While nothing in the Manhattan Declaration is truly new, arguments about its call for civil disobedience will help draw sharper lines between traditional believers and the powers that be in an increasingly diverse and secular America, said H. Tristram Engelhardt, senior editor of the Christian Bioethics journal at Oxford University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis document is the product of a political coalition, but it\u2019s not political in the same sense that the tax code is political,\u201d said Engelhardt, who is advising several Eastern Orthodox leaders who are studying the text. \u201cThis is political in the sense that these Christians are working together on certain issues that have moral and public implications.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reality is that its authors believe there are \u201ccertain God-ordained truths\u201d that continue to have authority and weight in American life, he said. The big question: Are they right or wrong?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could make a case,\u201d concluded Engelhardt, \u201cthat anyone who recites the Nicene Creed, or anyone who believes that God has established any requirements for how we are supposed to live our lives can now be called a fundamentalist in the context of this secular culture … That is what this debate is actually about.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n