to married gay employees.

Mr. George, the legal scholar at Princeton University, argued that the conscience clauses and religious exemptions were insufficient, saying, “The dangers to religious liberty are very real.”

Manhattan Declaration & Signers

From DeMossNews.com via VirtueOnline:


Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience

Drafted on October 20, 2009

Released on November 20, 2009


Preamble


Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God's word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire's sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce's leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.

In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.

This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes - from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.



Declaration


We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.

Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right - and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation - to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.


Life
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro-abortion ideology prevails today in our government. The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views. The Supreme Court, whose infamous 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade stripped the unborn of legal protection, continues to treat elective abortion as a fundamental constitutional right, though it has upheld as constitutionally permissible some limited restrictions on abortion. The President says that he wants to reduce the "need" for abortion - a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding, requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions, and parental notification for abortions performed on minors. The elimination of these important and effective pro-life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth. Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as "the culture of death." We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.

A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable. As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized. For example, human embryo-destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries. The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called "therapeutic cloning." This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and "voluntary" euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben ("life unworthy of life") were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of "liberty," "autonomy," and "choice."

We will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion. We will work, as we have always worked, to bring assistance, comfort, and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion, even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.

A truly prophetic Christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government: to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination. The Bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to speak for those who cannot themselves speak. And so we defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled, and the dependent. What the Bible and the light of reason make clear, we must make clear. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.

Our concern is not confined to our own nation. Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and "ethnic cleansing," the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research. And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.


Marriage
The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24


This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33


In Scripture, the creation of man and woman, and their one-flesh union as husband and wife, is the crowning achievement of God’s creation. In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself. Marriage then, is the first institution of human society - indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation. In the Christian tradition we refer to marriage as "holy matrimony" to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by God, and blessed by Christ in his participation at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem.

Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits - the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves. Unfortunately, we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country. Perhaps the most telling - and alarming - indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. Our society - and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out-of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average - is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair. Other indicators are widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce.

We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.

To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.

The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. In spousal communion and the rearing of children (who, as gifts of God, are the fruit of their parents’ marital love), we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant.

We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God's intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to "a more excellent way." As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.

We further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us, and with the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition, on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage. Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman, and that the comprehensive, multi-level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as a reproductive unit. This is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person, but truly part of the personal reality of the human being. Human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion, or minds, or spirits, inhabiting non-personal bodies. The human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being - the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual - on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation. That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.

We understand that many of our fellow citizens, including some Christians, believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. They wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being "married." It would not, after all, affect their own marriages, would it? On inspection, however, the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand. Were it to prove anything, it would prove far too much: the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships; it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential.

No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Marriage is an objective reality - a covenantal union of husband and wife - that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good. If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow. First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized. Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as "marriages" sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral. Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. Sadly, we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture. But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.

And so it is out of love (not "animus") and prudent concern for the common good (not "prejudice"), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture. How could we, as Christians, do otherwise? The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God's creation covenant. Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church. And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.


Religious Liberty
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Matthew 22:21

The struggle for religious liberty across the centuries has been long and arduous, but it is not a novel idea or recent development. The nature of religious liberty is grounded in the character of God Himself, the God who is most fully known in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Determined to follow Jesus faithfully in life and death, the early Christians appealed to the manner in which the Incarnation had taken place: "Did God send Christ, as some suppose, as a tyrant brandishing fear and terror? Not so, but in gentleness and meekness..., for compulsion is no attribute of God" (Epistle to Diognetus 7.3-4). Thus the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the very dignity of the human person created in the image of God - a dignity, as our founders proclaimed, inherent in every human, and knowable by all in the exercise of right reason.

Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.

It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law - such persons claiming these "rights" are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.

We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti-discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of "same-sex marriage" in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital "civil unions" scheme, 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 Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here.

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.

As Christians, we take seriously the Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority. We believe in law and in the rule of law. We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral. The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust - and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust - undermine the common good, rather than serve it.

Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King's willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.

Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's.



1Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America


Drafting Committee

Robert George
Professor, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
Timothy George
Professor, Beeson Divinity School, Samford 
University
Chuck Colson
Founder, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, Va.)


