“Christian Libertarianism” paper finished
Finished, insofar as it was turned in for a grade. I think I want to rewrite portions of it to express the ideas more clearly.
In the meantime, you are welcome to read it.
Liberty and the Christian: A Review of Christian Libertarianism
An Evangelical Manifesto: Commentary digest
Alan Jacobs: “Come On, You Call This a Manifesto?”
In 1974 a committee of evangelical Christians, headed by Billy Graham, convened an “International Congress on World Evangelization” in Lausanne, Switzerland … From this meeting emerged a document, signed by over 2,000 participants, called the Lausanne Covenant.
Much of the covenant is a restatement of basic Christianity; other parts emphasize the need for evangelization; still others offer words of repentance … As a whole, the Lausanne Covenant has done far more to define the modern evangelical movement than any other document.
On Wednesday, another group of evangelicals released “An Evangelical Manifesto: The Washington Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment.” Like the Lausanne Covenant, it restates much basic Christian doctrine, proclaims the need for evangelism and contains passages of penitence. (“We must reform our own behavior.”)
It’s worth noting that while the Lausanne Covenant was created in Switzerland, arguably a place of great memory in the Protestant Reformation, this “Evangelical Manifesto” was released in Washington, D.C.–the political center of the free world, perhaps, but not a place of great significance to Christianity.
But one thing the document is not is a manifesto. A genuine manifesto is sharp, punchy and, ideally, short … If the thing’s going to be extensive, like the Communist Manifesto, it should at least begin with a memorable statement (“A spectre is haunting Europe”) and clearly specify its agenda. The true manifesto is bold, even extreme: It leaves us in no doubt about its commitments.
The Evangelical Manifesto, by contrast, is both long and insistently moderate. After the apparently self-undercutting statement that “no one speaks for all Evangelicals, least of all those who claim to,” it launches into a lengthy catalog of theological statements that effectively duplicates Lausanne. To whom is this directed? Who wants or needs an overview of evangelical theology? The document never says.
Al Mohler: “An Evangelical Response to ‘An Evangelical Manifesto’”
New paper for your reading pleasure
My penultimate paper for this semester has been completed. It is a meditation on themes in Martin Heidegger’s essay “The Question Concerning Technology” and Hannah Arendt’s book The Human Condition. As it is rather long (7400 words or so), I’ve put it on a separate page. You can get to it by clicking below.
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