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Robert Traer*

Among Evangelicals, who have often been critical of the World Council of Churches, one also finds support for human rights. This is true despite the warning by Lutheran scholars Foster McCurley and John Reumann that, viewed historically, human rights "are rooted in the assumptions of deism" which, "in its concept of God and its view of human autonomy, was far removed from any notion of God who acts in history or of people in bondage to sin or self, redeemed by Jesus Christ."¹ Thus, the preacher who wants to use lessons from the Bible "to rouse a congregation to greater sensitivity for the oppressed and for justice in a repressive world will have to do some careful exegesis."²

However, McCurley and Reumann acknowledge that human rights are an important ethical concern in the modern world. Furthermore, they affirm that there are ways "to connect this ethical concern with the Scriptures," for there are "a whole series of areas where biblical thought relates to the modern concern for human dignity and rights."³

Two Christian theologians who have rigorously pursued this task are Jacques Ellul and John Warwick Montgomery. Each argues that biblical revelation justifies support for human rights.

The French lawyer and theologian Jacques Ellul was one of the first to attempt such a justification. In 1946 he published a book under the title Le Fondement Théologique de Droit, which in 1960 was republished as The Theological Foundation of Law.

Ellul argues that in the judicial relativism of the modern era "established human rights are in no way protected against arbitrary power," as "the discernment of right and wrong" is simply "given over to an all-powerful state charged with making its own criteria."⁴ Attempts to revive the doctrine of natural law are understandable, but he believes they are doomed to fail, as natural law cannot satisfy "the common thinking of contemporary man and the modern concept of law. . .."⁵ For Ellul, the task is rather "to see clearly the significance of law within, and in relationship to, biblical revelation."⁶

He argues that in the Bible, Jesus Christ is God's justice:

There can be no justice whatsoever, even relative, outside Jesus Christ. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that he who rejects Jesus Christ immediately condemns himself, because justice is no longer possible for him (John 3:18). He can indeed no longer invoke his just works before God, since there is no justice outside of him who is righteousness. Works, whatever they may be, cannot be separated from the person of Jesus Christ. Conversely, he who believes is already justified by his believing, without being judged, for he who judges is also he who justifies (John 3:18 and 5:24). This is another way to show that there can be no study of law outside Jesus Christ; there can't even be human law, however relative, if it is not founded in Jesus Christ.⁷

Ellul asserts that in the Bible there are no natural rights: "'My right is in the Lord' (Isaiah 49:4). Man has no other right but that which is in the Lord and given by the Lord."⁸ Thus, Jesus Christ "alone has rights before God. From him alone men receive rights before God."⁹

Human rights are given to humanity through God's covenants, which recognize human worth and thus include "the idea of human dignity."¹⁰ In these covenants God both establishes law and grants rights: "The notion of human rights depends on man's God-given status as party to a contract. To put it differently, God gives man certain rights, placing him in a juridical situation in order to make his covenant genuine."¹¹ Here human rights "receive their absolutely firm foundation," for:

While Jesus Christ radically abolishes human justice and divests man of all his conquests, his powers and his rights, he is also the foundation of man's new rights. For he, Jesus Christ, acquires these rights for man. In the new covenant Christ is not only the victim in whose blood the covenant is concluded. He is also the one who concludes the covenant with God in behalf of all men. He is the only man with whom God is well pleased. Through him God views all mankind. This is the miracle of substitution wherein Jesus Christ asserts human rights.¹²

As Christ died for all, and not only Christians, all persons can claim these rights. The first of these rights before God is the "privilege of belonging to Christ," for:

Because of Christ man is no longer at the mercy of events in history, nor of juridical despotisms. Because of Christ human rights are now established which no one may dispute, neither God who eternally founded them, nor men who cannot blot out the historic fact of Christ's death and resurrection. This even objectively establishes man's rights in the covenant.¹³

For Ellul, all law, and thus every human right, is grounded in the saving event of Jesus Christ.