Signers (as of November 19, 2009)

Dr. Daniel Akin
President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, N.C.)
Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola
Primate, Anglican Church of Nigeria (Abika, Nigeria)
Randy Alcorn
Founder and Director, Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM) (Sandy, Ore.)
Rt. Rev. David Anderson
President and CEO, American Anglican Council (Atlanta)
Leith Anderson
President of National Association of Evangelicals (Washington, D.C.)
Charlotte K. Ardizzone
TV Show Host and Speaker, INSP Television (Charlotte, N.C.)
Kay Arthur
CEO and Co-founder, Precept Ministries International (Chattanooga, Tenn.)
Dr. Mark L. Bailey
President, Dallas Theological Seminary (Dallas)
Most Rev. Craig W. Bates
Archbishop, International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (Malverne, N.Y.)
Gary Bauer
President, American Values; Chairman, Campaign for Working Families
His Grace, The Right Reverend Bishop Basil Essey
The Right Reverend Bishop of the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America (Wichita, Kan.)
Joel Belz
Founder, World Magazine (Asheville, N.C.)
Rev. Michael L. Beresford
Managing Director of Church Relations, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (Charlotte, N.C.)
Ken Boa
President, Reflections Ministries (Atlanta)
Joseph Bottum
Editor of First Things (New York)
Pastor Randy & Sarah Brannon
Senior Pastor, Grace Community Church (Madera, Calif.)
Steve Brown
National Radio Broadcaster, Key Life (Maitland, Fla.)
Dr. Robert C. Cannada, Jr.
Chancellor and CEO, Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando, Fla.)
Galen Carey
Director of Government Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals (Washington, D.C.)
Dr. Bryan Chapell
President, Covenant Theological Seminary (St. Louis)
Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver
Timothy Clinton
President, American Association of Christian Counselors (Forest, Va.)
Chuck Colson
Founder, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, Va.)
Most Rev. Salvatore Joseph Cordileone
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, Calif.
Dr. Gary Culpepper
Associate Professor, Providence College (Providence, R.I.)
Jim Daly
President and CEO, Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Marjorie Dannenfelser
President, Susan B. Anthony List (Arlington, Va.)
Rev. Daniel Delgado
Board of Directors, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Pastor, Third Day Missions Church (Staten Island, N.Y.)
Dr. James Dobson
Founder, Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Dr. David Dockery
President, Union University (Jackson, Tenn.)
Most Rev. Timothy Dolan
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of New York, N.Y.
Dr. William Donohue
President, Catholic League (New York)
Dr. James T. Draper, Jr.
President Emeritus, LifeWay (Nashville, Tenn.)
Dinesh D'Souza
Writer and Speaker (Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.)
Most Rev. Robert Wm. Duncan
Archbishop and Primate, Anglican Church in North America (Ambridge, Pa. )
Joni Eareckson Tada
Founder and CEO, Joni and Friends International Disability Center (Agoura Hills, Calif.)
Dr. Michael Easley
President Emeritus, Moody Bible Institute (Chicago)
Dr. William Edgar
Professor, Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia)
Brett Elder
Executive Director, Stewardship Council (Grand Rapids, Mich.
Rev. Joel Elowsky
Drew University (Madison, N.J.)
Stuart Epperson
Co-Founder and Chariman of the Board, Salem Communications Corporation (Camarillo, Calif.)
Rev. Jonathan Falwell
Senior Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church (Lynchburg, Va.)
William J. Federer
President, Amerisearch, Inc. (St. Louis)
Fr. Joseph D. Fessio
Founder and Editor, Ignatius Press (Ft. Collins, Colo.)
Carmen Fowler
President and Executive Editor, Presbyterian Lay Committee (Lenoir, N.C.)
Maggie Gallagher
President, National Organization for Marriage (Manassas, Va.)
Dr. Jim Garlow
Senior Pastor, Skyline Church (La Mesa, Calif.)
Steven Garofalo
Senior Consultant, Search and Assessment Services (Charlotte, N.C.)
Dr. Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.)
Dr. Timothy George
Dean and Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School at Samford University (Birmingham, Ala.)
Thomas Gilson
Director of Strategic Processes, Campus Crusade for Christ International (Norfolk, Va.)
