Anglican Mainstream

By George Conger, Religious Intelligence

Conservative Christian leaders in the United States have released a statement of conscience and civil disobedience, affirming neither they nor the institutions under their care will honour any government mandate compelling their support for abortion, assisted suicide, or gay marriage.

The 4,700-word Manhattan Declaration was released at a press conference in Washington on Nov 20 and was endorsed by 148 Orthodox, Anglican, Catholic and evangelical leaders.

Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia told reporters at the launch of the declaration at the National Press Club last week that the principles in the document “are not the unique preserve of the Christian community — they can be known and honoured by people apart from divine revelation.”

The document stated: “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."

Arising out of a meeting of Christian leaders held at the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan last year, Princeton University law professor Robert George prepared the first draft of the declaration. It attracted the support of the country’s leading evangelical and Protestant leaders, six Roman Catholic Archbishops, including the Archbishops of New York, Newark, and Washington, and Anglican leaders Archbishop Robert Duncan and Bishops David Anderson and Martyn Minns of the Anglican Church in North America.

Only two non-Americans were included among the initial signatories: Anglo-Canadian professor JI Packer and Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola.

The declaration offered a statement of civil disobedience to “anti-life” laws, stating “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."

It further stated: “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 marriage or the equivalent or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family."

The Manhattan Declaration states the United States is facing a growing threat to religious liberties from the government and the secular left including the use of anti-discrimination laws to force religious social service agencies to permit adoptions by gay couples, hate crime laws that are used to silence free speech and religious discourse, and the weakening of conscience clauses protecting religious workers in the health industry.

The declaration states that it is not a partisan political statement as both Democrats and Republicans have been “complicit in giving legal sanction” to a “culture of death.” It notes that President Barack Obama’s goal of reducing the need for abortions is “commendable” but his pledge to make abortions more readily available contradicts this pledge.

However, the declaration will likely be used by conservatives in the current battle over health care legislation before Congress, using it as a lever to remove the Obama Administration’s support for liberalizing abortion laws.

“We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” the declaration said, “But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

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