Last week, a prestigious gathering of evangelical pastors, seminary professors, housewives, book writers, women’s studies professors, and recording artists attached their name to the Nashville Statement. This has had no small amount of controversy, and I even added my own concerns to the fray.
This week, I would like to release what I’m calling the Arsenal Statement. In times like these, Christians need to speak with a single, clear, and prophetic voice which declares God’s truth boldly to the dark culture we find ourselves in. It is a series of 10 articles which represent the totality of the Christian ethic. Its drafters were a special fellowship of three Authors who speak with a unanimity which is unrivaled. It will offend Liberals just as much as the Nashville Statement did.
Article I
You shall have no other gods before me.
Article II
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Article III
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Article IV
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Article V
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Article VI
You shall not murder.
Article VII
You shall not commit adultery.
Article VIII
You shall not steal.
Article IX
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Article X
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”