The church has the responsibility of watching the legal affairs of a society, to affirm the limits of law, to judge the legal system, and if necessary to rectify the law. For:

Precisely because the Church is commissioned to be a witness of Jesus Christ's love for all men, because its ministry is to suffer with and for men, it is bound to know man's true right. It will not be deceived, inasmuch as to it alone has been revealed the true nature of man, his true situation before God, and his true misery. Consequently, the Church is summoned in the course of human history to speak a discerning word to each concrete situation, "These are the rights of man, here and now. This is what man may demand. This is what he needs to be protected from." This discerning word is part of the Church's proclamation.¹⁴

Moreover, this proclamation cannot be simply stated by some administrative body, for when "it comes to speaking up and taking a stand for human rights, it must be done by the entire Christian community. . .."¹⁵ The church has a duty to educate its members about human rights so that they, as the church, can address the society and the state on behalf of God-given human rights.

John Warwick Montgomery, lawyer and philosopher-theologian, also defends human rights. He acknowledges with John A. Whitehead that "from a biblical perspective, 'rights' as such do not exist."¹⁶ And he agrees with Marc Lienhard of the University of Strasbourg that

The Christian theologian, and particularly the Protestant theologian, will have a number of reservations to make about this vision of things. He will contrast the optimistic conception, which sees man endowed with reason and capable of fulfilling his potentialities and achieving a just social order, with the biblical message of the subjection of man and the reality of sin. He will question an over-individualistic interpretation of the traditional conception of human rights. . .. It will also be pointed out that the Bible contains no irrefutable evidence of the idea that man, by the mere fact of his existence, is entitled to make a number of fundamental demands or claims on other members of society. There are admittedly commandments which tie in with human rights (e.g., Matthew 7:12; Romans 13:7), though rather than rights or demands written into man's nature as such, what is involved is an attitude towards one's neighbor, not of inherent rights but of responsibility and service due to him. The Christian ethic is, on principle, directed towards others because it reposes on love.¹⁷

However, Montgomery finds it impossible to end the discussion here, because since World War II human rights affirmations have been "a battleground in which human dignity is at stake and the enemy is no less than barbarism."¹⁸

Montgomery asserts that the philosophical attempt to define human rights "leads inexorably to the deeper question of justifying the rights one is at pains to define."¹⁹ He agrees with Belgian philosopher Ch. Perelman that legal positivism, the theory that law is whatever the state legislates, is incapable of justifying any standard of human dignity:

This conception of juridical positivism collapses before the abuses of Hitlerism, like any scientific theory irreconcilable with the facts. The universal reaction to the Nazi crimes forced the Allied chiefs of state to institute the Nuremberg trials and to interpret the adage nullum crime sine lege in a nonpositivistic sense because the law violated in the case did not derive from a system of positive law but from the conscience of all civilized men. The conviction that it was impossible to leave these horrible crimes unpunished, although they fell outside a system of positive law, has prevailed over the positivistic conception of the grounding of the law.²⁰

However, if positive law is not adequate for such a standard, Montgomery believes that reassertions of natural law simply flounder on the naturalistic fallacy of deriving what ought to be from what is.²¹ After reviewing the philosophical debate on human rights, he concurs with Alan White's analysis that

None of the answers commonly suggested to the question "what gives one the right to so and so?", that is, none of the grounds suggested for any of the rights which it is maintained we either have or ought to have, shows . . . any strictly logical connection between the right in question and the basis suggested for it. All that it is possible to argue is that the suggested basis gives a non-deductive, evaluative reason for possession of the right, a reason which is, of course, often supported by common sense, our shared moral values, the apparatus of the law, some institutionalized system of regulations or conventions, etc.²²

Montgomery concludes: "A survey of the most challenging philosophies of human rights has left us with no adequate foundation for human dignity."²³

Montgomery argues that if legal rules of evidence are applied, the witnesses of the New Testament to Jesus Christ as the risen Son of God will be found credible. In this way the teachings of Jesus Christ are seen to reveal God's will and to establish a foundation for human rights.²⁴ The epistemological problem is resolved by demonstrated divine revelation. "Once you have met God incarnate you have no choice but to trust Him: as to the way of salvation, as to the reliability of the entire Bible, and as to human rights."²⁵

