I’ve often wondered whether the word “evangelical” has gone the way of “fundamentalist”, with the popular derogatory meaning of “right-wing bigot” eclipsing the original theological meaning so that it becomes useless in communicating anything meaningful about your beliefs to the world at large.
But names are powerful identity-markers, and this confusion over the meaning of “evangelical” has led many to reject not just the label, but the theology that it stands for. I’ve struggled with evangelicalism, because some of the actions, practices and beliefs of those who call themselves evangelical can be pretty ugly, so I can really understand that.
However, I’ve also seen that there are many evangelicals who have a mature, intelligent, compassionate faith, and through struggling with different questions about my faith, have become more confident that an evangelical understanding is the right approach to the Bible and to theology. So I welcome the attempt to reclaim the word “evangelical” as both a term that should be theologically-defined and also as something that should mean good news.
Os Guiness, one of the writers of the manifesto, is one of those people who helped show me the possibility of being a thinking evangelical. He used to be a L’Abri worker and has written books such as Fit Bodies, Fat Minds on the importance of recovering the evangelical mind. Recently, he’s written The Case for Civility, which is about the kind of issues raised in the manifesto.
The manifesto doesn’t speak for all evangelicals, and nor does it claim to. The signatories tend to be more from the evangelical left than right, so it’s been signed by the likes of Ron Sider (author of Rich Christians in a World of Hunger) and Jim Wallis (President of Sojourners, which campaigns primarily on issues of peace and social justice, but not by major figures like Dr James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, who is one of the most influential evangelical leaders in America and very politically conservative.
The manifesto opposes both the sacred public square (where one religion is established to the exclusion of others) and the naked public square (where all expressions of religious belief are excluded by coercive secularism), instead arguing for the civil public square:
We promote a civil public square, and we respect for the rights of all, even those with whom we disagree. Contrary to those who believe that “error has no rights,” we respect the right to be wrong. But we also insist that “the right to believe anything” does not mean that “anything anyone believes is right.” Rather, respect for conscientious differences also requires respectful debate.
I agree wholeheartedly with this, and argued the same point about “the right to be wrong” in one of my ed-op pieces for Gair Rhydd. But I think the terms in which the manifesto rejects “theocracy” betrays a misunderstanding of the relationship between God and State.
The manifesto equates “theocracy” with imposition, coercion, the curtailment of freedom and all sorts of other horrors:
Let it be known unequivocally that we are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths, including the right to convert to or from the Christian faith. We are firmly opposed to the imposition of theocracy on our pluralistic society. We are also concerned about the illiberalism of politically correct attacks on evangelism. We have no desire to coerce anyone or to impose on anyone beliefs and behavior that we have not persuaded them to adopt freely, and that we do no not demonstrate in our own lives, above all by love.
I agree with the affirmation of religious liberty and the rejection of coercion. But a consistently Christian theocracy (that is, a political system where Christianity is the basis for law) would allow religious liberty, the right to convert, and forbid the coercion or imposition of beliefs because that’s what God commands.
“In any culture, the source of law is the god of that society” said R J Rushdoony, and while he was spectacularly wrong on many things (such as the idea that the Old Testament Law, including the death penalty for homosexuality, adultery, apostacy and other sins, should be applied directly to modern society), on this point I think he was right. Or as Doug Wilson put it: “Every society is a theocracy. The only question is, ‘Who’s Theo?'”
If we’re to be faithful to the Lordship of Christ over the whole world, including politics and including the public sphere, then “lots of us have very different beliefs, and we can’t really be sure who’s really right, so we’d better just try and agree a way of playing fair” is not a reason we can give for not imposing our beliefs and for having a civil public sphere.
Any Christian theocracy that excluded other beliefs would be inconsistent with the teachings of the Bible and not genuinely Christian. It seems to me that Christians should want a Christian theocracy in this sense, firstly because Jesus is exalted to the highest place, and one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess he is Lord, and so what he commands should be the basis for law in society, and secondly because only Christian theocracy can give a genuine and secure basis for liberty and freedom of religious belief.
For more on God and State, you might want to read David Field’s essay on “Rutherford and the Confessionally Christian State“. I also just checked Doug Wilson’s blog and see that he’s commented on the manifesto, making similar points to what I’ve just said, but clearer and better written!