First the Manhattan Declaration;
now the Westminster Declaration

Declaring to be "initially inspired by the 'Manhattan Declaration', which was launched in November 2009 and has now been signed by over 400,000 US Christians", a group of conservative UK Christians has launched "Westminster 2010 [as] a completely independent initiative by UK Christians focused on UK issues."

Among the initial signers of the Manhattan Declaration were Chuck Colson, Martyn Minns, Peter Akinola, David Anderson, James Dobson, Timothy Dolan, Bob Duncan, Emmanuel A. Kampouris, Albert Mohler, and Mark Tooley,

Andrew Brown observes,

The figureheads of the [Westminster Declaration] movement are two retired Anglican bishops, Lord Carey, who used to be archbishop of Canterbury and still carries on as if he ought to be, and Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, who resigned last year as bishop of Rochester.

Along with Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the head of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland, they are the most prominent signatories to the "Westminster Declaration" which was publicised on Sunday. But when you look down the list of 30 or so signatories, almost all of them representing groups you have never heard of, the most significant fact is that a quarter of them are black or representing black-led churches, and almost all would agree that the most dynamic Christianity in the world today is African.

This has implications both for both church and secular politics. The style of African Christianity is energetic, aggressive, self-confident and supernaturalist. It hates Islam, which is seen as a global threat; and it despises effete western liberalism.

Like the Manhattan Declaration before it, this declaration calls for civil disobedience:
We refuse to submit to any edict forcing us to equate any other form of sexual partnership with marriage … We will not be intimidated by any cultural or political power into silence or acquiescence and we will reject measures that seek to over-rule our Christian consciences or to restrict our freedoms to express Christian beliefs, or to worship and obey God.
Not that any Western government is telling anyone what they can and cannot believe.

See our coverage of the Manhattan Declaration here.

Posted by John B. Chilton on April 7, 2010 1:22 PM | |
Comments (4)

(Andrew Brown, not Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown is currently frying other fish.)

[D'oh! I've done that before. Fixed. Thanks. - Chilton]

"What we're seeing here is the growth of Christianity as a player in multicultural politics, competing as a tribal identity for group privileges."

Some of us during Eastertide are celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Others appear to be celebrating the resurrection of the Emperor Constantine.

Posted by Bill Moorhead [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 7, 2010 2:28 PM

@Bill - Exactly. Who issues a declaration on Easter?

Posted by John B. Chilton [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 7, 2010 2:35 PM

I would be very interested to hear what Gordon Brown thinks of all this, but sadly, it isn't him.

And, as a bonus, we have so much to learn from African politics. Oh, wait...

Effete western liberalism - what has that ever given us apart from human rights, civil society... meh, who needs 'em?

Posted by Dave Paisley [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 7, 2010 2:36 PM

Their claim that the Manhattan Declaration has been "signed by over 400,000 US Christians" one more version of the commonplace propaganda of unverified petitions. I think Religious Connections deals with it well. Their summary view of the petition: "it's_a_joke."

Posted by gwfrink3 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 8, 2010 7:34 AM

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