Christianity and Human Rights: Influences and Issues

A wide-ranging look at Christianity and human rights.

This book addresses the relationship of Christianity and human rights-a relationship fraught with ambiguity. While human rights discourse arose in a Christian culture, it has sometimes stood in opposition to organized Christianity. Christianity has been a champion of human rights; on other occasions it has been a major violator of them. Contributors to this book explore both positive and negative views of human rights arising from Christian traditions. Among the issues discussed are the sources of ideas on human rights, Christian influences on international human rights covenants and conventions, Christian theology and human rights, the right to change religions, Roman Catholic perspectives, and Christian peace activism and human rights. Christian discourse is juxtaposed with the proposed Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World's Religions, which is included.

Frances S. Adeney is William A. Benfield Jr. Professor of Mission at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the author of Christian Women in Indonesia: A Narrative Study of Gender and Religion. Arvind Sharma is Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Sleep as a State of Consciousness in Advaita Vedanta and Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination, both also published by SUNY Press.