Washington, USA - The National Association of Evangelicals, with 30 million members in 45,000 churches, opened a debate on Thursday on a document intended to expand the political platform of evangelicals beyond the fight against abortion and same-sex marriage.
The authors of the paper, "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," said they reached a consensus between liberals and conservatives by adopting public policy goals, but not prescribing strategies to achieve them. At a luncheon held by the association on Thursday on Capitol Hill, however, some evangelical leaders voiced concern that the new platform could dilute the focus of the evangelical movement by taking on too many issues.
The document urges evangelicals to address issues like racial injustice, religious freedom, poverty in the United States and abroad, human rights, environmentalism and advancing peace through nonviolent conflict resolution.
The "Evangelical Call" is an effort to bridge some of the fault lines running through the evangelical world, between Republicans and Democrats, between those who welcome political involvement and those who shun it and between those who say social problems are a result of personal sin and those who say they are a result of systemic inequity.
"Evangelicals have sometimes been accused of having a one- or two-item political agenda," said the Rev. Ronald J. Sider, who helped draft the document and is the president of Evangelicals for Social Action, a group affiliated with the liberal wing. "This document makes it very clear that a vast body of evangelicals today reject a one-issue approach."
At the luncheon, several speakers said the document was necessary because evangelicals risked being seen as merely a Republican voting bloc. Several of those speakers identified themselves as Republicans.
Barbara Williams-Skinner, president of the Skinner Leadership Institute, a Christian training center in Tracy's Landing, Md., criticized evangelicals who decide their votes using abortion and same-sex marriage as a litmus test.
"The litmus test is the Gospel, the whole of it," said Ms. Williams-Skinner, an African-American who told the group that she is a Democrat who opposes abortion.
Ms. Williams-Skinner was the sole speaker to draw a standing ovation.
Diane Knippers, a Republican who helped draft the document, warned Democrats not to try to win over religious voters by trying to mobilize the religious left.
"The religious left is political smoke and mirrors," said Ms. Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
She attended the meeting but had lost her voice. A colleague read her statement.
Critics indicated that the new smorgasbord approach could hit resistance.
Tom Minnery, vice president of Focus on the Family, an influential ministry based in Colorado Springs, stood up at the luncheon and warned the other leaders, "Do not make this about global warming."
"The issues of marriage, the issues of pro-life are the issues that define us to this day," he added.
A. James Reichley, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, warned the National Association of Evangelicals not to travel the same route as mainline Protestant denominations that adopt resolutions at their national meetings on a wide range of questions, from foreign policy to budget cuts.
"We can responsibly disagree" on specific issues, "and that's fine," Mr. Reichley said.
Others, however, said they welcomed the document because it could change the tenor and direction of the evangelical movement.
"There is a consensus here, but some of us haven't had the nerve to do what needs to be done," said John C. Holmes, director of government affairs for the Association of Christian Schools International, which represents Christian teachers and schools.
In a sign of power after an election campaign in which President Bush worked hard to mobilize religious support, the session drew prominent figures from both parties.
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, also spoke to the group and said that as an observant Jew he applauded the platform plank about caring for the environment. He urged support for a bill he has sponsored with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to combat global warming with binding curbs on heat-trapping gases.
Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, praised evangelicals for lobbying on issues like prison rape and human rights abuses in Sudan.
"This is a young movement," he said later in an interview, "and it's just starting to get its sea legs. I think you'll now see it spread out into a whole lot of areas."