Crowned with Glory and Honor : Human Rights in the Biblical Tradition. This item is unavailable.Crowned with Glory and Honor : Human Rights in the Biblical Tradition

Book by Marshall, Christopher D.

Marshall begins with a short overview of the development, since the eighteenth century, of human rights language from natural law theory, then natural rights theory, and then human rights thought--a shift from law to rights and from natural to human. That dual shift coincides in his account with a secular declaration of independence from the religious foundation of rights language, a move that he says renders that language increasingly individualistic and incoherent. He proposes reconnecting rights language to a biblical tradition consisting of a narrative of "moments"--creation, stewardship, covenant, incarnation, church, and consummation--out of which human rights emerge. Marshall's succinct genealogy of rights language constitutes useful grounding for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that appears in an appendix. This biblical argument may be most appealing to Christian readers, but it is also an invitation to secular readers to consider questions of universality in relation to local cultural variations and to consider future orientation--hope--when forming structures in the service of justice for present and future generations. Steven Schroeder
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