SN: 1388816 April 2014!

The Role of Christianity in the Origins, Formation and Reception of the !Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)!!

In the twenty first century, human rights have become the ubiquitous rallying cry of a diverse, and sometimes conflicting, range of causes across the globe. Tellingly, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)–the common reference point for the concept–is now the most translated document in the world, produced in over 300 languages and dialects. Not only this, but it has become the basis of a global political 1

standard accepted by virtually all states in at least in some form. In response to this phenomenon, 2

there has been a tremendous growth in scholarship over recent decades dealing with the history and theory of human rights. Often, scholars have adopted triumphalistic language, extolling human rights as an historically deep-rooted development, emerging as a moral response to the horrors of the Holocaust. However, recent work by historians such as Samuel Moyn in The Last Utopia (2010), has begun to challenge this view. Moyn argues that far from reaching an inevitably predestined apogee in 1948, human rights only truly emerged as we know them in the 1970s. The reasons for this striking claim, he argues, are intimately linked to the role played by Christian influences both in the formation and reception of human rights. He contends that only when human rights were able to shed the strongly Christian, conservative associations of their beginnings were they adopted as an alternative ‘utopia’ seized upon when reigning ideologies were waning.!! In examining Moyn’s thesis, after discussing views on the influence of Christianity in the origins of human rights, this essay will look at the role of Christians in the process of forming the UDHR in 1948 and how these links affected the global reception and adoption of the concept. What will be seen is that even if Christianity did not perhaps lead inevitably to contemporary human rights, it was indeed the guiding worldview out of which the modern conception did eventually rise and also played a central part in the promotion and perception of human rights from the UDHR onwards. Finally, in considering the implications of this, it will be asked what the continuing role for Christianity is in what has become a global, though largely secularised, movement. !!In his introduction to the July 1948 UNESCO symposium on human rights, Jacques Maritain, the French philosopher at the heart of framing the UDHR, quipped, “We all agree on the rights but on

�1

‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the Most Universal Document in the World’, Office 1

of the High Commission for Human Rights [website]. <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/pages/WorldRecord.aspx>, accessed 27.04.14.

Henkin, Louis, ‘The Universality of the Concept of Human Rights’, Annals of the American 2

Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 506, Human Rights Around the World (1989), p.13.

SN: 1388816 April 2014condition that no one asks us why.” This was reportedly in response to how such an ideologically 3

and culturally diverse group could possibly agree on a ‘universal’ list. “That ‘why,’” he followed, “is where the argument begins.” For Maritain and others among that group, the answer lay in the 4

moral foundations laid by Christian-influenced civilisation. The first task in this essay is to consider the extent to which that view is justified. In doing so, we will look at three broad outlooks on the origins of human rights: the anti-religious, secularist view; the multi-cultural, cumulative approach; and finally the idea of Judaeo-Christian roots. !!Firstly, one widespread view in the contemporary world is that human rights were born specifically out of secular, Enlightenment principles. In particular, emanating from the founding documents of the American and French revolutions, they are seen to represent a triumph of secularism against religious, state control of the individual. Thus, far from originating in religion, they are seen as a protection against it–especially Christianity. The reason, according to this view, is that when religion is allowed into the public square it inevitably infringes upon human rights such as freedom of conscience, speech and expression, a fact taken to be vividly exemplified by the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, whose Submission (2004) criticised the treatment of women in Islam.!!Interestingly, the view that human rights are of inherently secular and anti-religious origins is not only held by secularists, but has been espoused by a variety of religious groups including Muslims and Orthodox Christians. For example, Vigen Guroian argues that human rights thinking is alien to Christians within Eastern Orthodoxy, a fact J. Paul Martin confirms, adding that according to the 5

Russian Orthodox Church, they are “the degradation of the system of spiritual values.” Also, 6

though from a different perspective, both mainstream and fundamentalist Islamic voices have at times claimed that human rights are a secular construction and in conflict with the teachings of their faith, especially Shariah provisions for corporal and capital punishment. !7

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Maritain, Jacques, ‘Introduction’, in UNESCO, eds., Human Rights: Comments and 3

Interpretations, (Paris, July 25 1948), p.1. <http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001550/155042eb.pdf> accessed 27.04.2014.

Martitain, 1948:14

Guroian, Vigen ‘Human Rights and Modern Western Faith: An Orthodox Christian Assessment’, 5

The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1998), p.241.