Dr. Jack Graham
Pastor, Prestonwood Baptist Church (Plano, Texas)
Dr. Wayne Grudem
Research Professor of Theological and Biblical Studies, Phoenix Seminary (Phoenix)
Dr. Cornell "Corkie" Haan
National Facilitator of Spiritual Unity, The Mission America Coalition (Palm Desert, Calif.)
Fr. Chad Hatfield
Chancellor, CEO and Archpriest, St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (Yonkers, N.Y.)
Dr. Dennis Hollinger
President and Professor of Christian Ethics, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton, Mass.)
Dr. Jeanette Hsieh
Executive Vice President and Provost, Trinity International University (Deerfield, Ill.)
Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
Senior Pastor, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church (Newport Beach, Calif.); Chairman of the Board, Christianity Today International (Carol Stream, Ill.)
Rev. Ken Hutcherson
Pastor, Antioch Bible Church (Kirkland, Wash.)
Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr.
Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church (Beltsville, Md.)
Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse
President, American Orthodox Institute; Editor, OrthodoxyToday.org (Naples, Fla.)
Jerry Jenkins
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Moody Bible Institute (Black Forest, Colo.)
Camille Kampouris
Publisher, Kairos Journal
Emmanuel A. Kampouris
Editorial Board, Kairos Journal
Rev. Tim Keller
Senior Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (New York)
Dr. Peter Kreeft
Professor of Philosophy, Boston College (Mass.) and at the Kings College (N.Y.)
Most Rev. Joseph E. Kurtz
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky.
Jim Kushiner
Editor, Touchstone (Chicago)
Dr. Richard Land
President, The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC (Washington, D.C.)
Jim Law
Senior Associate Pastor, First Baptist Church (Woodstock, Ga.)
Dr. Matthew Levering
Associate Professor of Theology, Ave Maria University (Naples, Fla.)
Dr. Peter Lillback
President, The Providence Forum (West Conshohocken, Pa.)
Dr. Duane Litfin
President, Wheaton College (Wheaton, Ill.)
Rev. Herb Lusk
Pastor, Greater Exodus Baptist Church (Philadelphia)
His Eminence Adam Cardinal Maida
Archbishop Emeritus, Roman Catholic Diocese of Detroit
Most Rev. Richard J. Malone
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine
Rev. Francis Martin
Professor of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Heart Major Seminary (Detroit)
Dr. Joseph Mattera
Bishop and Senior Pastor, Resurrection Church (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Phil Maxwell
Pastor, Gateway Church (Bridgewater, N.J.)
Josh McDowell
Founder, Josh McDowell Ministries (Plano, Texas)
Alex McFarland
President, Southern Evangelical Seminary (Charlotte, N.C.)
Most Rev. George Dallas McKinney
Bishop, Founder and Pastor, St. Stephen's Church of God in Christ (San Diego)
Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns
Missionary Bishop, Convocation of Anglicans of North America (Herndon, Va.)
Dr. C. Ben Mitchell
Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy, Union University (Jackson, Tenn.)
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ky.)
Dr. Russell D. Moore
Senior Vice President for Academic Administration and Dean of the School of Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ky.)
Most Rev. John J. Myers
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, N.J.
Most Rev. Joseph F. Naumann
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City, Kan.
David Neff
Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today (Carol Stream, Ill.)
Tom Nelson
Senior Pastor, Christ Community Evangelical Free Church (Leawood, Kan.)
Niel Nielson
President, Covenant College (Lookout Mt., Ga.)
Most Rev. John Nienstedt
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
Dr. Tom Oden
Theologian, United Methodist Minister; Professor, Drew University (Madison, N.J.)
Marvin Olasky
Editor-in-Chief, World Magazine; Provost, The Kings College (New York)
Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix
Rev. William Owens
Chairman, Coalition of African-American Pastors (Memphis, Tenn.)
Dr. J.I. Packer
Board of Governors' Professor of Theology, Regent College (Canada)
Metr. Jonah Paffhausen
Primate, Orthodox Church in America (Syosset, N.Y.)
Tony Perkins
President, Family Research Council (Washington, D.C.)
