Last week, 77 mostly well meaning Christian leaders some who are and some who claim to be Evangelicals released an "Evangelical Manifesto" that is 90% stuff all Evangelicals would agree with, but that 10% is basically nice sounding left wing mumbo jumbo hidden in there by a few like Jim Wallis who is using this as a tool to try to keep Evangelical Christians from voting, possibly to hamstring John McCain. You see ever since George W. Bush captured over 70% of the Evangelical vote, the leftist in the Democrat Party have tried to first co-opt then when we would not bend they have tried to get us to stay home and be super spiritual and Jim Wallis is one of their Pied Pipers. 

I am not alone in this view, among those who have eloquently written on this "Manifesto" include KKLA radio host Frank Pastore, Janice Shaw Crouse, & Albert Mohler.

So, because as an Evangelical Christian, I do not like to see my fellow Christians bamboozled into following a path to destruction, no matter how well meaning and nice it looks, I propose a "Biblically Based Evangelical Manifesto" needs to be put together.  Here is how it may from the other "Manifesto".

1. Jesus Christ calls His believers to be both salt and light in this world (Matt 5:13-15) and says render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and render to God the things that are God's (Matt 22:21;Mark 12:17; Luke 20:25).  Here in the United States we are Caesar and these verses suggest that those who are Christ's disciples have a duty to engage in public policy and to vote, not to stick their collective heads in the sand on the moral issues of the day as it is hinted in Jim Wallis' creation.

2. Jesus Christ calls His followers to personally engage in personal acts of charity, not the government, but us personally.  One example of this is in the book of Matthew chapter 25 in the passage that starts in verse 31 through verse 46, where He talks of acts of charity being or not being performed on the less fortunate being or not being done to Him.  Too often, because the government gets involved in an act of charity we corporately say the problem is too big for us and the government is already doing something, so we do not need to get involved.  This is an endorsement of Socialism, not Freedom and not what Christ would have for His followers.  One other note, as someone who earned an Economics degree through U.C. Irvine and a fan of Adam Smith, Fredrick von Hayek, & Milton Friedman, I must point out how socialism has caused problems and acts to redistribute the resources of the middle class and other productive citizens to the poor and the politically connected rich.  Remember nothing is as portable as money or rich people and laws take time to be enacted.

3. The strain of environmentalism emphasized in this Jim Wallis creation borders on pagan nature worship.  Yet in the book the Revelation of Jesus Christ, you see Judgments of God destroying the rivers and trees as a series of warning shots across unrepentant mankind's bows, this in preparation for the New Heaven and New Earth.  In the teachings of Jesus you see Him teaching that the Law was written for man and not the other way around.  And there are numerous studies showing how the policies of the left in response to Global Climate Change will end up costing more human lives than doing nothing.  Translation, for Jesus Christ the human soul takes precedent over all other things.

4. That brings us to the lack of a call to spread the gospel to the rest of the world.  Jim Wallis' creation talks of personal piety, but does not talk of the benefits of spreading the Good News of the salvation that comes from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the historicity of the Bible, the virgin birth being necessary for proving the sinlessness of Jesus Christ; you know the central doctrines of the Christian faith.  No what we get is nice sentimentality that calls for pluralism and maybe even some form of ecumenicalism.

5. Last but not least Jim Wallis, his merry band of feel gooders, and the others whom he duped into signing onto this document, seem to go out of their way to attack the "Christian  Right" for standing up against abortion on demand and homosexual marriage, stereotyping us as caring only about the though shall not sins, but not caring about what they call "Social Justice."  What they fail to consider is we too care for these issues but have other solutions to those problems other than redistribute the wealth of the middle class and the productive to the poor and the wealthy elites, which will cause even more problems.

6. A call for Evangelicals to be Ambassadors of the Christian Faith and not just warriors needs to be part of this new Manifesto, but not in the way that Jim Wallis and company calls for.  Remember, it is often not what we say, but how we say it.  We need to be patient and go through the mental gymnastics in order to diffuse explosive topics, no matter how frustrating that may be, treating people as equal and ideas as unequal.

This is a start for this proposed new "Manifesto" that needs to be fleshed out.  So someone needs to get folks like Jim Dobson, Chuck Colson, David Hocking, Ravi Zacherias, Frank Pastore, John MacArthur, Paul McGuire, Chuck Smith, etc... together and hammer this thing out to send a clear message of where Biblically Based Evangelicalism stands.