National Association of Evangelicals calls for balanced Christian politics

This is great news! MSNBC.com reports that a new declaration from the National Association of Evangelicals clarifies Christian political stance, and especially distinguishes itself from right-wing conservative and business interests in areas like employment, labor, housing, health care, education, human rights, racial equality, and the environment.

The NAE document, “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility,” was the product of three years of work. It was created by two dozen scholars who bridged the spectrum of conservative to liberal evangelical thought encompassed by the organization’s 45,000 churches, which represent 52 U.S. denominations. It was released in March for general distribution with a book of essays that expanded on its seven main points.
The statement is a diplomatically worded synthesis that reaffirms evangelicals’ traditional opposition to abortion, embryonic stem cell research, pornography and “sexual libertinism.” And it urges evangelicals to remain deeply engaged on those issues.
But “evangelicals have failed to engage with the breadth, depth, and consistency to which we are called,” says the statement. It was signed by nearly 100 of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders, among them James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; David Neff, editor of Christianity Today; Charles Colson, president of the Prison Fellowship ministry; and the Rev. Rick Warren, author of the best-seller “The Purpose-Driven Life.”