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Religion and Human Rights: A Personal Testament*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

David Little
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Extract

The subject of religion and human rights is something in which I have more than academic or professional interest. It is true I have invested considerable time and energy to the question throughout my scholarly life. In recent years, I have paid special attention to the more practical aspects—namely, the degree to which states and other actors have actually complied with the standards of religious freedom and equality enshrined in the international human rights documents. At the same time, I have come to see that my efforts in this area are not “value-free;” in fact, they express a deeper worldview that, for better or worse, I hold and am pleased to avow. In this article I attempt to lay out the sources and features of that worldview.

As it happens, I am a committed Presbyterian layman, and have served at various times as an officer in that church. That means I stand in what is known as the “Reformed” tradition of Protestant Christianity, which stems from the sixteenth-century French theologian and religious leader, John Calvin (1509-1564). Calvin's general approach is summarized by the motto, ecclesia reformata semper reformanda—”the church reformed, ever reforming.” Those words signal Calvin's strong concern for church life and organization, both as an expression of Christian commitment, and as a model for social and political life. Moreover, the motto implies Calvin's characteristic emphasis on the obligation of Christians to act out their beliefs in institutional and practical ways.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 57 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2002

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Footnotes

*

This address was composed and delivered while the author was still employed by the United States Institute of Peace, and reflects only the author's views and not necessarily those of the institute. It was originally presented at the University of Richmond Law School, Richmond, Virginia, November 4, 1998, while the author was still a resident of Washington, D.C. Though the following prefatory comment no longer obtains, it was included in the original text, and conveys the author's sentiments on the delicate question of publicly discussing religious views while in government service. As such it is, perhaps, of wider interest:

It is very gratifying to be invited, as I have been on this occasion, to discuss my personal theological perspective on the question of religion and human rights …. Of course, it is, as a rule, neither seemly nor fitting for employees of the United States government, such as I am, to go around trumpeting their personal religious convictions. In a religiously pluralistic society like ours, it is better for public officials to find, where possible, a language of common cause. At the same time, there is, and ought to be, nothing secret or shameful about the personal religious dispositions of government employees, and, so long as the setting where they are discussed is fair and open (as this one surely is), there ought to be opportunities to exhibit and scrutinize those dispositions publicly.

References

1. The dissertation was published as Little, David, Religion, Order, and Law: A Study in Pre-Revolutionary England (Harper & Row 1969)Google Scholar, and was republished in 1984 by the University of Chicago Press.

2. Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Scribner 1958)Google Scholar.

3. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, Mosses from an Old Manse 7 (Hurst & Co. 1850)Google Scholar. Hawthorne goes on: “These worthies looked strangely like bad angels—or, at least, like men who had wrestled so continually and so sternly with the devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been imparted to their own visages.”

4. See most recently Robinson, Marilynne, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought 200 (Houghton Mifflin 1998)Google Scholar.

5. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 vols.) bk. 4, ch. XI, § 8, p. 1220 (McNeill, John T. ed., Battles, Ford Lewis trans., Library of Christian Classics vols. XX–XXI, Westminster Press 1960)Google Scholar; see id. at p. 1220 n. 15.

6. Id. at bk. 3, ch. XIX, § 15, pp. 847–848.

7. Id.

8. Id. at bk. 4, ch. X, § 5; p. 1183; cf.: “human laws, whether made by magistrate or by church, even though they have to be observed (I speak of good and just laws), still do not of themselves bind the conscience.” Id. at p. 1184.

9. Id. at bk. 4, ch. XX, § 2, p. 1487.

10. Id. at bk. 4, ch. XI, §3, p. 1215.

11. Jerome Bolsec, an ex-Carmelite monk, was banished in 1551 for denouncing Calvin's doctrine of predestination. See McNeill, John T., The History and Character of Calvinism 172 (Oxford U. Press 1954)Google Scholar.

12. In 1547 Jacques Gruet, a member of an anti-Calvin Genevan family was beheaded in part at least for holding what were regarded as blasphemous views, though charges that he was involved in a seditious plot may also have influenced the decision; see Wendel, Francois, Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought 87 (Mairet, Philip trans., Harper & Row 1963)Google Scholar.

13. Calvin: Institutes, supra n. 5, at bk. 2. ch. II, § 13, pp. 272–273.

14. See Wendel, supra n. 12, at 82.

15. Id.

16. Lord Action, Lectures on Modern History 132 (Meridian Books 1961)Google Scholar.

17. Id. at 136.

18. In what is otherwise a provocative and original collection of essays, Marilynne Robinson surrenders, unfortunately, to a one-sided and uninformed interpretation of the writings of Max Weber, particularly his essay on the Protestant ethic. See Robinson, supra n. 3, at 23-24, 180-181. As I contend in Religion, Order, and Law, Weber's treatment of Calvin and the Puritans is deficient in some ways, as are some of the details of his attempt to demonstrate the connection between Puritanism and the rise of modern capitalist society. However, with appropriate revision, based on a fuller and more sustained investigation of the theology and social thought of Calvin and the English Puritans, together with a careful analysis of the relevant economic and legal developments of the period, as well as a more nuanced and systematic deployment of Weber's own theoretical proposals, much of what Weber argued for in the essay on the Protestant ethic can after all be vindicated.

