Table Of ContentChristianity and
Human Rights
Christianity and
Human Rights
Christians and the Struggle
for Global Justice
Edited by
Frederick M. Shepherd
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Christianity and human rights : Christians and the struggle for global justice / edited by
Frederick M. Shepherd.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7391-2472-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-4009-3 (electronic)
1. Human rights—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Shepherd, Frederick M., 1963–
BT738.15.C4753 2009
261.7—dc22 2009015270
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: The Political and Theological Evolution of
Christianity and Human Rights ix
Frederick M. Shepherd
PARTI PASTSINS, FUTURE PROMISE: OVERVIEWS OF
CHRISTIANITYAND HUMAN RIGHTS
1 Deliver Us from Evil: Genocide and the Christian World 3
James E. Waller
2 ADickensian Era of Religious Rights 21
John Witte,Jr.
PARTII RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND HUMAN RIGHTS
3 Religious Freedom: AChallenge for the Church 47
Johannes A. van der Ven
4 The Enduring Alliance of Religious Freedom and Democracy 65
Joseph Loconte
5 Religious Freedom and International Law 77
Robert F. Drinan
6 Democracy and Human Dignity 87
Jean Bethke Elshtain
v
vi Contents
PARTIII THEOLOGICALAND PHILOSOPHICAL
FOUNDATIONS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
7 Universal Rights or Personal Relations? 99
Patrick H. Byrne
8 Human Rights, the Common Good, and Our
Supernatural Destiny 119
Dana L. Dillon
9 Bozˇena Komárková: Toward an Existential Christian
Philosophy of Human Rights 133
Joyce J. Michael
10 Catholic Social Teaching, Economic Rights, and Globalization 149
John Sniegocki
11 Rights, Capabilities, and Human Flourishing 163
Jonathan Warner
PARTIV CASE STUDIES
12 The Rights of the Poor: Christian Theology and Human Rights
Practices in Latin America’s Andean Region 179
Thomas Bamat
13 Christianity and Human Rights in Vietnam: The Case of
the Ethnic Minorities, 1975–2007 195
James F. Lewis
14 From Human Rights to Human Wrongs: The Dramatic
Turn-About of the South African Pentecostal Movement 213
Nico Horn
Concluding Remarks on Christianity and Human Rights 229
Frederick M. Shepherd
Bibliography 243
Index 257
About the Editor and Contributors 265
Acknowledgments
Putting together an edited volume is as much about enlisting the help of
others as it is about writing. All of the contributors to this volume were un-
failingly helpful and collegial. I would especially like to thank Jim Waller
and John Witte, giants in their respective fields who have gone out of their
way to help in making sure this volume would get published. Joe Loconte
and Patrick Byrne also offered advice at key moments. I would like to
thank Joseph Parry at Lexington for being a model collaborator. Two Sam-
ford students, Mary Ladd and Alex Sconfienza, provided yeoman-like and
absolutely indispensable help in editing the manuscript. I am extremely
grateful to them. I would also like to single out my departmental manager
Susan Murphy for all of her assistance with this volume and goodwill over
the years.
This volume originated in the 2004 Lilly National Research Conference on
Christianity and Human Rights, hosted by Samford University. I would like
to thank the Samford administration, especially Provost Brad Creed and Dean
David Chapman, for its support. Some of my strongest words of appreciation
go to conference codirector Chris Metress, a good friend and valued col-
league. Lilly Foundation funding and support made the conference possible.
I, as a teacher and scholar, have benefited on numerous occasions from Lilly
support, and I thank the Foundation for all they have done for me and for
Samford.
On a more personal level, I would like to thank my wife, Lorrin, and my
three children, Nick, Andy, and Maddie, for their support as I assembled this
volume. Their patience and goodwill are a continued inspiration to me! Fi-
nally, Father Robert Drinan passed away as this volume was being crafted.
vii
viii Acknowledgments
This book focuses on the ways in which Christianity has both lived up to and
fallen short of its ideals. It is dedicated to Father Drinan, a man who lived up
to these ideals, and who was an inspiration to those who fought for human
rights.
