Interview with Timothy George

Family North Carolina Magazine
Winter 2010

On Air With . . .
Dr. Timothy George has been the dean of Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School since its inception in 1988. He teaches church history and doctrine, serves as executive editor for Christianity Today, and sits on the editorial advisory boards of The Harvard Theological Review, Christian History and Books & Culture. Dr. George has also served on the board of directors of Lifeway Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. A regular contributor to scholarly journals, he has written more than 20 books. He is active in evangelical-Roman Catholic Church dialogue and is an ordained minister.

The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Dr. Timothy George conducted by Bill Brooks, president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council (NCFPC). An edited version of this interview aired in December 2009 on the Council’s weekly radio program, “Family Policy Matters.” Dr. George discussed “The Manhattan Declaration,” a landmark statement that—upon its release in November 2009—was signed by over 150 prominent Catholic, Orthodox, and evangelical Christian leaders, and addresses three foundational Biblical principles: the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty. To date, the number of signatories to the Manhattan Declaration has reached over 200,000 and continues to grow. Dr. George discussed the groundbreaking declaration, which he drafted, along with Chuck Colson and Dr. Robert George of Princeton University.

The interview can be heard at http://ncfamily.org/radioshow.html.

You can downloaded the complete interview here: Listen (.mp3) — (.wma)

Bill Brooks: First, what is the history behind this statement? How did it come about, and why did you choose to call it the Manhattan Declaration?

Timothy George: The issues we talked about here in this declaration have been longstanding issues in the Christian community; they are not new. What is new is that for the first time evangelical, Protestant, [Catholic] and Orthodox believers all across the spectrum have come together to make a united witness on behalf of these deeply held religious principles. This started about a year ago, as a number of people in prayer and study and reflection began to think, this is really the time for Christians to stand up, to speak out, and to be united in how we approach these fundamental issues of our faith. Then, in September of this year, there was a meeting in New York City, in Manhattan, where we unveiled this document in its early stages, and received input from a wide variety of voices. And that’s why it’s called the Manhattan Declaration because that first meeting was held in September in Manhattan.

BB: The declaration has been described as a clarion call for Christians. But it is much more than that. What is the purpose of this declaration and who, specifically, is it addressed to?

TG: Well, I think the first thing to say is what it’s not. This is not a statement of partisan political initiative. I’m an independent, myself; I don’t have any loyalty to any political party. There are Republicans who signed this document and Democrats who signed this document. We are coming together out of our convictions as believers in Jesus Christ, Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelicals, and so we are addressing this in the first place, to our own communities of faith. Now, we make clear we are not speaking for them, but we are speaking from them, and we’re speaking to them. And we think if followers of Jesus Christ, would come together and take a principled moral stand on these issues, it could make a difference in our culture and in our society. So it is addressed more widely to the world in which we live, the social and political world in which we live. But it comes from the religious community, based on our own inviolable principles. That’s what I’m going to say about it. So, we are hoping and praying that as this document gathers support all across the country, that it will be heard and listened to, and that this will make a difference, in the deliberations of our Congress and state legislatures, and in the courts of our land…

BB: Dr. George, as we’ve mentioned, the Manhattan Declaration addresses three foundational Biblical principles—the sanctity of life, marriage and religious freedom. Why were these three principles chosen?

TG: I call them threshold issues. They are certainly not the only issues Christians are to be concerned about, and sometimes Christians are accused of being single issue, this or that. This is not a triple issue replacement of that. But these are threshold issues, life—the sanctity of life—that every person in the world is made by a Creator, and endowed, as the Declaration of Independence says, with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, that’s the very first one listed in that document, and we think this comes, not just from the Declaration of Independence, as wonderful as that document is, but from the charter document of the Christian Faith—from the Bible itself. That describes God, our heavenly Father, as our Creator. The second issue is the dignity of marriage, one man and one woman united in a covenantal bond. This is an institution that predates the state, that predates even the institution of the Church, and it also is a divinely given institution, and we think that every foundation of our society is based upon the family and upon the holiness and dignity of marriage. And then the third issue has to do with religious liberty—with the freedom that we are endowed by our Creator, to know Him and to love Him and to serve Him. And if these three threshold issues are violated, if they are assaulted as they seem to us to be increasingly under assault in our country today, then all the other things we ought to be concerned about—concern for the poor, peacemaking, the whole list of issues that require Christian moral concern—are going to be by the wayside.

BB: Well, thanks for that clear introduction to this topic. Let’s talk about these principles one by one. First, the declaration addresses the sanctity of human life. What specific principles about the sanctity of human life does it communicate, and what pledge is made regarding its defense?

