I'm not always sure quite how useful these attempts at definition and description may be. I was once asked to speak at a big conference on the subject 'what is an Evangelical?', and I refused, and offered instead to speak on the far more interesting and complex subject: 'What tasks is God calling the church to undertake today and tomorrow? What resources are there in the Evangelical traditions which will enable us to carry out those tasks? What resources will we need for those tasks which are NOT normally found in the Evangelical traditions, and which we will need to import from elsewhere?'

However, the present statement (I've only had time to read the short version) is useful in a number of interesting respects. Its statement of faith is broad enough to encompass most who call themselves evangelical -- certainly including myself -- though it doesn't say nearly all I might want to say, and I wouldn't necessarily do it all in that order, but that's a quibble. I do resonate, though, with the suggestion that the definition of 'evangelical' is primarily theological rather than political, social or cultural -- though I note that in many parts of the English-speaking world (not all) evangelicals tend to be upwardly mobile middle-class folk . . . is that just an accident? In fact, though, I suspect that even the authors of the statement would probably operate with a de facto low-church polity and liturgical praxis, i.e. if someone claimed to believe everything in the statement but when you went to their church you found them celebrating a High Mass with all the trimmings, you might be surprised... but there's nothing in this statement to explain why. Is this cultural, too? Or are these theological statements held to entail (silently, as it were) a particular type of churchmanship and worshipping style? If so, why?

(A footnote here. When I was asked, in 1999, to hold the MacDonald Visiting Chair of Evangelical Theology at Harvard Divinity School, I warned the Dean that I might not count as an 'evangelical' in the US, though I was certainly regarded that way in the UK. He said to me, 'Oh, from the perspective of Harvard you're an evangelical all right!' I then discovered that Al MacDonald, the wonderful man who donated the money for the chair -- now a full chair, not a visiting one -- had made it clear that by 'evangelical' he meant 'someone who believes all that stuff -- Jesus, the Bible, the resurrection, etc.' and had expressed the hope that future holders of the chair might include Eastern Orthodox theologians or Roman Catholics...)

As to the political stance. I agree with much that the authors say about the positioning of evangelicalism in the historical line of Woolman, Wilberforce, etc. Wonderful! However, I'm not sure you can get this quite so neatly by the 'sacred/naked/civil' distinction re: public square. Something down these lines needs to be said, but there are several points where I wanted to say 'whoa, not so fast, it's not that easy'. E.g.: to say 'we are opposed to theocracy' is comprehensible in terms of the kind of clergy-led tyranny most people think of when they say 'theocracy'. But surely Christians believe in the kingdom of God? What about Jesus saying 'all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me? Yes, Jesus redefined the kingdom -- that's what all those parables are about. But it is still God's kingdom on earth as in heaven. The redefinition wasn't 'no, not on earth after all, simply in people's hearts at the moment and in heaven hereafter.' That's gnosticism (more or less).

And when they say that 'every right we assert for ourselves as Christians is a right we defend for all others', that's rather a large blank check, isn't it? E.g. the right to follow our own in-house rules on marriage, sex, family . . . do we want to extend that to anyone and everyone, including those who have a serious and traditional adherence to polygamy? If not, how would you know from that principle?

But in general I welcome this as an open-hearted and generous statement. I have deliberately not tried to find out who the authors are before writing this, but I sense that in broad terms at least I and they are probably on the same page, or not too far from it. May the debate continue.