God’s Kingdom of Love, Justice, and Rights

[David Johnston]

Building on his previous year’€™s paper that interrogated Stanley Hauerwas€’ view of human rights, Johnston concedes that the liberal democratic view of rights is deficient from both an ethical and Christian theological perspective. Yet he argues that the Enlightenment, with all of its anti-Christian animus, had no monopoly on the idea of human dignity. Historically, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a wide-based sound of alarm after the barbarity of two horrendous world wars. Leaders from many cultures and faiths came together and hammered out their best attempt to stem the tide of further violence and slaughter by putting forward the inviolability of the human person.

Johnston argues from a missional perspective that the concept of human rights is a serviceable bridge on which to build common initiatives between Christians, Muslims, Jews, and people of other faiths (and no faith) for promoting greater peace and justice in our troubled world. In particular, the 2007 Common Word Letter issued by leading Muslim scholars and addressed to Christian leaders highlighted the urgency of reconciliation among the two faith communities. After all, love of God and love of neighbor are central to both traditions. Besides this growing movement and its implications for Muslim-Christian dialogue, Johnston draws from Yale philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, who after his retirement in 2002 devoted his attention to writing as Christian on the theme of justice and love. The rest of the paper develops his contention that justice is about rights, yet with love at its heart. In fact, justice comes under the wider umbrella of love. In conclusion Johnston offers an example close to his home, a situation of injustice that raises again the need to meditate on Martin Luther King Jr.’€™s notion of humanity as ‘the beloved community.’

The full paper is attached to this post as a PDF.

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[David Johnston]

Daniel, that was a helpful and thoughtful summary. I didn't get any other feedback. Just curious, since you didn't give any personal appreciation, were you at all convinced by my arguments ... some, but not others?

Thanks again!

[Daniel L Heck]

@David Johnston

Daniel, that was a helpful and thoughtful summary.

I'm not sure if I'm the Daniel you're referring to there. I would say that I liked your paper a lot, and appreciate the connection you draw between love, justice and human rights. I didn't need convincing on this front, but I think it is a valuable rejoinder to efforts that would set them against each other.

If you think a more in-depth reflection would be helpful, I would be happy to revisit the paper's arguments in more detail

[David Johnston]

Hi Daniel, you must be the Daniel Heck who posted a great summary of my paper at SVS this year.

I hadn't seen any opinion about it in the discussions, so I'm glad you liked it. Just judging from the discussion at our panel with Derek Morphew and Stanley Hauerwas, there didn't seem to be much appetite in the audience for human rights. Put otherwise, Hauerwas seemed to have dazzled those in attendance.

Are you a pastor?

[Jon Stovell]

I hadn't seen any opinion about it in the discussions, so I'm glad you liked it. Just judging from the discussion at our panel with Derek Morphew and Stanley Hauerwas, there didn't seem to be much appetite in the audience for human rights.

 —

I'm not sure about that, @David Johnston. It seems to me that in this discussion there were a number of people who did.

[David Johnston]

Hey Jon, thanks for the good word! It's hard to gauge opinions at a panel with little time for Q&A. I didn't have anyone give me any feedback after either. But that's the good & bad thing about such a great program filled with so much good stuff!!

[Daniel L Heck]

@David Johnston

Daniel...Just judging from the discussion at our panel with Derek Morphew and Stanley Hauerwas, there didn't seem to be much appetite in the audience for human rights...

Are you a pastor?

I'm an unpaid intern and homegroup leader in my church. But I aspire to someday be a permanent unpaid intern!

I did ask Hauerwas a question during that panel, about a friend of mine who had recently been comatose...it related to human rights for the disabled. Hauerwas's response was that my friend didn't need rights, he needed love. I would say that respect for a person's rights is one manifestation of love, and that setting these things in opposition in this way is bizarre, and represents a misunderstanding of either rights or love. I may have said something to this effect in framing my question for him...and I think my perspective accords well with your paper

I've also added a photo to my profile, in case that helps you figure out who I am.

[David Johnston]

Thanks, Daniel! Yes, I remember that question. Good for you! I can see where Hauerwas is coming from and it was my second year in a row both agreeing with him and disagreeing at the same time.

I think you're right: of course, as followers of Jesus, we say love trumps everything. But we live in a world that was torn apart last century by two horrific world wars and we needed an ethical discourse that people from all faiths and ideologies could agree on, and that's how the UDHR came about -- mostly due to the efforts of Eleanor Roosevelt, by the way. Her Xian convictions led the way, I've been told. So HRs discourse is a tool, not an end in itself. But if you care about peacebuilding in a war-torn world, then I'd say you'd better learn to use it!

Also, Nicholas Wolterstorff came to similar conclusions as a Xian philosopher. My book (Justice and Love: A Muslim-Christian Conversation) is still slated to come out next year. Wolterstorff features prominently in a couple of chapters of that book.

God bless you in your quest to become "a permanent unpaid intern" at church!!