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During the Republican primary, the term Evangelical continued to be abused by the press as nothing more than a conservative faction of the Party. Robert Novak even went so far as to say that Evangelicals were an inherent danger to the Party. Many of us tried to defend and define the term in proper context. Others, as in this link provided by LST member Shannon, explored the changes through the years. In the end, the pack mentality of the press ruled the day and Evangelicals continue to be portrayed as anti-intellectual stooges easily duped by the Republican Party. 

Recently, a group of Evangelicals put forth the Evangelical Manifesto, an attempt to define what an Evangelical is and is not. Perhaps more importantly, what the mission of Evangelicals should be and how this mission should be accomplished. Indicative of the times we live in, they’ve even included an Executive Summary and a Study Guide.

Setting the theology portion aside for the time being, I enjoyed several of the thoughts on freedom of religion.

Let it be known unequivocally that we are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths, including the right to convert to or from the Christian faith. We are firmly opposed to the imposition of theocracy on our pluralistic society.

That is diametrically opposite from the way the press portrayed what they called Evangelicals. Does that sound inherently dangerous to society? I think not.

The manifesto discusses both sides of religion in public life, terming those that would force religion upon us as favoring a sacred public square and those that would strip any and all references to religion as favoring a naked public square, to which their response is:

Our commitment is to a civil public square — a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths too. Thus every right we assert for ourselves is at once a right we defend for others. A right for a Christian is a right for a Jew, and a right for a secularist, and a right for a Mormon, and right for a Muslim, and a right for a Scientologist, and right for all the believers in all the faiths across this wide land.

One of the key insights that I found was in the area of globalization as related to the public square.

the emergence of a global public square finds no matching vision of how we are to live freely, justly, and peacefully with our deepest differences on the global stage.

As this global public square emerges, we see two equal and opposite errors to avoid: coercive secularism on one side, once typified by communism and now by the softer but strict French-style secularism; and religious extremism on the other side, typified by Islamist violence.

We also warn of the danger of a two-tier global public square, one in which the top tier is for cosmopolitan secular liberals and the second tier is for local religious believers. Such an arrangement would be patronizing as well as a severe restriction of religious liberty and justice, and unworthy of genuine liberalism.

But globalization isn’t the greatest threat to our society and freedom. No, that comes from within.

Third, we are concerned that a generation of culture warring, reinforced by understandable reactions to religious extremism around the world, has created a powerful backlash against all religion in public life among many educated people. If this hardens into something like the European animosity toward religion in public life, the result would be disastrous for the American republic and would severely constrict liberty for people of all faiths. The striking intolerance shown by the new atheists is a warning sign.

We call on all citizens of goodwill and believers of all faiths and none to join us in working for a civil public square and the restoration of a tough-minded civility that is in the interests of all.

Can we achieve a civil public square? Sure. Will we? That remains to be seen.