The Religious Heritage of Rights Talk: A Symposium
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Document Type
Lecture
Series/Event
Lectures
Abstract
Is religion opposed to rights? Does justice require curbing religious influence? Both popular and academic discussions of human rights tend to see religion as a threat. Thus 'enlightened' secularists are still given to alarmist accounts of how religious traditions squelch civil rights, or how confessional communities trample over human rights claims. On this account, only 'secular' democracy can secure justice, often precisely against the claims of religion. But this version of the story has been called into question by recent research. Two internationally-acclaimed scholars have a very different story to tell. John Witte, Jr., Robitscher Professor of Law and Direct or of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, will discuss the roots and origins of a modern account of human rights in early modern Calvinism. And Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology Emeritus at Yale, will dig back even further, arguing that modern intuitions about rights and justice are indebted to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures-and cannot be sustained by a wholly secular ethos.
Publication Date
3-31-2008
Recommended Citation
Witte, John Jr. and Wolterstorff, Nicholas, "The Religious Heritage of Rights Talk: A Symposium" (2008). Conferences and Lectures. 1495.
https://digitalcommons.calvin.edu/hh_av_conferences/1495