So, human rights are to be derived from the Bible and, with it, are sanctioned by God through his Son Jesus Christ. Montgomery's list of human rights includes the following procedural due process rights: impartiality of tribunal (Mal. 2:9; 1 Tim. 5:21); fair hearing (Exod. 22:9); prompt trial (Ezra 7:26); confrontation of witnesses (Isa. 43:9); no double jeopardy (Nah. 1:9). Under substantive due process rights he lists nondiscrimination in general (Acts 10:34; Deut. 16:19); Prov. 24:23); equality before the law (Matt. 5:45); racial, sexual and social equality (Gal. 3:28; Amos 9:7; Ex. 21:2); equality of rich and poor (James 2:1-7; Amos 5:12; Isa. 1:16-17); equality of citizens and foreigners (Exod. 12:47; Lev. 23:22, 24:22; Num. 9:14, 15:15-16); even the sovereign is subordinate to the law (2 Sam. 11-12).

Rights encompassing all three generations of human rights include: right to life (Exod. 20:13; Ps. 51:5; Matt. 5:21-22; Luke 1:15, 41; right to family life (1 Tim. 5:8); humane treatment and punishment (Luke 6:45); freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression, assembly, association, movement (John 7:17); social and economic rights in general (1 Cor. 6:19-20); right to universal education (Deut. 6:7, 11:19); right to work, fair remuneration and good working conditions (Luke 10:7; 1 Tim. 5:18; Deut. 23:25-26, 24:6, 10, 12-13, 15); right to protection of honor and reputation (Exod. 20:16); right to leisure time (Exod. 20:8-11); right to asylum (Exod. 21:13; Josh. 20; 1 Chron. 6:67; passages concerning cities of refuge); and right to equitable distribution of land (Num. 33:54; Lev. 25:14-18, 25-34).

Montgomery even suggests quoting Herbert Brichto that notions of environmental rights may be found in Scripture.

The modern concern with preventing the extinction of various species of animal life is in resonance with the biblical prescription not to collect the dam with her chicks but to release her to hatch another generation. Cruelty to animals is proscribed in such prescriptions as not to yoke animals of different strengths (ox and ass) to the plough or not to muzzle the ox which treads the grain. Ecological considerations are exemplified in the prohibition of sowing the vineyard's aisles with a second crop or the destruction of defenseless fruit trees while waging war in enemy territory.²⁶

Thus Montgomery claims that these "biblically supported human rights" provide as much protection for men and women as the rights elaborated through the actions of the United Nations:

Our tabular summary of the Revelational Foundations for Specific Human Rights should leave no doubt that the Bible, though appealed to again and again as the source and justification of first-generation rights, by no means limits itself to the category of civil and political liberties. What today are termed economic, social, education, and solidarity rights are likewise woven into the very fabric of biblical revelation.²⁷

Montgomery even finds the redistribution of wealth, envisioned in UN resolutions proposing a New International Economic Order, to be supported by the biblical perspective, so long as the recipient nations "institute and observe civil and political liberties and use the donated resources to increase distributive justice and aid the poor in their territories" and so long as this redistribution is voluntary.²⁸

In answer to the assertion that the Bible teaches moral ideals, rather than rights, Montgomery quotes Jerome Shestack:

There is a positivist aspect to divine orders since obedience derives from one's duty to God, not from one's inherent nature. Still, the fact remains that once the duties are ordered by God, those duties accrue to the individual's benefit and may be inviolate from denigration by the State, which is an important objective of any human rights system.²⁹

As the teachings of the Scripture may therefore be accurately stated in human rights language, Montgomery embraces Roland de Pury's rendition of the Last Judgment:

We can only welcome the Kingdom in engaging body and soul in the struggle for human rights. Otherwise, how could we be among those to whom the Shepherd, Judge, and Lamb will say on the Last Day, "Come my sheep, for I was hungry, I was cold, I was a prisoner, and you did something about ityou respected my right to be fed, clothed, healed, liberated, treated with dignity."³⁰

Similarly, traditional theological statements can be translated into human rights affirmations. Again Montgomery quotes de Pury: "In Jesus Christ divine and human rights are conjoined and become inseparable. To violate the rights of a creature of God in the name of divine right is thus to serve another god—to commit idolatry."³¹ Or, as René Coste asserts: "The more one believes in the mystery of the Incarnation, the more one's commitment to human rights becomes a matter of motivational urgency."³²