Martin, J. Paul, ‘The Three Monotheistic World Religions and International Human Rights’, 6

Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 61, No. 4 (2005), pp.834-835.

Martin offers one illustrative example of this when in a meeting of the UN Committee against 7

Torture, the Saudi representative argued, “the Committee had no jurisdiction over Shariah provisions that allow amputations for theft and floggings and over capital punishment for certain sexual offenses and the consumption of alcohol.” (2005: 836)

SN: 1388816 April 2014!However, a problem with the anti-religious view is that human rights, if they are universal, should not only protect the secularist from religious incursions, but they are also designed to shield the religious from secular incursions. They are about creating a neutral space, above state intrusion, where the liberty of each individual’s person and conscience is protected, a space where people of faith and of no faith alike can flourish. As Simon Schama argues, this was the balance intended in the Enlightenment separation of church and state, at least in its American formulation, “keeping the church from directing the state, or the state from directing theology.” !8

!The second view is that the origins of human rights are found in a variety of religio-cultural sources whose antecedents stretch far back into history. Christianity, from this viewpoint, forms one of these sources, but by no means the only, or even the most prominent of them. In general, scholars in this stream hold that there were several aspects of Christianity which needed to be transcended for human rights to emerge. Micheline Ishay’s The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times 9

to the Globalization Era (1997) presents this argument, stating that her approach looks at the cumulative historical progression towards human rights. Through a process of development 10

which stretches from the Code of Hammurabi, through the Hebrews and Greeks, to the teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, Ishay argues the modern conception of human rights was eventually prepared for its emergence in the Enlightenment era and final, secular codification in the UDHR. To Ishay, among others, Christian teachings were thus an important step along the way, but ultimately one of many contributors to a collective developmental morality. !!The apparent strength of this view is that it includes the ethical contributions of other cultures and thus seems to account for the universality of human rights. However, as even Ishay admits, the fact that echoes of human rights can be found across cultures and in the teachings of major religions should not obscure the truth that “it has been the influence of the…Western concept of universal rights that has prevailed.” In this light, the danger of the cumulative view is that in seeking to find 11

universal principles which support human rights, it tends to obscure the fact that the human rights movement only actually emerged in the West out of what was a Christian cultural milieu. !!In support of this, critical scholars such as Jack Donnelly point out that there is often a confusion made in this reading between values shared between cross-cultural, religious teachings, which are

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Schama, Simon, The American Future, (London, 2008), p.147.8

Ishay, Micheline, The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era, 9

(London, 1997), p.7

Ibid, 210

Ibid, 711

SN: 1388816 April 2014millennia old, and much later social practices–such as rights–which aim to realise those values. 12

Samuel Moyn argues that not only is this misled, but “if human rights are treated as inborn, or long in preparation, people will not confront the true reasons they have become so powerful today and examine whether those reasons are still persuasive.” If Donnelly’s observation is correct, and the 13

social practice of human rights only developed in the West, this leads us to consider our final viewpoint. !!The third, and potentially most controversial, position is that human rights find their immediate origins and theoretical seedbed only in a Judaeo-Christian heritage. Max Stackhouse argues that recognising this is a matter of “intellectual honesty”, as “principles of basic human rights developed nowhere else than out of key strands of the biblically-rooted religions.” According to this 14

argument, the foundation was the Jewish and Christian doctrine of the imago dei, that humanity is made in the image of God, endowed with inherent dignity and inviolable status. !!Nicholas Wolterstorff, in his influential work Justice: Rights and Wrongs (2008), offers perhaps the most cogent and nuanced defence of this position. His argument is that in Christian thought humans are of inherent dignity because God loves them in the “mode of attachment,” conferring value which is not earned or merited, and therefore not able to be lost by us in any way. 15

Establishing true universality alongside the doctrine of imago dei, Christianity also provides the conviction which gave rise to what he terms “our moral subculture of rights,” namely that God holds us accountable for how we treat each other and how we treat God. Without this Christian 16

conviction, founded on what Jesus referred to as the two greatest commandments–loving God and loving neighbour–he argues even human rights based on the imago dei can easily be corroded. Christianity, to Wolterstorff, therefore not only provides the actual historical basis, but also represents the most coherent and healthy grounding for a robust theory of universal human rights. !!This position has been treated with some skepticism by scholars who suspect an air of Christian triumphalism in its claim. However, the historical accuracy at least has been supported by scholars who make no pretence to defend Christian ideology. For example, Charles Villa-Vicencio’s work correlates with the historical interpretation of Stackhouse and Wolterstorff. But while emphatically

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Donnelly, Jack, ‘The Relative Universality of Human Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 29 12

(2007), p.284.

