The first section of this manifesto, titled "Our Identity," states that evangelicals regard the Bible as "God's Word written, fully trustworthy as our final guide to faith and practice." If the Bible is indeed "God's Word written"--as opposed to a human interpretation of divine will that may be interpreted metaphorically rather than literally--then it should be impossible (at least for the evangelicals who signed on to this manifesto) to accept evolution while practicing their faith. I fully expect that other evangelicals will come forward to dispute the definition of the Bible as the written word of God, but the manifesto says what it says.(It may be that the use of the word "written"--without specifying by whom--leaves some wiggle room for non-literalist evangelicals.)

The larger purpose of this document seems to be the establishment of a broader definition of evangelicalism in public life--an attempt to position evangelicals as fighters for social justice as well as opponents of abortion, gay rights, and other practices that (if you take the Bible literally) are forbidden by the "word of God written."

Noting that evangelicals played a prominent role in such causes as abolitionism, this manifesto pointedly omits the name of one evangelical, William Lloyd Garrison, who was not only a man of faith and an abolitionist but who became an outspoken opponent of any literal interpretation of the Bible. In his journal "The Liberator," Garrison wrote that the Bible, like everything else, must be judged "by its reasonableness and utility, by the probabilities of the case, by historical confirmation, by human experience and observation, by the facts of science, by the intuition of the spirit." Garrison pointed out that the Bible had been used to justify slavery as well as to condemn it (take your pick of the verses you consider God's word) and famously wrote, "Truth is older than any parchment." Apparently the authors of "An Evangelical Manifesto" don't count Garrison as one of their own, or they would surely have mentioned him. Perhaps they believe that parchment--at least the parchment that includes what are called the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (whoever actually wrote them)--is older than any truth.

Predictably, this document calls for more rather than less religion in the public square. "We are committed to a civil public square," the authors state, "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 as well."

The document also warns against "coercive secularism." That's strange. Around the world today, most of the societies that trample women's rights and religious liberty itself are Islamist theocracies--countries that practice coercive religion, not coercive secularism. The only large, officially secularist society that severely restricts religious liberty is China, and I suspect that China's attitude toward Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism (as well as evangelizing western religions) owes much more to nationalism and imperialism than to secularism. Not that this in any way excuses the suppression of freedom of conscience in China, but the operative word is "coercive"--not secularism.

Finally, the authors warn against "the danger of a two-tiered global public square." This so-called two-tiered square represents "a model of public life which reserves the top tier for cosmopolitan secular liberals, and the lower tier for local religious believers." What in the world are these evangelicals talking about? Can they be talking about the U.S. Supreme Court, which now has five Roman Catholic members--four of them identified with both religious and political conservatism? You can't get much closer to the "top tier" in the United States than the Supreme Court. Or perhaps they are talking about Russia, where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has pushed an alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church (to the detriment, by the way, of Protestant evangelicals). You can't get closer to the top tier in Russia than the intersection of the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. I suppose the evangelical manifesto-writers are really talking about "secular Europe," where an atheist (or someone unafilliated with a church) can actually hope to be elected president or prime minister. Horrors! Certainly there is no danger of an atheist (or anyone who doesn't belong to some church) being elected to the nation's highest office here. I suspect that what these evangelicals really dislike about secular Europe is that its secularism is in no way coerced but is the voluntary expression of a more skeptical attitude toward religion than the one held by most Americans.

By the way, the use of the word "cosmopolitan," in discussions of political and cultural life, has an odious anti-Semitic pedigree, and the authors of this manifesto should have known that. Throughout the Stalin era in the Soviet Union, "cosmopolitan" or "rootless cosmopolitan" was a code word for Jew. I feel certain that a parochial ignorance of this history, not anti-Semitism, was responsible for the implicit sneer attached to the term "cosmopolitan" in the manifesto, but it is nevertheless jarring for anyone who does know the history to see this word used by American Christians.

There is a two-tier public square in the United States, all right, and only religious believers (or those who pretend to be religious believers) are admitted to the top tier. This manifesto offers yet another example of religious believers, who are already privileged in American public life, pretending that they are really a threatened group.