The Nazareth Declaration

Evangelicals have historically placed too little emphasis on helping the poor. The Bible talks far more about helping the poor and establishing justice than it does about evangelism. I think the reason is that we have little control over how people respond to the gospel, but we have all of the control over our efforts to help the poor.

However, it's important to remember that God's promise of material prosperity and physical healing in Isaiah depends upon the people being spiritually healed first. That provides an important lesson for today. We should help the non-Christian poor as much as we help Christian poor, but keep in mind that until spiritual healing takes place, not much will change with the non-Christian poor. Most poverty in the world is caused by traditional, closed states as described by economist Douglass North and the New Institutional School of Economics. In the traditional state, the leader (usually a king, but also called Caesar, general or dictator) maintains his rule and power by giving a small group of loyalists (usually the nobility, but also army officers) the freedom to plunder the rest of the population with impunity. The traditional state has been the dominant state since the beginning of history and still dominates in today's world. And it's the major cause of world poverty.

In modern, open societies of the West, poverty often follows sinful behavior resulting from spiritual illness.

Having multiple authors does not make for good writing in this case. You could have been much more concise in your criticism, which is already on record anyway, of the Manhattan Declaration and moved on to your points about the "Nazareth Declaration" more quickly. Your point is evangelicals do not do enough about poverty and social ills; their point is progressives do too little about life at its onset in allowing for an acceptable level of abortions, as one of their issues. The same sex marriage issue is not even interesting, but since they want to take it up, I suppose that is their right.

Back when the Manhattan Declaration came out I read a news article about it where Chuck Colson was quoted saying something to the effect of "the purpose is to let the younger generation of evangelicals know there is a prioritization of issues they should be concerned about - namely these three. Colson's quote concerned me. (Ben Lowe alludes to this in the opening of his piece.) I then went on to read the actual Declaration. This was a month or so ago, but I don't remember the actual Declaration saying anything about a priority of issues or speaking to younger evangelicals. There was nothing in the actual Declaration with which I had a problem; it was just Colson's characterization of it that concerned me.

Ben is right that Christians shouldn't prioritize the issues we consider important. One Christian might work to alleviate poverty while another might care for the sick and a third might support expectant mothers so that they don't choose abortion. None of these is better or more worthwhile than the other. We all have our callings.

I think you and Ben Lowe both make an important point about spiritual healing combined with physical healing. We all need both.

Ben writes: "Jesus teaches the gospel and he acts the gospel. Moreover, when he acts the gospel, he does so by addressing both spiritual and physical ailments (though admittedly such a distinction may be anachronistic), both demon-possession and physical illness."

The problem I see in our society is that too many people, Christians included, look immediately to the central government for physical healing without considering the fact that the central government cannot do spiritual healing. Lots of politicians promise it, but none deliver. The fact that so many people look to the state for healing also says something about Christians and our inattention to the suffering in our communities.

The fact that so many people look to the state for healing also says something about Christians and our inattention to the suffering in our communities.

It's worse than that -- too often Christians have been themselves the oppressors, focusing upon cultural authority rather than ministry. The only time when they've actually complained about government is when they weren't the only ones benefiting from it. I still believe that the civil-rights movement -- where one set of Christians was doing battle with another set of Christians -- was a black mark on the American church in general.

Martin Luther King Jr. would call that nonsense.

I still have serious problems with the following section of the Manhatten Declaration:

"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."

As I said in some earlier threads, the Manhatten Declaration spends several paragraphs, an entire section of the physical characteristics of the body, emphasizing that over the spiritual characteristics of life-long, faithful love and devotion that a couple has for each other. Particularly, the Manhatten Declaration emphasizes "fulfilling the behavioral conditions of procreation"

In this age of finite resources, procreation does not take the all-important place that the Manhatten Declaration gives to it. I work in animal rescue and our drive is less procreation and more spaying and neutering so there will no longer be unwanted, homeless animals.

I'm not saying here that humans need to all get spayed or neutered. But in today's world, we need less, not more emphasis on physical/bodily aspects and procreation and more emphasis on spiritual aspects: among other things, taking care of the people who are already here. There really should be less consideration for procreation and more consideration for adoption of homeless children.

Jesus says (in Luke, quoted from the article above):

8"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Not procreation here. Instead, preaching the good news to the poor and the release of the oppressed.

Some might go so far as to suggest that Christians have different gifts from the Holy Spirit!

The lack of spiritual healing is the reason that development work in poor countries is so very frustrating. Take Africa, for example. 50 years of intense development efforts and trillions of dollars in aid and the continent is worse off.

haha. True.

