On February 10, 1975, a group of 18 Christian thinkers of nine denominations, after a weekend at the Hartford Seminary Foundation in Connecticut, joined in a dramatic warning that American theology had strayed dangerously far afield.

Their "Appeal for Theological Affirmation" condemned 13 pervasive ideas, all of which undermine "transcendence," the essential truth that God and his kingdom have a real, autonomous existence apart from the thoughts and efforts of mankind.

Among the signers who were able to agree on the protest with surprising alacrity were Jesuit theologian Avery Dulles, Eastern Orthodox Seminary dean Alexander Schmemann, Lutheran theologians George Forell and George Lindbeck, Yale Chaplain William Sloan Coffin Jr., a Presbyterian, and Evangelical theologian Lewis Smedes of Fuller Theological Seminary. . . .