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INTENTION : |
That Christian communities, especially those who are persecuted, feel that they are close to Christ and have their rights respected.
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Fundamental Human Rights
By fundamental human rights we mean those rights and duties which belong essentially to what it means to be truly human, because without their being fully acknowledged and exercised human beings cannot fulfil their original destiny of having been created In the Image of God.
The Image of God Is Human Beings Together With Others
In fellowship before God and in covenant with others, the human being is capable of acting for God and being fully responsible to God. As a consequence of this, the social rights and duties of the human community are just as inalienable and indivisible as persons' individual rights and duties. Human beings have to heed the dignity and the responsibility of community in economy, society, and state, just as the latter has to heed those of the former. It does not follow from the democratization of the rule of human beings over others that every human being is his or her own absolute ruler.
Just as according to Gen.1:27 the image of God appears in the fellowship between husband and wife, so it is also represented in larger social contexts only through human fellowship. Thus the rights of human beings to life, freedom, and self-determination always arise together with the human community's claim upon people. In principle there is no priority of individual over social rights, just as conversely there is no priority of social rights over individual rights. Both stand in a genetic context of reciprocal conditioning just as historically the processes of the socialization and the individualization of people mutually condition each other.
The rights of persons can only be developed in a just society, and a just society can only be developed on the ground of the rights of the person. The freedom of the individual can only be constituted in a free society, and a free society can only be constituted on the ground of individual freedom. Human liberation is liberation for community and human community is community in freedom.
Individual societies and states, in their social rights and duties, are responsible not only to the people who live in them but also to humanity. Human rights thus also entail humanity's claim upon individual societies and people. If particular political and social communities are bound through their constitutions to the human rights of their citizens, they must also be bound, on the other hand, to the rights of humanity. Collective egoism threatens human rights just as much as individual egoism. Thus, individual communities and states are only legitimized by human rights when they respect not only the human rights of their own citizens, but also to the same degree those of other nations and peoples. Human right is indivisible; it is no privilege. Therefore, national foreign policy can only be legitimized as the world's domestic policy. International solidarity in overcoming the horror of starvation and the threat of world military crises has, therefore, because of the rights of humanity, a precedence over loyalty to one's own people, to one's own class, race, or nation. Individual communities and states have human duties in the face of the rights of the whole of humanity to life, freedom, and community. Therefore, human rights point to a universal community in which alone they can be realized.
From Jurgen Moltmann,
On Human Dignity: Political Theology and Ethics
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