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Upcoming ‘Manifesto’ rebukes evangelicals for becoming pawns By Robert Marus
Published May 6, 2008
WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Several prominent conservative Christian leaders, in a joint statement to be unveiled May 7, are rebuking their fellow American evangelicals for allowing secular politics to co-opt their faith.
“An Evangelical Manifesto,” set to be released at a Washington press conference, reportedly criticizes evangelicals for allowing the religious label to become synonymous with conservative politics.
The Associated Press, which attained a draft of the statement in advance of the announcement, reported May 2 that the manifesto is “starkly self-critical” of the evangelical movement for focusing on secular politics to the detriment of the gospel proclamation that is at the core of evangelicalism.
“That way faith loses its independence, Christians become ‘useful idiots’ for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology,” the statement, according to the AP, says.
It criticizes evangelicals at both ends of the political spectrum for getting so heavily involved in fighting over culture-war issues -- such as abortion rights and gay rights -- that they have earned evangelicals the reputation of being little more than a political special-interest group. The document is clearly aimed at the most politically active evangelical conservatives, however.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the most prominent Religious Right activists have not signed on to the document. According to news reports, its signers don’t include figures like Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council or Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
the Community of Faith has finally realised that Karl Rove rode them hard and put them away wet.
-------------------- "Man is the only kinda varmint that sets his own trap, baits it, and steps in it." Posts: 25850 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Southern Baptist membership, baptisms decline in 2007
By ROSE FRENCH – Apr 25, 2008
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The number of people baptized in Southern Baptist churches fell for the third straight year in 2007 to the denomination's lowest level since 1987, and membership dipped as well.
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention blamed the decline in part on a perception that its followers are "mean-spirited, hurtful and angry."
Baptisms last year dropped nearly 5.5 percent to 345,941, compared with 364,826 in 2006, according to an annual report released Wednesday by LifeWay Christian Resources, the convention's publishing arm.
Total membership was 16,266,920 last year, down nearly 40,000, or about 1 percent, from the 2006 figure of 16,306,246.
The dropping number of followers in the nation's largest Protestant denomination reflects a trend in other mainline Protestant churches, while non-denominational churches are gaining and the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing.
Part of the blame can be placed on a notion that Baptists have been known too much in recent years for "what we're against" than "what we're for," Page said.
people don't like mean-spirited and angry Pastors do they?
-------------------- "Man is the only kinda varmint that sets his own trap, baits it, and steps in it." Posts: 25850 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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