The Paris Project

I didn't set out to write seven posts on the same subject, but my religious world keeps feeding me material. Exhibit A in this conversation has just appeared, the Evangelical Manifesto, issued May 8, 2008. Twenty pages long, it is a classic piece of evangelical communication. Generated without institutional support or hierarchy, a group of evangelicals came together to speak only as themselves, but to and about the larger group called evangelicals (I’d rather not capitalize it, though the Manifesto calls for it). They define evangelicals for journalists, politicians, culture-watchers, and others. They speak to the current cultural moment, distinguishing Evangelicals from the Religious Right and chastising themselves for harm done. It’s an open call, and people are invited to sign it.I read the whole thing and mostly loved it. It uses evangelical vocabulary and tone, is irenic and self-examining, and makes evangelicalism seem like something I’m proud to be part of. I even appreciated the theological definition of evangelicalism, which I don’t always, there being myriad permutations of such lists.

If evangelicalism is truly a non-institutionalized movement without official leaders, then you might expect it to be nimble and culturally responsive. Why, then, why was the steering committee comprised of nine white men, and the charter signatories comprised of 66 men and 6 women? The steering committee (Timothy George, Os Guiness, John Huffman, Rich Mouw, Jesse Miranda, David Neff, Richard Ohman, Larry Ross, Dallas Willard) represent an essential sector of evangelical leadership, but are epistemologically limited by virtue of their common positionality. That group shares, for the most part, a cluster of identity characteristics: age, race, gender, nationality, language, and theological persuasion. Is that really a model of Christians coming together to speak to a multicultural society? Even if being white and male were extremely important, people like Brian McLaren or Jim Wallis should be considered preeminent shapers of the American evangelical movement.
If the steering committee had included voices from the evangelical movement globally, or women, or U.S. minorities, or Emergent, or the Call to Renewal, the Manifesto could have:
- Instead of setting culture against theology, and arguing for a strictly theological definition of culture, shown how culture and religion exist in relationship of mutual influence
- Shown awareness of and an engaging spirit toward new technology and new forms of discourse produced on-line
- Engaged postmodernism (and modernism, for that matter) with a less fearful tone
- Discussed political and cultural endeavors already underway, instead of only calling for them
- Modeled an evangelical ability to live in a diverse society
- Dealt with gender as more than an earthly issue “transcended” by Jesus (I’d say Jesus helps us toward reconciliation in gender, not transcendence)

The list of charter signatories is 10% female. I can’t even write about this with satire because it grieves me so. I imagine a group of men networking, e-mailing, calling, and then when their group of 9 was assembled, sensing that the group is complete/representative enough to proceed. They assemble a list of charter signatories, people who will represent the breadth of American evangelicalism according to some criteria of ‘breadth.’ And that seemed sufficiently complete. Then they open the document to the evangelical world for signatures and for public consumption. Women are included mostly after the formative work has already been done. It’s important to note who the 6 women are – they are (arguably) successful, influential evangelical women palatable to established leadership: Marguerite Shuster, Kay Arthur, Roberta Hestenes, Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Shirley Mullen, Becky Pippert. It’s important to pay attention to their work, support their efforts, and network women and like-minded men across both public and private spheres of influence.

I signed the Manifesto and I encourage my evangelical readers to do so. The Manifesto contains some wonderful sentences and ideas about evangelicalism, and I hope it influences public perception of our movement. When journalists or writers or other media folks look for evangelicals to interview, read, or learn from, I hope they can look at the list of signatures and see lots of women. Maybe that can even help stir up public dialogue about the place of women in this major American religious movement.