In 1968 General Frederick Coutts wrote of the "Salvation Army commitment in the field of human rights" and claimed that "Salvationists are identified with the high ideals of social justice and acceptance as the unchallenged right of every man as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."³³ However, Lieutenant-Commissioner Francis A. Evans, who represented the Salvation Army at the UN and the World Council of Churches from 1966-68, reminds us that the Salvationist, "with his affirmation of belief in the year of Human Rights, [will] proclaim his still stronger belief in the year of Divine Grace."³⁴

In the Christian Science Sentinel Mary Baker Eddy is reported to have observed that: "Mankind will be God-governed in proportion as God's government becomes apparent, the Golden Rule utilized, and the rights of man and the liberty of conscience held sacred."³⁵ Even a recent publication of the Adventist Church contains an affirmation of human rights.³⁶

In 1984 the Quarterly of the conservative Christian Legal Society published a special issue on human rights including a human rights bibliography, a list of human rights organizations, an article by Samuel Rabinove entitled "Religious Freedom for All: A Jewish Perspective," and an article by H. Victor Conde entitled "The Theological Basis for Human Rights."³⁷ Also in this issue Carl F. H. Henry criticized humanists, who "champion human rights," on the grounds that

humanism as a philosophy provides no metaphysical basis adequate to preserve human rights in distinction from other principles that it reduces to a socio-cultural byproduct of a particular period in history. Universal and permanent human rights are logically inconsistent with the humanist theses that personality is an accident in the universe and that human nature is evolving.³⁸

However, Henry commended "humanists who promote human rights" and extended a hand to them "and others who, even if their alien and contrabiblical philosophies seem to many of us unpromising, nonetheless would share in the defense and promotion of authentic human rights in a bleak age of totalitarian tyranny."³⁹

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) represents over thirty-six thousand churches from seventy-four denominations as well as colleges and other organizations in addressing issues of public policy. In 1983 it helped launch a Peace, Freedom, and Security Studies program to promote "the linkage between peace among the nations and the advancement of international human rights."⁴⁰ The highest priority of the NAE is religious freedom, but it also protests the violation of other civil and political rights, as contrary to biblical teaching. For instance, racial discrimination is condemned on the grounds that Jesus emphasized "the inherent worth and instrinsic value of every man, regardless of race, class, creed, or color. . .."⁴¹

For Carl Henry, the contrast between the biblical view and the modern notion of human rights is decisive:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) presents a panorama of human rights while it says very little about human duties and nothing at all about duties to God. Only Article 29, which limits the exercise of rights by reciprocal rights and a regard for morality, public order and general welfare, refers to human duty, and even here the context is anthropological. Although the stipulated rights are considered the generally acknowledged norms of modern civilization, none is legally enforceable since the Declaration wholly ignores the subject of the ultimate source and sanction of rights and does not even obligate states to enact the stipulated rights.⁴²

Only the revealed truth of the Bible, Henry asserts, can provide a justification for human rights. It is God, as Creator, who gives us rights. Thus, it is important to be clear: "In the Christian view, inalienable rights are creational rights governing the community and individual, rights implicit in the social commandments of the Decalogue."⁴³

For Edward Norman, however, there cannot be a "Christian view" of human rights. Therefore, he strenuously defends Christian faith against its secularization by advocates of human rights. In a chapter entitled "A New Commandment: Human Rights," he argues that Church leaders have identified "the Church with the moral sanctions claimed as the justification for the goals of western liberalism," with the result that "the Churches now see Human Rights as the essence of the Christian message."⁴⁴ For Norman, both liberal Protestants and Roman Catholics are guilty of this reduction of the Gospel to contemporary ideology.

"The Church", according to one of the documents uttered by the Second Vatican Council, "by virtue of the Gospel entrusted to her, proclaims man's rights and acknowledges and esteems the modern movement to promote these rights everywhere." The World Council of Churches, a decade later, in the more precise language that represents the escalation of Human Rights ideology, has declared: "The struggle of Christians for human rights is a fundamental response to Jesus Christ. That Gospel leads us to become ever more active in identifying and rectifying violations of human rights in our societies.⁴⁵

Norman argues that in rhetoric and content, as well as chronology, "the Christian passion for Human Rights exactly corresponds to the development of ideas within the western intelligentsia as a whole."⁴⁶

He suggests that this accommodation by Christians to prevailing social and political values is well advanced not only in Western Europe and North America, but also in Latin America.

