I’ve just begun to digest the Evangelical Manifesto , a twenty page, eloquently written statement about what it means to be an evangelical, spearheaded by such luminaries as Dallas Willard, David Neff—editor and chief of Christianity Today, and Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary. It comes complete with study guide. The first half of the manifesto is a basic rehashing of Christian doctrine—kind of like the Nicene and Athanasian Creed but without all that pesky Latin. The second half however reads like a cross between an apology and a Christianity Today op-ed on church, state, and the sins of the evangelical right.

Of course it’s the last part that’s getting all the press. Seizing on the mea culpa and ignoring the theology, USA Today has the headline: “Manifesto Aims to Make ‘Evangelical’ less Political”. The LA Times sports the headline: (more…)