Preamble to the Manhattan Declaration

Good morning Christians, is all well with your soul?  A group of Christian men and women who have one thing in common, Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior have signed their names to a document called the Manhattan Declaration.  I hope on this day of giving thanks that you will take the few minutes required to read this Preamble, it is a history of where we came from as Christian.

Bob Rice

Preamble 

Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our 

societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and 

suffering.   

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and 

communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by 

rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the 

Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide.  We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed 

their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who 

died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.  

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but 

also the literature and art of Western culture.  It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: 

Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first 

excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by 

John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country.  Christians 

under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the 

imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines. 

In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish 

the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible.  

And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement.  The great 

civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and 

asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or 

class.  

This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the 

dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to 

AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing 

clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned 

by war, disease and gender discrimination. 

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the 

Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the 

common good.  In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service 

to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.