Another great strength of the document is its profound analysis of the cultural crisis and its challenge to Christians and the integrity of Christian faith. The Manifesto is prophetic in indicting Evangelicalism for its many sins, including:

"All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus, but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques, worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism, concern for the church and for the local congregation with expressions of the faith that are churchless and little better than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. In the process we have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk, each of which is indistinguishable from the passing fashions of the surrounding world."

This is a statement worthy of the most serious reflection -- as is this paragraph:

"All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others, such as the killing of the unborn, as well as the heresies and apostasies of theological liberals whose views have developed into 'another gospel,' while we have condoned our own sins, turned a blind eye to our own vices, and lived captive to forces such as materialism and consumerism in ways that contradict our faith."

Again, this is a powerful statement. But what follows is a bit troubling. Just a few paragraphs later, the Manifesto reads:

"All too often we have disobeyed the great command to love the Lord our God with our hearts, souls, strength, and minds, and have fallen into an unbecoming anti-intellectualism that is a dire cultural handicap as well as a sin. In particular, some among us have betrayed the strong Christian tradition of a high view of science, epitomized in the very matrix of ideas that gave birth to modern science, and made themselves vulnerable to caricatures of the false hostility between science and faith. By doing so, we have unwittingly given comfort to the unbridled scientism and naturalism that are so rampant in our culture today."

Who are these believers who represent "caricatures of the false hostility between science and faith?" The context would seem to implicate those who believe in a young earth cosmology. This represents millions of evangelicals -- perhaps by many surveys the vast majority. Are they (we) to be written out of evangelicalism? If this paragraph does not refer to young earth creationists, to whom could it possibly refer? [Wheaton professor Alan Jacobs comes to the same conclusion in his analysis, published in The Wall Street Journal.]

This is one of the chief problems with the document. When it lets loose a salvo of criticism, it is never clear who the intended target really is. Reporters present at the press conference expressed some degree of exasperation at this point. When asked for specifics about who they were criticizing, the organizing committee refused to say.