Eric M. Pillmore
CEO, Pillmore Consulting LLC (Doylestown, Pa.)
Dr. Everett Piper
President, Oklahoma Wesleyan University (Bartlesville, Okla.)
Todd Pitner
President, Rev Increase
Dr. Cornelius Plantinga
President, Calvin Theological Seminary (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Dr. David Platt
Pastor, Church at Brook Hills (Birmingham, Ala.)
Rev. Jim Pocock
Pastor, Trinitarian Congregational Church (Wayland, Mass.)
Fred Potter
Executive Director and CEO, Christian Legal Society (Springfield, Va.)
Dennis Rainey
President, CEO, and Co-Founder, FamilyLife (Little Rock, Ark.)
Fr. Patrick Reardon
Pastor, All Saints' Antiochian Orthodox Church (Chicago)
Bob Reccord
Founder, Total Life Impact, Inc. (Suwanee, Ga.)
His Eminence Justin Cardinal Rigali
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Frank Schubert
President, Schubert Flint Public Affairs (Sacramento, Calif.)
David Schuringa
President, Crossroads Bible Institute (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Tricia Scribner
Author (Harrisburg, N.C.)
Dr. Dave Seaford
Senior Pastor, Community Fellowship Church (Matthews, N.C.)
Alan Sears
President, CEO, and General Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund (Scottsdale, Ariz.)
Randy Setzer
Senior Pastor, Macedonia Baptist Church (Lincolnton, N.C.)
Most Rev. Michael J. Sheridan
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs, Colo.
Dr. Ron Sider
Director, Evangelicals for Social Action (Wynnewood, Pa.)
Fr. Robert Sirico
Founder, Acton Institute (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Dr. Robert Sloan
President, Houston Baptist University (Houston)
Charles Stetson
Chairman of the Board, Bible Literacy Project (New York)
Dr. David Stevens
CEO, Christian Medical and Dental Association (Bristol, Tenn.)
John Stonestreet
Executive Director, Summit Ministries (Manitou Springs, Colo.)
Dr. Joseph Stowell
President, Cornerstone University (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Dr. Sarah Sumner
Professor of Theology and Ministry, Azusa Pacific University (Azusa, Calif.)
Dr. Glenn Sunshine
Chairman of the History Department, Central Connecticut State University (New Britain, Conn.)
Luiz Tellez
President, The Witherspoon Institute (Princeton, N.J.)
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent
President, Asbury Theological Seminary (Wilmore, Ky.)
Michael Timmis
Chairman, Prison Fellowship and Prison Fellowship International (Naples, Fla.)
Mark Tooley
President, Institute for Religion and Democracy (Washington, D.C.)
H. James Towey
President, St. Vincent College (Latrobe, Pa.)
Juan Valdes
Middle and High School Chaplain, Florida Christian School (Miami, Fla.)
Todd Wagner
Pastor, WaterMark Community Church (Dallas)
Dr. Graham Walker
President, Patrick Henry College (Purcellville, Va.)
Fr. Alexander F. C. Webster, Ph.D.
Archpriest, Orthodox Church in America; Professorial Lecturer, The George Washington University (Ashburn, Va.)
George Weigel
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center (Washington, D.C.)
David Welch
Houston Area Pastor Council Executive Director, US Pastors Council (Houston)
Dr. James Emery White
Founding and Senior Pastor, Mecklenburg Community Church (Charlotte, N.C.)
Dr. Hayes Wicker
Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church (Naples, Fla.)
Mark Williamson
Founder and President, Foundation Restoration Ministries/Federal Intercessors (Katy, Texas)
Parker T. Williamson
Editor Emeritus and Senior Correspondent, Presbyterian Lay Committee
Dr. Craig Williford
President, Trinity International University (Deerfield, Ill.)
Dr. John Woodbridge
Research Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Ill.)
Don M. Woodside
Performance Matters Associates (Matthews, N.C.)
Dr. Frank Wright
President, National Religious Broadcasters (Manassas, Va.)
Most Rev. Donald W. Wuerl
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
Paul Young
COO and Executive Vice President, Christian Research Institute (Charlotte, N.C.)
Dr. Michael Youssef
President, Leading the Way (Atlanta)
Ravi Zacharias
Founder and Chairman of the Board, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (Norcross, Ga.)
Most Rev. David A. Zubik
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh
James R. Thobaben, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Professor, Bioethics and Social Ethics, Asbury Theological Seminary (Wilmore, Ky.)


-30-