On November 20, 2009, a document called the Manhattan Declaration, which essentially affirms the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty, was presented to the public. At the time of this writing, over 275,000 people professing faith in Christ have affixed their signatures to the document.
However, significant debate has erupted over the fact that the Manhattan Declaration has garnered the signatures of a number of leaders from Evangelical, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Voices of protest have been raised as to the propriety of identifying these varying traditions all together as "Christians" in the same document.
Evangelical leader R.C. Sproul, who elected not to sign the Manhattan Declaration, sums up the controversy by his response (posted 12/8/09) on his blog, "The Manhattan Declaration confuses common grace and special grace by combining them. While I would march with the bishop of Rome and an Orthodox prelate to resist the slaughter of innocents in the womb, I could never ground that co-belligerency on the assumption that we share a common faith and a unified understanding of the gospel."
The Manhattan Declaration does call "Christians" to unite in "the Gospel," "the Gospel of costly grace," and "the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness." Furthermore, Jews, Muslims, Mormons and other non-Christians are not invited to sign the document even though they generally hold to the same positions about abortion, marriage, and freedom of religion. One interesting validation of the grounds for this controversy came from the following Google search: "Franklin Graham Manhattan Declaration." Among the hits returned was a pro-gay website commenting on Graham's absence as a signatory. The author, Timothy Kincaid, who professes to be a Christian and takes offense at the Manhattan Declaration's bias against gay Episcopal bishops, commented: "…this manifesto has less to do with social goals and more to do with Christian definition."
Other Evangelical leaders declining to support the Manhattan Declaration cite what they believe to be the logical implications of the ecumenical tone of the document. R.C. Sproul is joined in his view by notable leaders like John Piper and John MacArthur who sees the Manhattan Declaration as an implicitly theological statement… a flanking maneuver that attempts to redefine Christianity without addressing long-standing issues that have been around since the 1500s—the time of the Protestant Reformation.