In the 1930's and '40's, the Church leadership adopted the ideals of the European corporate state; in the 1950's they were attracted to "developments" social reform; in the 1960's they reflected the radical critique of capitalist society then common within the western intelligentsia; in the 1970's they have moved on to identify Christianity with the ideology of Human Rights.⁴⁷

For Norman, this represents decay rather than progress, and so he argues for separating the absolute concern of the Christian message from the relative concerns of culture. Norman pleads: "The most urgent task of Christianity in our day is to rediscover that sense of historical relativism, before the faith itself is absorbed by a single historical interpretation."⁴⁸

Max Stackhouse sounds a similar note of warning. He argues that in the last century a new "piety . . . centered on the Great god Freedom" has developed in the United States:

It is rooted in the conviction that the most important and ultimate forces of the universe are on the side of those who advocate the reduction of religious influence in all public things. Freedom has become the core of our national creed, as confessed by both major parties; of our national liturgies, such as the recent celebration of Lady Liberty; and of our life-styles, as documented by astute social analysts.⁴⁹

He is not only critical of liberal Protestant denominations, but suggests that liberals, conservatives, and liberationists who contest with each other do so within the general doctrine of this new piety—as "three sects" which affirm "that the end, the goal, the highest standard and noblest vision for humanity, for society, and for civilization, is Freedom."⁵⁰

Stackhouse argues that this "new piety" is in "conflict with the great traditional religions and philosophies of human history," for these "great ecumenical faiths have always held that freedom is not enough."⁵¹

Liberty, true liberty, is not Freedom alone. Moksha and Nibbana, say the Eastern traditions, requires attentiveness to Dharma (dhamma). Freedom begins in submission, says Islam. Freedom finds its fulfillment in obedience, says Judaism. Liberty finds its foundation, its root, its base and its end in higher principles of righteousness, deeper visions of the good and wider principles of love than the Great god Freedom can provide, says Christianity.⁵²

Liberty may be necessary for civilization and religion, but it cannot create or sustain itself.

This critique of the U.S. wing of the human rights tradition is telling. However, the human rights tradition includes equality and fraternity, or solidarity, as well as liberty. Stackhouse sees the problem here somewhat differently. He argues that human rights are "essentially a matter of religious ethics":

each view of human rights entails an ultimate metaphysical-moral vision about what is meaningful, about what relationships or memberships are sacrosanct, and what social ethic should be followed in order to prevent chaos, social alienation, and tyranny from destroying essential humanity. Because human rights claims and movements are religious in this sense, and exist both within and without the major world faiths, it is important for the world's religions to come to terms with human rights.⁵³

Human rights claims involve a "vision of what is sacred, inviolable, and absolute in human affairs."⁵⁴ For this reason, Stackhouse argues, in the current debate about human rights "the Judeo-Christian traditions of the West confront one of the greatest challenges of the modern age."⁵⁵

For Stackhouse, the issue is not whether human rights doctrine is akin to religious doctrine, for clearly it is: "human rights implies, above all, there is a universal moral order under which all peoples and societies live. Here is a doctrine of a very high order."⁵⁶ The question is whether or not this doctrine should become a creed: "A doctrine is a teaching, claim, or assertion; a creed is a doctrine held to be true, embraced with commitment, celebrated in concert with others, and used as a fundamental guide for action."⁵⁷ Stackhouse analyzes human rights doctrines in three different cultural contexts and finds both the Indian and the Marxist contexts wanting. Therefore, he concludes that human rights may be "a proper credo," but only if it is conceived in the Judeo-Christian traditions of the West."⁵⁸

Evangelical Christians, who justify the use of unlawful violence to resist evil, do not defend human rights, except perhaps for themselves. Michael Bray is a born-again Evangelical, who was educated in a Baptist seminary and became a Lutheran pastor. In A Time to Kill, Mark Juergensmeyer observes, Bray argues that:

Christianity gives him the right to defend innocent "unborn children," even by use of force, whether it involves "destroying the facilities that they are regularly killed in, or taking the life of one who is murdering them." By the latter, Bray means killing doctors and other clinical staff involved in performing abortions.⁵⁹

For theological support Bray looks to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and Lutheran pastor who joined a plot to assassinate Hitler, and also to Reinhold Niebuhr, an American theologian who during World War II wrote that Christians were justified in using limited violence to resist evil.

