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Can Christians Defend Human Rights?
Christianity & Human Rights
Christians understand that rights do not come from the Constitution nor are they granted to us by government. Rights are given to us by God. Government’s responsibility is to recognize and to protect those rights. — Albert Mohler
In developed countries, we are rarely met with the greatest threats to life, as was typical for our ancestors throughout history. Hunter-gatherers were met with predators when in the wild; peasants in France in the medieval ages were stricken by plagues that wiped out cities; and, the simplest ailments like a fever and wisdom teeth made life nasty, brutish, and short.
Today, we rarely send most of our young to fight our wars, we expect fair trials when accused of breaking the law, and we publicly protest when our governments do not guarantee us the freedoms that we think of as self-evident. It took a long time for these basic rights and freedoms to develop, however. And what is most troubling, is that many in the world do not have the same access to rights because either they are minorities whose expectations about their treatment in the world is met with prejudice or they are in countries that are ruled by…
