VirtueOnline: Evangelicals, liberals seek dialogue on 'culture war' issues

A recent meeting of liberals and conservative evangelicals came together for a project called "Come Let Us Reason Together". The name comes from a passage in Isaiah where the next line is "though your sins are like scarlet they shall be made white as snow." The group is attempting to dialog and find areas of agreement of contentious cultural issues. Here's a long quote regarding their areas of agreement: The five contentious issues the paper focuses on are the role of religion in public life, gay rights, abortion, research using human embryos, and strengthening families. -- On religion in public life, the paper's authors said liberals and conservatives can agree that there is a proper way for politicians and other public leaders to express their faith -- a way respects both of the First Amendment's principles of protecting individuals' religious freedom and preventing government from endorsing a religion. -- On gay rights, the statement said both sides can agree to affirm "the human dignity of gay and lesbian people," while at the same time asserting that no gay-rights legislation should infringe on the freedom of religious leaders or groups to espouse or express their beliefs about human sexuality. -- On abortion, both sides agree to work together to reduce the numbers of abortion in real terms, by preventing unwanted pregnancies and providing support to pregnant mothers who might otherwise choose abortion. -- On embryonic research, both sides can support legislation to ban the commoditization of human embryos as well as banning reproductive human cloning, while agreeing to disagree on the ethics of whether embryos are actual human beings. -- Finally, both groups agree that they have common ground in protecting children from pornography and sexual predators as well as strengthening families by supporting fatherhood initiatives. The last one about fatherhood really struck me. I was in Danville, VA the other day for a meeting with some clergy and a professional counselor. The counselor mentioned some painful stats about Danville. In regards to a particular high school in the area: 80% of the students are being raised by someone other than their biological parent. That's staggering. I was encouraged in by reading that short list, particularly about their agreement to reduce the numbers of abortions in real terms. That's really positive. I saw in the article that Tony Campolo was a part of this group. Which side was he a part of Liberals or Evangelicals? Those terms just aren't as useful as they perhaps once were.