This is Christian leadership to me, a willingness to be persecuted by Caesar rather than offer to Him what is God’s.

On the proper ordering of the male-female relationship every other relationship in society depends – no stable national or international institutions can be built if there is chaos in the home. We as Christians need to have a unity of mind on abortion, the family and be in solidarity with same sex attracted Christians like Eve Tushnet and John Heard who are outstanding disciples of Christ working to preserve traditional marriage from those who would change its fundamental meaning.

Lets not politicise what are just bedrock Christian beliefs that are under assault. We shouldn’t project politics onto this, it is simply an affirmation of natural law and its centrality in preserving a peaceful civil society.

Monogamous marriage was afterall a response to the violence that occurred with the alternatives. We have duties to the children and those that come after to risk following Jesus to Jerusalem and confronting the religio-political powers.

Denunciation of this document looks from my perspective here in Australia to be very convenient given what standing for these Christian principles might mean in terms of martyrdom. I think Halden … well I don’t think much of what you wrote.

Martin Snigg 36 Domincan Postulant.

I resonated virtually completely with this post. And it isn’t “wildly over done” — I think many of us who refuse to leave the Evangelical fold due to our theological journeys and spiritual familial ties to it, yet agonize over the direction much of Evangelicalism seems to have gone in the past 20 years, would probably react even more strongly than you did. I was going to avoid commenting altogether on this when a friend first posted the link to the so-called ‘declaration’ on my facebook page. But after reading just a few of the comments you’ve gotten, I felt I had to say something.

It isn’t that the debate itself is shallow. It isn’t. There is a real tension there between being political activists motivated by our gospel concerns and being political bullies attempting to institute some sort of semi-theocratic government — one based on *ONE* alleged biblical interpretation of reality.

This is a dance. None of us will get it right. But we all have to try, and we all have to think outside our comfort zones. I say that as somewhat of a political liberal yet theological conservative. Suffering and growth are, after all, closely related.

http://www.shepherdsfellowship.org/pulpit/Posts.aspx?ID=4444

And to add: if the theological angle is taken, I’d be happy to hear what difference, concretely/politically, the theology makes, ie how it differs from Limbaugh, etc.

After all many of these heavy dudes can also be found on various right-wing publications (both paper and electronic) which also feature the voices of Russ Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter.

Do any of the people who have made comments on this post by Halden like what Limbaugh & Co represent AND invoke?

From my perspective I found Halden’s assessment of the historical and cultural contexts of this manifesto to be very good.

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3638

http://www.shepherdsfellowship.org/pulpit/Posts.aspx?ID=4444