THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION OF CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE

The homepage tells us:

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1.the sanctity of human life
2.the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3.the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

From the Preamble:

Christians are heirs of a 2,000­year tradition of proclaiming God’s word,… After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture.

It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries… Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel…

I am a former Roman Catholic that God, through His grace alone; by faith alone, in the finished work on the Cross of Christ alone, mercifully delivered from the religious slavery of apostate Roman Catholicism into the glorious freedom of the sons of God. So I ask, which Gospel is it that Christians today are called to proclaim?

And, if the above really is true, then what has become of the Protestant Reformation? “Papal edicts” were also directly involved with the fate of Christian “heirs”, faithfully “proclaiming God’s word,” who also “have gone before us in the faith”, e.g. Jon Hus; William Tyndale, and Hugh Latimer, “to proclaim the Gospel.”

The Press Kit tells us this was “Released on November 20, 2009”; you can read more about Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience, and see all the original signers right here, such as:

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ky.)

Dr. Peter Kreeft
Professor of Philosophy, Boston College (Mass.) and at the Kings College (N.Y.)

Dr. Russell D. Moore
Senior Vice President for Academic Administration and Dean of the School of Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ky.)

His Eminence Adam Cardinal Maida
Archbishop Emeritus, Roman Catholic Diocese of Detroit

Dr. Daniel Akin
President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, N.C.)

His Eminence Justin Cardinal Rigali
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Ravi Zacharias
Founder and Chairman of the Board, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (Norcross, Ga.)

Most Rev. Timothy Dolan
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of New York, N.Y.

Dr. Wayne Grudem
Research Professor of Theological and Biblical Studies, Phoenix Seminary (Phoenix)

Fr. Chad Hatfield
Chancellor, CEO and Archpriest, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (Yonkers, N.Y.)

Leith Anderson
President of National Association of Evangelicals (Washington, D.C.)