A Baptist historian compared today’s battle for the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious freedom to courageous heroes who resisted the Nazis in Germany.
Timothy George, dean of Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School, told a group of ministers Jan. 17 that “The Manhattan Declaration,” a document he wrote in 2009 with Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship and Robert George of Princeton University, was inspired by the Barmen Declaration of 1934.
At a seminar co-sponsored by Judson College and the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, Timothy George handed out copies of his 4,700-word manifesto that includes a pledge to civil disobedience of laws that would compel religious institutions to perform abortions or same-sex marriages.
“This document isn’t a political one, but a moral one,” Timothy George said. “It’s an example of the church taking a stand on issues and reaching across dividing lines to find support from people of various political and religious persuasions. I think this is what the church can and should do.”
Timothy George said in an article in the Spring 2011 issue of the Beeson Magazine that the Manhattan Declaration was written on the 75th anniversary of the Barmen Declaration, a statement of the “Confessing Church” done in response to the strongly nationalistic and anti-Semitic “German Christian” movement that supported Adolf Hitler.
Timothy George said like Barmen, the Manhattan statement is not “political” in the sense of being tied to a particular party or ideology. Democrats, Republicans and independents have all signed on.
“Some say today that the church should take a sabbatical from speaking to the culture at large,” Timothy George said. “Hitler himself was happy (at least for a while) to leave the Christians alone so long as they stayed within the four walls of their church buildings and refrained from ‘meddling’ in matters related to public policy and the common life of the German people. But both Barmen and Manhattan refuse to say that there are areas of life which do not belong to Jesus Christ. Both affirm the sovereignty of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ.”
Finally Timothy George said, both documents recognize “the cost of discipleship.”
“Both call for the kind of conscientious courage that dares to count the cost of following Jesus Christ along the way that leads finally to the cross,” he wrote.
At the Alabama gathering, Timothy George said nearly 500,000 people have signed the Manhattan Declaration. He said the document, which definines marriage as between one man and one woman, has been widely misunderstood as espousing intolerance toward gays.
“Some have accused us of being hateful, but there’s not a word of condemnation in the document against the gay community. What we argue for is ‘the common good’ that enriches society,” Timothy George said. (ABP)
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