Moyn, Samuel, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, (Cambridge, 2010), p.12.13

Stackhouse, Max, ‘A Christian Perspective on Human Rights’, Society, (Jan, 2004), pp.25.14

Weithman, Paul, ‘Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Justice: Rights and Wrongs: An Introduction’, Journal of 15

Religious Ethics, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2009), p.180.

Wolterstorff, Nicholas, Justice: Rights and Wrongs, (Princeton, 2008), p.393. 16

SN: 1388816 April 2014denying being “driven by a need to promote Christian ideology,” he affirms that his work simply identifies within Christianity the “ethical trajectories” which led to human rights. Indeed, to argue 17

that human rights developed out of Christian moral principles is not to claim that this was inevitably so, nor is it to deny that principles supporting human rights can be found in other religions. It is not even to claim, as would be foolish to argue, that Christians have always been “faithful to the implications of their own heritage.” It is merely to recognise that even if there were multiple 18

potential seedbeds, Judaeo-Christian civilisation is the only one in which the tree actually grew. It is therefore essential to recognise that this is the religio-cultural heritage which allowed for the human rights discourse to emerge, and as we shall see, was in fact the ideology largely driving the formation of the UDHR. !!In turning attention to the framing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we will examine the role of Christianity in the underlying philosophy, drafting of the document, and the political lobby groups which helped effect its ratification. Christians were present and influential in all three areas. There will be a particular focus on Moyn in what follow, as according to Johannes Paulmann, his work in this area has been key in uncovering religious aspects of the history which had been largely forgotten. In terms of historical detail, there appears to have thus far been been little 19

scholarly criticism of the Christian elements Moyn highlights. Critical reflection will therefore focus on the implications Moyn draws from his study.!!The first way that Christianity influenced the process of forming the UDHR was in shaping its underlying philosophy and in defining the early discourse on human rights. According to Moyn, the figure most instrumental in solidifying the meaning of human rights by the late 1930s was Pope Pius XI. Adopting the language in his famous 1937 encyclicals denouncing the fate of religion under the Nazi regime, he simultaneously imbued human rights talk with strongly religious and anti-totalitarian associations. As scholars such as Mary Ann Glendon and Thomas Williams 20

confirm alongside Moyn, Catholics effectively “dominated” the rights discourse in these earliest years and were essential in raising the political profile of the movement. !21

!

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Villa-Vicencio, Charles, ‘Christianity and Human Rights’, Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 14, 17

No. 2 (1999), p.584.

Stackhouse, 2004: 2518

Paulmann, Johannes, ‘Human Rights as History’, History Workshop Journal, Vol. 76, No. 1 19

(2013), pp.336.

“Man, as a person, possesses rights that he holds from God and which must remain…beyond 20

the reach of anything that would tend to deny them.” Quoted in Moyn, 2010: 50

Moyn, 2010: 5521

SN: 1388816 April 2014However, the Catholic who was to be most important in the forming of the UDHR directly was Jacques Maritain. The noted Thomistic philosopher, who was intimately involved with the United Nations in UNESCO and in some key discussions of the Human Rights Committee, based his promotion of human rights firmly upon the philosophy of Personalism. This philosophy in turn would affect the major framers of the UDHR, especially Charles Malik. !22

!Although an umbrella term describing any system which takes the idea of the human person as a primary reality, Williams relates that Personalism’s most well-known strain derives from the works of Thomas Aquinas. As a philosophy, it “stressed the inviolable dignity of the individual person and at the same time his social nature and vocation to communion.” These emphases are directly 23

reflected in the language of the UDHR, such as in making the “human person” the central protagonist of the document. As a movement, Williams argues it has nearly always been 24

historically linked to Biblical theism, and in the person of Maritain it found a prominent Catholic apologist, whom scholars agree was central to the direct formation of the UDHR. !25