From my perspective, the Manhattan Declaration is a veiled attestation of membership in the Republican Party or religious right. If that's your thing so be it...I think the call of Micah 6:8 more fully encompasses the responsibilities of Christians. I also think Ben piece is right on.

It seems to me, the authors have over-simplified the message of the Manhattan Declaration. As with other declarations, the body of the document expounds and embellishes upon the primary statements... further defining what the succinct introductory statement really says and means. The statement about sanctity of life refers to much more than just the protection of the unborn child. It refers to all human life in all circumstances including work and personal life... quite consistent with treating workers with godly dignity and fairness. The article seems a backhanded attempt at redefining the Manhattan Declaration as a narrow fundamentalist rant of a few old codgers. Otherwise, I'm not even sure why the article was written except to kill time and fill space. If you want to compare declarations, the Sermon on the Mount may serve as a better framework. It's always difficult to make comparisons between the nation/kingdom of Israel and the kingdom-without-borders of Christianity and then extrapolating this to a secular/godless and corrupt US form of government.

At it's core, the human condition is a constant struggle against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Notice how Paul differentiates between rulers and authorities and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. This suggests that the rulers and authorities may refer to the earthly ones. The governments of men, maybe? Ours is not a flesh and blood struggle, though. The core of our problem as humans is a spiritual one played out in a physical world. Solve the spiritual problem... as people begin to know God and be known by Him... and the physical problems will get addressed... not necessarily solved. How many Christians died because of their faith? Often, our faith makes this world a much more difficult place in which to live peacefully. Can one be free as she physically rots in prison? Can one be oppressed while having a corner office on Wall Street?

You forget, however, that the continent's resources were largely plundered a couple of centuries before that. And when you don't have access to resources you often act like a savage because you're living a "survival" mentality.

Having resources is hardly what leads to prosperity. Hong Kong has no resources to speak of, and imports virtually all of its food and water.

Africa still has oil, diamonds, and lots of beautiful scenery that should make it a major tourist magnet.

And as one author has put it -

"Moreover, most of the resources of such Third World nations as Zaire and the oil countries would never have been of any value at all were it not for Western discoveries and Western enterprise. 'In some of the countries of the Third World there would be far fewer resources had the West not actually brought them. The rubber trees of Malaysia did not originate anywhere in Asia

And just who is that author? Because it is also true that the "imperialists" sought only their own comfort and actually never taught the indigenous peoples to rule themselves and be a blessing to them. That's a big reason Africa is the way it is.

Africa, far above any other place, has been the home of statist, left-wing economics, and it shows.

Nope -- Europe still takes the cake there.

Fortunately, most of "The New Evangelicals" will see the light around age 30, and give it up, just as the 70s generation that went to college when Ron Sider was popular did.

Sider was never that popular, truth be told, and in fact has since engendered considerable resentment in conservative Christian circles for being truly holistic. We forget that being Christians actually costs us something -- and the people who say that don't get in "Christian" media.

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Just as you may weary of the writers of the Manhatten document "correcting" you--they may weary of your correction.

The identification of three fundamental issues is not a refutation of a broader agenda. They acknowledge a broader agenda. If you wish to challenge their focus I think it would be more legitimate, for example, to examine whether an ethic upholding the sanctity of human life to be related to a broader Luke 4 agenda.

I was born, bred, & nurtured in conservative evangelicalism and never understood Jesus as concerned solely with eternal salvation. Contributors on this blog who consistently hammer this point sound to me to be an awful lot like that which they criticize

To agree, yet move forward, "Africa's resources were and *are being* plundered." The resource rip off flow continues in one direction

Although, Ron Sider signed it. I don't think he fits neatly into that box.

It is true that some Christians have been on the oppressors at certain times in history. We've all been ignorant or on the wrong side at some point or another, sometimes without even knowing it.

And my own theological heritage -- Reformed -- is most guilty of this.

When I used the term "spiritual healing", I used it to mean the healing of ills that are spiritual in nature rather than physical.

That could go in several directions depending on your interpretation because it's not well-defined. Demon-possession is in fact more common in "primitive" societies because (according to a translator friend who ministers in Cameroon) they are much more in tune with the spiritual world, the real problem is that they often devolve into superstition. However, it's well-known that many of those societies also suffer from physical diseases that were eradicated in the First World long ago.

Thanks for responding, Sam. This deliniation between spiritual and physical seems to border on dualism and/or gnosticism. It serves well those who wish to exploit others or capriciously assign importance to personal pet projects. Where is the line drawn between physical and spiritual, in your estimation. For example, some here would qualify feeding the poor as a physical and not spiritual activity. This is why, on a previous thread, I questioned Lord Voltemont on the definition of mercy.