Christ and Human Rights The Transformative Engagement

Abstract

Human rights are perhaps the most important geopolitical concept of the present era. Jesus Christ is the centre of Christian faith. Can the understanding of Christ make a significant contribution to the theory and practice of human rights? Why has Christianity so often been associated with domination rather than justice? Are fundamental shifts in Christology needed to maximize the contribution of Christianity to human rights issues? Would the cause of human rights be better served by detaching it from all religion and ideology? This book examines in depth the historical tensions between the Christian gospel and rights, and the scope and limitations of the language of rights. It seeks to provide concrete proposals for facing rights issues in contemporary contexts. Christ and Human Rights is a study in theology. It involves issues in ethics, worship, politics and culture. The central strand is the exploration of theological issues. It seems likely that basic theological issues, as well as political and cultural issues, lie at the root of much practice in this field. Negotiating these issues where they continue to divide, respecting difference while maintaining dialogue, remains central to movement on rights issues. This study seeks, in the first instance, neither to condemn nor to defend the churches’ record on human rights issues, but to understand the context in which decisions and actions that may seem incomprehensible today occurred. On that basis, it should then be possible to suggest specific contributions for the present. Nevertheless, whatever progress we can make today, future generations will no doubt conclude that we still had much to learn about human rights in the twenty-first century.1