!As Williams and Moyn concur, the Personalism of Maritain, and by influence the UDHR, was also an inherently conservative political ideology as it expressly reacted against forces it considered “dehumanising” both in nineteenth-century liberalism and communism. Echoing the later 26

sentiment of Pius XI, the tagline of perhaps the earliest personalist political manifesto in 1932 had been, “We are neither individualists, nor collectivists, we are personalists!” Sometimes accused 27

of being an “anti-philosophy”, it aimed to recover the spiritual side of humanity, salvaging the value of the individual person from collectivism while emphasising community interdependence in contrast to liberal atomism. The implication of this, Moyn argues, is that the branch of 28

Personalism to which Maritain belonged was essentially a conservative project trying to redirect wayward revolutionary forces in a “Christian direction.” Thus, forming the primary philosophical 29

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Moyn, 2010: 6522

Williams, 2005: 11223

Moyn, 2010: 6524

Williams, Thomas, Who Is My Neighbour? Personalism and the Foundations of Human Rights, 25

(Washington D.C, 2005), p.108.

Williams, 2005: 11326

Moyn, Samuel, ‘Personalism, Community, and the Origins of Human Rights’, in Hoffmann, 27

Stefan-Ludwig, ed., Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, (Cambridge, 2011), p.87.

Moyn, 2011a: 8828

Ibid, 8829

SN: 1388816 April 2014input to the UDHR, Christian Personalism both determined its particular language and its implicit political emphases. !!Christianity was also key in a second direct way, as it formed the worldview of the main drafters of the UDHR themselves. As Moyn observes, in one sense, given the general consensus over the principles it contained, there seems to be little need to emphasise any one ideology in forming the UDHR, were it not for the “striking prominence of Christian social thought among the framers and even in larger UN debates.” To illustrate this point, Moyn points out that in distinct ways, 30

“Christianity primarily defined the worldviews of all three of the main [UDHR] framers.” These 31

included John Humphreys (director of the UN Human Rights Division for two decades who was responsible for assembling the first draft of the list of rights), Charles Malik (a Lebanese Christian– “perhaps the key figure in the negotiations”–who personally hoped for a Christian future in the Middle East), and Eleanor Roosevelt herself (the chairwoman of the committee and a lifelong Episcopalian). While it might not be surprising that American and European representatives 32

derived from Christian backgrounds, even those main actors who could be said to be ‘non-Western’, such as Malik or Carlos Romulo (Filipino delegate to the UN), were most deeply committed to a Christian worldview. Again, to point this out is not to claim that Christianity was 33

the only influence upon the drafting of the UDHR, but given the foundational worldview of the key figures, it was certainly a central one.!!Thirdly, not only were Christians involved in shaping the philosophy and framing the content of the UDHR, but Christian groups, especially the Protestant ecumenical movement churches, were foremost in lobbying the United Nations and United States government in pushing for human rights to form part of the post-war international order. John Nurser, on whom Moyn relies for this part of his narrative, is the preeminent scholar in highlighting this history, which he says, “has remained almost wholly unrecognised.” !34

!In 1946, John Foster Dulles, formative U.N representative, and later U.S Secretary of State, commented that the character of the United Nations had been largely determined by “organised

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Moyn, 2010: 6430

Ibid, 6431

Ibid, 6432

Ibid, 6433

Nurser, John, ‘The "Ecumenical Movement" Churches, "Global Order," and Human Rights: 34

1938-1948’, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2003), p.842.

SN: 1388816 April 2014Christian forces.” One example of the major contribution of these groups, such as the World 35

Council of Churches (WCC) and the Federal Council of Churches (FCC), was that they ensured amendments to the October 1944 Dumbarton Oaks draft of the U.N charter which included a Commission on Human Rights. Their central concern was especially towards establishing a right 36

to religious freedom. In what Nurser calls a remarkable period of success for Christians in the international political arena, this had been achieved through the recommendations prepared by the Commission for a Just and Durable Peace, set up by the FCC in 1940. To underline the centrally 37

of this contribution, had this clause not been included in the charter, it is unlikely that human rights would have featured on the agenda for the 1945 San Francisco Conference where the final U.N charter was officially signed. Thus, in quite a concrete way, what Dulles had called “Christian 38

forces” were at the driving centre of the processes which brought the UDHR into being.!!Given the contributions covered above, Moyn’s contention is that human rights could not help but pick up Christian conservative associations, which when coupled with the vigorous Christian promotion of them, gravely hampered their reception on the global, emerging Cold-War scene. Claiming to solve the mystery of why human rights failed to flourish for decades after the UDHR, he argues they were simply too Christian and too conservative to catch on. In considering this 39

