Universal Human Rights

Allyson McKinney says that Human Rights can be described as inherent or divinely bestowed, depending on whether you are in a secular or sacred context. 

• Which context are you in when you are in discourse about, or activism in the area of human rights? 
• Have you aligned your vocabulary appropriately with your setting? Why or why not? 

She goes on to say that human rights correspond to responsibilities. 

• How are human rights relational in your context? How do you treat others and expect to be treated? 
• What is your expectation for how you are treated by your government? 

Journal and/or discuss your answers.

Nicholas Wolterstorff says that rights are normative social bonds having to do with relationships and their implied moral duty, with both political and legal implications. A society is just, to the extent that natural rights are upheld. Human rights claim the victim’s perspective, and the victim’s entitlements. 

• What do you think human rights should be for the families of a murder victim, e.g. George Floyd? 
• What are the moral duties that society has towards the family of a murder victim, e.g. George Floyd’s family?
• Are your answers to these two questions based on claims which are from a sacred or secular framework?

Responding to the Agapist Objection:

• Do you agree or disagree that the New Testament’s great command, “neighbor love” is the highest form of love?
• If, as Wolterstorff says, “love assumes and incorporates justice” what are specific human rights implications for our relationships and moral duty to one another?

Journal and/or discuss your answers.

Allyson McKinney quotes the Reverend Dr Pauli Marray “…the rights of women and the rights of [African-Americans] are only different phases of the fundamental and indivisible issue of human rights.” Although Murray is writing at a time before the analytical framework of intersectionality was introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989, Murry is nevertheless, concerned with oppression, discrimination, and marginalization in all its forms. 

• In your own estimation, what forms of oppression, discrimination, and marginalization are being addressed well in our day? 
• Who and what areas are being ignored? 
• In your experience whose voices specifically need to be amplified today to address current experiences of oppression, discrimination, and marginalization?

Journal and/or discuss your answers.

Allyson McKinney outlines the international legal framework for human rights and how it is formed, and then goes on to discuss “American exceptionalism” to full participation in this work. 

• From your own perspective, either as a citizen or as a non-citizen of the United States, discuss or journal your defense of these exceptions, or your concerns about them. 
• After outlining your own defense or concerns, consider what important ethics or ideals your own reflections uphold?
• How does the White Christian Nationalist movement undermine this work specifically, according to Allyson McKinney?

Journal and/or discuss your answers.

Allyson McKinney says that David Gushee and the other theologians she uses in this presentation describe “a shared universal human dignity that applies without exception and in all circumstances.”

• How would you hope to see the sacredness of human lives better respected or protected?
• Why do you think it is that by grounding Human Rights in religious and theological claims, some people are concerned that the rights themselves cannot be inherently universal? 
• What words would you use to describe to someone who disagrees with you the strength of your conviction?

Gushee applies the sacredness paradigm to a full range of social and political issues.

• How does applying the sacredness paradigm to large numbers of people in this manner create a strong theology of the sacredness of human life? What, if any, potential weaknesses do you see in this approach?

In the United States context in recent history, the sacredness of the human life paradigm is often applied to before birth and to end of life issues especially in the political sphere. 

• How does applying the sacredness paradigm more broadly place political issues in context? 
• Does this broader application create a way forward for people who are personally negatively affected by the politics of the US discourse?

Journal and/or discuss your answers.

Newlands explores how our understanding of Christ informs our understanding of human rights, by developing what he calls “a Christology for human rights.” 

• According to Newlands, how does his understanding of Christology advance the cause of Human Rights? 
• Do you agree or disagree that the christian practices of humility, testimony, and forgiveness can advance human rights; notwithstanding the historical record is rife with human rights offenses done in the name of Christ and other religions? 

Journal and/or discuss your answers.

• Justice Rights and Wrongs by Nicholas Wolterstorff, 2010 Princeton University Press

• Michael Grant Ignatieff, American Exceptionalism and Human Rights 2005 Princeton University Press
• Baptist Joint Committee “BJC” Christian Nationalism | BJC Online