For compelling confirmation of Weber's basic insights regarding the connection between “ascetic Protestantism” and modern capitalism, see Landes, David's magisterial volume on economic history, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (W.W. Norton & Co. 1998), especially pp. 174–179Google Scholar. Weber's general perspective regarding the connection between culture and economic behavior in fact underlies Landes's whole approach. (Incidentally, there are also fascinating suggestions scattered throughout Landes's book regarding the important connection between religious tolerance and economic development, which demand further reflection and examination, and which are related to some of the themes of this essay.).

19. See Little, David, A Christian Perspective on Human Rights, in Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives 59 (An-Na'im, Abdullahi Ahmed & Deng, Francis M. eds., Brookings Instn. 1990)Google Scholar for a fuller account.

20. There has been considerable misunderstanding of this usage in the scholarly literature; see id., especially pp. 76-97 and, in particular, nn. 40, 41, & 82, for criticisms of Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (2 vols.) (Cambridge U. Press 1978)Google Scholar, and for criticisms of Tuck, Richard, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development (Cambridge U. Press 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As I attempt to demonstrate, Skinner and Tuck (along with others like Jeffrey Stout who trade on their ideas) have rather seriously misrepresented the character and range of Calvinism regarding natural rights ideas, including freedom of conscience and religion.

21. Overton, Richard, An Appeal from the Commons to the Free People (1647), in Puritanism and Liberty: Being the Army Debates (1647-9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents 323, 332 (Woodhouse, A.S.P. ed., 2d., U. Chi. Press 1951)Google Scholar.

22. The Putney Debates, in Puritanism and Liberty, supra n. 19, at 53.

23. Overton, Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty 333Google Scholar.

24. Thomas, Keith, Women and the Civil War Sects, 13 Past & Present 42, 55 (04 1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. Id. at 55.

26. Id. at 54.

27. “Calvinism [is] itself, the main seed-ground of the Puritan movement,” A.S.P. Woodhouse, Introduction, in Puritanism and Liberty, supra n. 19, at 36.

28. Ahlstrom, Sydney E., A Religions History of the American People 182 (Yale U. Press 1972)Google Scholar.

29. Gaustad, Edwin S., Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America 175–176 (Eerdmans Publg. Co. 1991)Google Scholar.

30. Id. at 30.

31. Id.

32. See the writings of Brian Tierney; for example, Religious Rights: An Historical Perspective, in Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Religious Perspectives 17 (Witte, John Jr. & van der Vyver, Johan D. eds., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1996)Google Scholar.

33. Skinner, supra n. 18, at vol. 2, 239.

34. See Little, supra n. 17. Cf. Ashcraft, Richard, Revolutionary Politics & Locke's “Two Treatises of Government” (Princeton U. Press 1986)Google Scholar, for an emphasis, especially, on the connection between the Levellers and Locke (pp. 149-165). See Ashcraft's important, but partially misguided, essay, Religion and Lockean Natural Rights, in Religious Diversity and Human Rights 195 (Bloom, Irene, Martin, J. Paul & Proudfoot, Wayne L. eds., Columbia U. Press 1996)Google Scholar, and a brief response that is both appreciative and critical, in Little, David, Rethinking Human Rights: A Review Essay on Religion, Relativism, and Other Matters, 27.1J. Religious Ethics 151, 167–168 (Spring 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. On a recent trip to France for the purpose of investigating the strong anti-sect/anti-cult position taken at present by the French government, I was told repeatedly that the persistence of the “laicist” or anti-clerical tradition dating back to the French Revolution causes French people, and especially the government, to look with great apprehension upon expressions of religious fervency, such as the sects and new religious movements represent, particularly if they seem to be exerting significant public influence.

36. See Little, David, Studying ‘Religious Human Rights’: Methodological Foundations, in Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives 45, 50–52 (van der Vyver, Johan D. & Witte, John Jr., eds., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1996)Google Scholar.

37. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights art. 18, § 2 (12 16, 1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171Google Scholar.

38. Universal Declaration of Human Rights preamble (Dec. 10, 1948), U.N.G.A. Res. 217 A(III) <http://www.un.org/Overview/rights/html> (accessed on Mar. 23, 2002).

39. Id.

40. Id. at art. 2 (emphasis added).

41. The above two paragraphs are taken, in modified form, from Little, Rethinking Human Rights, supra n. 32.

42. Rom 2:15 (R.S.V.) [hereinafter, all biblical quotes refer to the Revised Standard Version Bible].

43. Id. at 3:19.

44. For example, versions of Pragmatism and Hobbesianism, some of which are widely influential these days.

45. John 18:36.

46. Id. at 18:37.

47. Phil 2:8.

48. Calvin: Institutes, supra n. 4, at bk. 1, ch. V, § 10, p. 62.

49. Id. at bk. 2, ch. II, § 23, p. 282.