claim, we will look at ways in which Christians principally promoted the idea, leading to what Moyn sees as human right’s lack of universal appeal, as well as possible criticisms of this argument. !!The first important observation in the reception of human rights and the UDHR is that apart from the U.N itself, the majority of those who championed them in the first three decades were Christians. This was true on the institutional and individual level. Organisationally, the Protestant ecumenical churches of the WCC and FCC continued in the following decades to advocate passionately, primarily for right to religious liberty. On one level they saw this as a first order right due to its internal nature in the realm of conscience. However, some scholars have claimed a measure of self-interest in this for the sake of protecting Christian missions initiatives, especially to the Muslim world. Indeed, as Villa-Vicencio and others have pointed out, having been so 40

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Nurser, 2003: 84235

Ibid, 84636

Ibid, 84337

Ibid, 86038

Moyn, 2010: 74-7539

Rieffer, Barbara, ‘Religion, Politics and Human Rights: Understanding the Role of Christianity in 40

the Promotion of Human Rights’, Human Rights and Human Welfare, Vol. 6 (2006), p.39.

SN: 1388816 April 2014influential in the framing of the UDHR, it was not until the late 1960s that the ecumenical churches began to seriously pursue programmes fighting for the full range of human rights.!!However, as Mary Ann Glendon has argued, it was at this time that the Catholic church became the most influential champion of human rights, “through its advocacy in the UN, and through its [by 1998] 300,000 educational, health care and relief agencies serving mainly the poorest and most disadvantaged people in all parts of the world.” Not only this, but in its teachings, the Second 41

Vatican Council (1965) made human rights a focus of Catholic doctrine, especially in response to Latin American liberation theology. !42

!Individually, in the political square, scholars highlight the role of John Foster Dulles, who as a key Christian statesmen continued to speak for human rights as President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State. In the intellectual realm, another important example can be taken from Moyn’s article ‘The 43

First Historian of Human Rights’ (2011), which outlines the works of Gerhard Ritter. The German historian’s Historische Zeitschrift (1949) was the earliest, and for a long time the only, attempt to provide a history of human rights. Ritter, who was aligned with the German, Confessing Church 44

and had been imprisoned as part of the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, sought to maintain the memory of human rights’ Christian roots to protect against totalitarianism. His work thus first 45

claimed Christian intellectual ownership and heritage for human rights, a fact important because, as Moyn points out, “few serious non-Christian intellectuals were theorists or partisans of the new idea of human rights—or even rights generally—until several decades later.” !46

!The implication of this passionate Christian conservative advocacy, Moyn argues, is it “necessarily meant that others could not help but regard it as a deeply partisan idea.” Coupled with the fact 47

that, if the analysis is accurate, it probably looked like a deeply ‘Western’ idea also, this serves to

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Glendon, Mary Ann, ‘Rights Babel: Thoughts on the Approaching 50th Anniversary of the 41

Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, Reverend Thomas J. Furphy Lecture (DeSales University, 1996), p.8.

Villa-Vicencio, 1999: 59242

Nurser, 2003: 84243

Moyn, Samuel, ‘The First Historian of Human Rights’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 116, 44

No. 1 (2011), p.59.

Moyn, 2011b: 6545

Ibid, 7346

Moyn, 2010: 7547

SN: 1388816 April 2014offer an explanation as to why human rights did not catch on ideologically except in certain Western European circles. !48

!However, not all scholars have fully accepted Moyn’s interpretation on this point. While he does acknowledge other problems with human rights, such as the fact that they did not help to decide between a welfarist or communist state–the greatest political struggle of the era–he nonetheless seems to emphasise the stagnating effect of religious associations more than others. There are 49

several other considerations which may contradict this view. For one, Nathan Clemens, in The Changing Face of Religion and Human Rights (2009), argues that many Christian groups did not support human rights in this period and some even taught against them, for example in relation to capital punishment. On another front, Eric Weitz contends that, while not denying a surge in 50

human rights popularity from the 1970s, the language was also used by secular, anti-colonialist movements in earlier decades to argue their case for self-determination. While conceding that we 51

cannot take this merely at face value, as Moyn argues their usage of human rights was different to the contemporary sense, Weitz says we should also not ignore that they did explicitly used the language. !52

!These, and other potential criticisms, beg the question as to why Moyn emphasises the religious aspect to the extent that he does. While he is certainly successful in showing not only the intimate involvement of Christians in the formation of the UDHR, but also their continued and prominent appropriation of human rights in the subsequent decades, his analysis is underlain by the suggestion that this genealogy should cause his readers to be deeply unsettled. As the title of his 53

primary book on human rights suggests, the overall intention of his work is to show that human rights are not a necessary, nor in any particular sense true, movement, but merely the latest, and perhaps not the last, in a long chain of utopian ideologies. In what seems to reflect a very Foucaultian approach, Moyn’s conclusion is that his revelations of deeply Christian origins in the history of the UDHR expose that they are no more than another, subjective political perspective.