Introduction
The Political and Theological
Evolution of Christianity
and Human Rights
Frederick M. Shepherd
For many centuries, Christian scholars crafted seminal ideas about human be-
ings and their inherent rights as members of the human community. More re-
cently, Christian scholars and activists have played a central, and underap-
preciated, role in the burgeoning movement for human rights. They have
helped to push human rights from out of the margins of both theology and in-
ternational politics. The concept of human rights precedes the rise of Chris-
tianity and has a diverse intellectual heritage that reaches well beyond Chris-
tianity. Yet Christians have had a tremendous impact on both the theory and
practice of human rights. The essays in this volume will explore this process,
assessing the activism and innovations of those inspired by a Christian con-
ception of human rights. Such analysis will also demonstrate that the story is
not one of inevitable progress; indeed, consistent and widespread failure to
preserve human rights—taking the form of both acts of omission and bloody
acts of commission1—is an undeniable part of the Christian human rights
record. This volume will assess the topic in all its complexity, pointing to both
Christian failure and Christian success in understanding and protecting hu-
man rights.2
I would like to begin my introduction to this volume with two moments
from the Holocaust, the single greatest failure of the global and Christian
communities. Subsequent parts of this introductory chapter will provide de-
tails from earlier human rights campaigns in which Christians played central
roles. And much of the body of the book, including my concluding chapter,
will come to terms with crucial events occurring in the immediate wake of
World War II. Critics note, correctly, that most Christian institutions either did
little to counter aggressive and genocidal German nationalism—most notably
the Catholic Church—or actively took part in the genocide—most notably the
ix
x Frederick M. Shepherd
Protestant groups which took an explicitly and rabidly pro-Nazi stance. These
moments came at a turning point of sorts for Christianity and human rights,
and they bring out in stark relief the complexities, the simultaneous perils and
promise, of Christian engagement on the issue of human rights.
The first moment is a brief encounter between the courageous Polish fig-
ure Jan Karski and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Karski, a
Catholic diplomat, was in the United States in 1943 after having amassed
overwhelming evidence concerning the early stages of the Nazi project of ex-
terminating Europe’s Jews. When presented with the evidence, Frankfurter
responded “I don’t believe you.” Karski replied that the evidence he provided
was not a matter of dispute. Frankfurter’s subsequent response was “I do not
mean that you are lying. I simply said I cannot believe you.”3 Frankfurter’s
denial of Karski was part of a larger failure to understand the dimensions of
the greatest violation of human rights in the twentieth century.
The second moment concerns the heroic efforts of the citizens of Le Cham-
bon, a village in occupied southwestern France. Under the leadership of
Protestant pastor André Trocmé the roughly 3,000 citizens of this village
(many who were direct descendants of Huguenots) saved the lives of over
2,500 Jews, mostly children, taking them in and either concealing them or
serving as way stations as they escaped to neutral countries. There was not a
single instance of betraying or reporting a refugee, a testament to the prevail-
ing religious culture of Le Chambon. Just as important was Trocmé’s leader-
ship and the numerous outside contacts he had established with Quakers,
Catholics, and the World Council of Churches.4
The heroism of Jan Karski and the citizens of Le Chambon took place in
an inferno of injustice and death. Ultimately, these people have come to sym-
bolize at once the small successes and the tremendous obstacles that can ex-
ist for those attempting to preserve the rights of threatened neighbors, citizens,
and human beings. Any discussion of Christianity and human rights must be-
gin both with an acknowledgment of the obstacles to a more robust and ef-
fective human rights–oriented Christianity, and with an awareness of how far
the effort, often but not always led by Christians, for human rights has come.
Indeed, the movement has made great strides and been transformed since
World War II. In this regard, Le Chambon and the experience of Jan Karski
remain instructive: at great risk to themselves, individuals were spurred to
protect human rights by their deeply held Christian beliefs; yet these efforts
were accompanied by significant obstacles and opportunities. These two ex-
amples came during a time of tremendous soul-searching in parts of the reli-
gious community. On the one hand, Christian groups had in the past led prin-
cipled and extremely effective campaigns for human rights. On the other
hand, many powerful Christian institutions had either passively stood by as