For inspiration, however, Bray turns to Dominion Theology, which is concerned with God's rule over the world. Juergensmeyer notes that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are prominent spokesmen for this position, and also that:

The Christian anti-abortion movement is permeated with ideas from Dominion Theology. Randall Terry, founder of the militant anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue and a writer for the Dominion magazine Crosswinds, signed the magazine's "Manifesto for the Christian Church." The manifesto asserted that America should "function as a Christian nation" and opposed such "social moral evils" of secular society as "abortion on demand, fornication, homosexuality, sexual entertainment, state usurpation of parental rights and God-given liberties, statist-collectivist theft from citizens through devaluation of their money and redistribution of their wealth, and evolutionism taught as a monopoly viewpoint in the public schools."⁶⁰

For additional support Bray also looked to Reconstruction theology, which advocates a Christian theocratic state─an idea traced back through Presbyterian and Princeton theologian Cornelius Van Til to John Calvin. According to Gary North, who is perhaps the most widely read Reconstruction theologian, it is "the moral obligation of Christians to recapture every institution for Jesus Christ."⁶¹ Unlike Bray, however, North does not endorse the use of unlawful violence to bring about God's dominion over the world.

America also hosts the Christian Identity movement, which has influenced terrorist acts such as the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building by Timothy McVeigh. Christian Identity teaching uses biblical texts to justify white racism, and this ideology has stirred a number of violent groups including the Posee Comitatus, the Order, the Aryan Nations, the supporters of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God, the Freeman Compound, and the World Church of the Creator.⁶²

Far away in Northern Ireland, Protestants have defended, used or excused terrorism against Catholics. Whereas Catholic clergy have been ordered by the Catholic Church not to participate in this political struggle, Protestant clergy are outspoken and active. Rev. Ian Paisley, who founded the Free Presbyterian Church, leads worship between the flags of England and Ulster. Like Reconstruction theologians in America, he draws on the writings of Calvinists who have defended the idea of a theocratic state. But for Paisley and his followers, to be Christian such a state has to be Protestant, not Catholic. His church officially does not condone the terrorist violence of the Ulster Volunteer Force, but Protestant terrorists are quick to testify that they are inspired by Rev. Paisley's vitriolic preaching.⁶³

For all these Protestant Christians, contemporary human rights do not reflect God's law, because the rule of God can only be implemented by a government that reads the Bible as Evangelicals do. Moreover, in a time of war, for that is how these Protestants assess our contemporary circumstances, the illegitimate power of secularism (in America) or Catholicism (in Northern Ireland) must be broken before Christian laws can be enforced.

Support for human rights among Evangelical Protestants is not unanimous by any means. The deist roots of the human rights tradition are worrisome to many. Norman is not along is expressing a concern that human rights advocacy is mired in a secularized view of the world. Stackhouse clearly gives support to human rights advocacy only if it is grounded in biblical faith. And Christian terrorists are too caught up in their calling to resist evil to embrace a Christian human rights ethic.

Yet, major theologians within this diverse wing of the Protestant tradition do support human rights on the basis of biblical authority. Jacques Ellul argues that human rights are part of God's covenant and so are central to the witness of the church. John Warwick Montgomery asserts that there are clear biblical warrants for human rights. Carl Henry urges other Evangelicals to work for the protection and realization of human rights law, even if it means cooperating with secular humanists. For them, as for many other Christians, human rights are understood as a gift of God's grace.

For Evangelicals, human hope lies in trusting in the Creator of these rights, who revealed the divine purpose of life through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The foundation for human rights, in the words of John Warwick Montgomery, is nothing less than the revelation of God: "No other foundation can a man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ."⁶⁴

*Revised from a chapter on "Conservative Protestants" in Faith in Human Rights: Support in Religious Traditions for a Global Struggle (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1991).