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Moyn, 2010: 7848

Ibid, 7349

Clemens, Nathan, The Changing Face of Religion and Human Rights, (Leiden, 2009), pp.50

139-147.

Weitz, Eric, ‘Samuel Moyn and the new history of human rights’, European Journal of Political 51

Theory, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2013), p.90.

Weitz, 2013: 8952

See for example Moyn 2011b: 5953

SN: 1388816 April 2014Therefore, this underlying motivation is the reason for his insistence that to ignore the true history of the emergence of human rights is perilous for our contemporary context. !!However, in turning to think about the place of Christianity in the human rights movement today, it is worth challenging Moyn as to why these revelations should make us so suspicious. To assert that the origins of human rights are heavily influenced by Christianity, and that this should unsettle our confidence in them, is to assume that there is little of universal value in them. The views of many scholars, coupled with the fact that the UDHR was indeed ratified by representatives of most world cultures might suggest otherwise. But Moyn’s operating assumption seems to be that if they emanate from a particular religious tradition they must be particular in themselves and not reflective of universal values. What scholars such as Wolterstorff might challenge Moyn on, is that the realisation of the true foundation of human rights should not cause us to be unsettled, but rather induce us to explore the philosophical and practical ramifications of that grounding. !!As we have seen in Wolterstorff’s arguments above, he sees the Christian basis for human rights as providing a robust and universal grounding which also provides the conviction to carry it out. Without this, as the scholarly debate has shown thus far, it seems hard to provide any other adequate theoretical justification, even if the historical origins can be ignored. From a wide 54

variety of perspectives, a number of scholars thus agree that religion, especially, but not only Christianity, can play a key part in the continuing human rights movement. As Louis Henkin points out, rights are essentially the minimum level of respect that is needed. But on their own, they cannot provide the basis for the good society. This is where religions can bridge the gap and, from the rich soil provided by human rights, encourage humanity to flourish in positive action. 55

Furthermore, in considering the particular role of Christianity, Villa-Vicencio concludesI that while Christians are required to fight for human rights, the message of the gospel should always challenge them to go much further rights to loving neighbour as self.!!In conclusion, this essay has attempted to offer a broad view of the different ways in which Christianity influenced the formation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the discussion of the origins of human rights, we have seen that three possible views have been taken. However, when the secularist and cumulative origins theories are examined, they fail to take full account both of the intentions and the historical provenance of human rights. Instead, what several important scholars recognise, is that human rights only actually emerged out of a Christian milieu. Furthermore, it is possible to argue that human rights only find a truly universal grounding and

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Wolterstorff, 2008: 39354

Henkin, Louis, ‘Religion, Religions and Human Rights’, The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 26, 55

No. 2 (1998), pp.229-239.

SN: 1388816 April 2014motivation in the context of a Judaeo-Christian worldview. Following the work of Moyn, we have seen that Christians were key in the early emergence of human rights in the twentieth century, shaping the UDHR by the guiding philosophy of Christian Personalism, forming a key part in central group responsible for drafting the document, and in the political advocacy which allowed human rights to form part of the U.N charter in the first place. As to Moyn’s claim that this Christian conservative involvement was to blame for the initial lack of wide acceptance of human rights, while there is certainly some good evidence for this argument, it is clear that other factors were also key in this delayed adoption. Overall, what emerges from the discussion, is that some of Moyn’s particular emphases on the religious aspect of this history, derive from his motivation to challenge human rights at the level of discourse. However, the newly revealed history of close Christian involvement in the UDHR need not necessarily be unsettling. On the contrary, it may encourage the contemporary world to explore the resources of a Christian grounding for human rights. A grounding which not only emphasises true universality and inviolable dignity based on the worth-conferring love of God, but also continually challenges us to go beyond mere rights and pursue selfless love of others. !!!

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