TG: Well, the sanctity of life is, as I said, one of the fundamental principles of not only Christianity, but really of all of human society. We pledge ourselves as believers in Jesus Christ to defend the most vulnerable members of our society, and there is an atrocious avalanche of assault against the dignity of life, not only of the continuing slaughter of unborn babies through abortion in this country, but in so many other areas related to the end of life, concerns for the aged and the disabled, and euthanasia in all its various forms. We think it is important for Christians to come together, and we articulate those principles, and say, “Here we stand, we can do no other, and God help us to be faithful.”

BB: Marriage is the second foundational principle addressed in the declaration. What does the declaration state regarding the design and purpose of marriage, and what pledge is made?

TG: Well, we quote a verse from the book of Genesis, where we are told in the Bible that God’s intention in marriage is that one man and one woman be united together, that they become one flesh, and this is such an important principle in the Scriptures that when we get to the New Testament, we read how Paul describes the relationship of Christ and the church, he uses the analogy of marriage. The church is the bride of Christ, and we are to have that kind of relationship, so sacred and holy is that relationship, and so in the Christian tradition we’ve talked traditionally about holy matrimony, signifying that this is really something that comes from our heavenly Father. Now, I want to say now very clearly this is not an anti-homosexual document. We respect every person made in the image of God, and we believe that every individual has the freedom and liberty to live their life under God’s direction and His guidance and His wisdom. This is not an anti-document; it is a pro-document. We are pro-marriage, we are pro-family and we are pro-life, because it is in the context of marriage that new human life is born and nurtured in our community, and we think that many of the problems we face in society today—juvenile delinquency, the tremendous rate of prison incarceration of younger people—many of these societal issues are directly related to the erosion of a marriage culture. And we want to see that rejuvenated. We want to see it bloom again in the best possible way.

BB: Finally, the declaration addresses religious liberty. And I love the language used to describe it, that “religious liberty is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.” Give us some examples of what you mean by this statement.

TG: Yeah, that’s a very important statement in grounding religious liberty not just in the political developments that led to the founding of our country. Now, we celebrate those every Fourth of July and we ought to. But what those founding documents recognize is something much more basic than simply the political arrangement that ended up in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, specifically the First Amendment to the Constitution. But what we are talking about with the Character of God, this is the kind of God the God of the Bible is— a God who chooses to relate to us not by coercion but by persuasion, and so He does not impose but He proposes. In the New Testament, there is a wonderful verse in Revelation 3:20 where Jesus says “Behold I stand at the Door and knock, if anyone will hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in.” And this is the posture of God, we see it in the example of Christ, you know, He had power to call Angels from Heaven to deliver Him from his tormentors, but He chose to stand and to suffer and die on behalf of those in the world who needed His love and His grace, rather than use violence and force. And so we are really calling here on the example of Christ, who allowed that kind of freedom in the response made to Him. We think this extends certainly beyond the question of religion, into every other area of our life. Religious liberty is the foundation really for what we call freedom of association and freedom of speech and freedom of press, and all these other things are basically related in that third element, in the definition of what you quoted, the nature and dignity of what it means to be a human being created in the divine image. If we take that away, then we really are one step away to tyranny, to totalitarianism. Now, we don’t say that that’s the condition we have right now, but we are concerned about certain trends we see in our society that could lead us to that situation.

BB: The Manhattan Declaration ends by directly addressing civil authorities with a very strong pledge, including that Christians will not comply with any law or rule that violates these three principles. Tell us about that, and its importance to the overall declaration.

TG: Well, in some of the press reports about the Manhattan Declaration, it’s been declared that these religious leaders are calling for civil disobedience. That’s not accurate. We are not calling for civil disobedience. We hope and we pray that in this country, civil disobedience does not become necessary. But we are saying that there are certain principles that we hold inviolate, and these relate to life, liberty…, marriage and family, and on these issues we cannot and we will not render unto Caesar the things that belong to God. We will give Caesar everything that belongs to him, this is what Jesus told us to do, but under no circumstances will we render to Caesar that which belongs to God. And this may require Christians to take a very difficult stand to refuse certain rights and benefits that this society provides, such as tax exemptions, that’s already under assault today, in various proposed legislation before Congress. And it could come to that. In Canada, for example, already you have ministers of the Gospel, churches, even Rabbis, who are forbidden to speak out in their own houses of worship because they are defending a religious view of sexuality. And that’s not just a matter of free speech; it’s also a matter of religious liberty. We are not quite there yet, and we pray we never will be in America, but there are certain principles that we cannot violate, and so in that sense it is a line in the sand, if you want to call it that. We want to say with the Apostles of the early church, we would rather obey God than men.