THE RIGHT TO RELIGION
Keywords:
Religion, Resurgence, Religious Roots, Human rightAbstract
In the so-called ‘post-secular’ age of today, religions have come back to be determinant. This is not always a blessing, for today a possible global disaster due to religious conflicts keeps looming behind global relationships. In such a situation, modern human rights are in a strategic position to serve as a middle path or a meeting point among different religious interests. Nevertheless, while in the past religious traditions have helped to give birth to the human rights system, today the relationship between the former and the latter is much more complicated. On the one hand, the exercise of religion may well be subject to the evaluation of the human rights, but on the other, human rights need to be reformed in the light of various religious traditions. This essay will explore the complexity of the problem while taking as the basic assumption the belief that religion is not concerned simply with the relationship with God, but also, and above all, with the development of human ideals, with the growth of humanity in general.
References
John Witte, Jr., et al ed., Proselytism and Orthodoxy in Russia: The New War for Souls, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999.
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im ed., Proselytization and Communal SelfDetermination in Africa, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999.
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph et al ed., Transnational Religion and Fading States, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Scott Thomas, “Religious Resurgence, Postmodernism, and World Politics,” in John Esposito et al ed., Religion and Global Order, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000, 38-65.
Ernest Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason and Religion, London: Routledge, 1992.
Hedley Bull, “The Revolt against the West,” in Hedley Bull et al ed., The Expansion of International Society, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, 217-28.
Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse, New York: Free Press, 1991.
Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, Jean-François Lyotard, and others in Max L. Stackhouse and Stephen Healey, “Religion and Human Rights: A Theological Apologetic,” in John Witte, Jr. and Johan D. van der Vyver ed., Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Religious Perspectives, The Hague: M. Nijhoff Publishers, 1996, 485-516.
David Little, “Religion and Human Rights,” Journal of Religious Ethics 27, 1 (1999), 151-77.
John Witte, Jr. “The Spirit of the Laws, the Laws of the Spirit,” in Max L. Stackhouse et al ed., The Spirit and the Modern Authorities, Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001, 86-87.
Robert Traer, Faith in Human Rights, Washington DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1991, 10-11.
Joseph Lecler, “Religious Freedom: An Historical Survey,” in Neophytos Edelby et al ed., Religious Freedom, New York: Paulist Press, 1966, 3-20.
R. H. Helmholz, The Spirit of Classical Canon Law, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996.
John Witte, Jr., “The Spirit of the Laws, the Laws of Spirit,” 100-101. 17Pacem in Terris (1963), paragraph 9.
Dignitatis Humanae (on Religious Freedom) (1965).
Rabbi Arthur Gilbert, “Religious Freedom in Jewish Tradition and Experience,” in Neophytos Edelby et al ed., Religious Freedom, 21-36.
Lamin Saneh, “Muhammad in Muslim Tradition and Practice,” in Max L. Stackhouse et al ed., Christ and the Dominions of Civilization, Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002, 301.
Jacques Maritain, Man and the State, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951, 110-11.