My goodness, what a bomb that turned out to be: An "evangelical manifesto" put out by a cadre of religious leaders that got burned by criticism within a few hours of its release.

First, read up on the manifesto here. Then read some of the early reactions I got here.

I can understand the wishes of the drafters to put forth a kinder, gentler evangelicalism. "We are not theocrats," one of the drafters said at the press conference. But a lot of what was in the document was not at all new and it was clear they were taking slaps at the politically involved evangelicals who, by the way, were not allowed to sign on. Naturally those were the folks who threw a few barbed quotes back at the drafters.

Also the paucity of black and female signers on this document was pretty obvious. There are many evangelical female scholars in the D.C. area who could have signed on and shown up at the press conference. Why weren't any of them sought out? Organizers cited a lack of time but the word on the street is they spent plenty of time trying to balance out the document with certain signees from the right and the left. Surely they could have found some local women and black leaders.

Although one speaker assured us that, "Being born again is at the heart of evangelical religion," I didn't see the term much in the document. The drafters seemed to shy away from what they considered to be a loaded term. One said evangelicalism is a "renewal movement" and that evangelicals have "an intense personal commitment to Jesus." Well, a lot of Christians can claim that one. It might have been clearer to go the Billy Graham route and stress that evangelicals believe in an adult commitment to Christ, preferably at a specific time and date. That does draw the line.

Although Wednesday's press conference was staged by a Texas PR firm, the presentation turned out to be somewhat of a disaster. I mean, one of their pleas was to capitalize the word, as in "Evangelical" when referring to them, just as one would capitalize a denomination, such Catholic or Methodist. "Oh please," I thought. Is this what it's come down to?

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times