In This House We Believe: Human Rights
My wife’s family has a neighbor down the street with a fairly popular sign in their yard. Perhaps you’ve seen it:
In this house we believe:
Black lives matter
Women’s rights are human rights
No human is illegal
Science is real
Love is love
Kindness is everything
The overall effect is something like that of a statement of faith, isn’t it? Do you think these convictions are present in our community, with our neighbors? I think they must be. Let’s see what the Bible has to say about these things, starting here in this first post with the concept of women’s rights.
The dangerous part about these slogans isn’t what they say; it’s what they leave out. Take the above statement “Women’s rights are human rights,” for example. Who could disagree with that?
But of course, we are led to think not of all women’s rights when we read this, but primarily of a woman’s right to abortion-on-demand services. And the implication? Those who don’t believe women should be free to abort their children are in opposition to basic human rights.
We shouldn’t forget, however, that the concept of rights, especially women’s rights, is a deeply Christian one. In Socrates’ explanation of the origins of the world, cowardly or immoral men became women. Beliefs like this were widespread in the ancient world, and came with consequences.
It was not uncommon in Rome, for example, for infants girls to be exposed to the elements after birth, as they were considered to be far less valuable than boys. These practices began to die out as Christians came preaching the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
The “household codes” found in various places in the New Testament (Colossians 3.18–4.1; Ephesians 5.21—6.9; Titus 2.1–10; and 1 Peter 2.18–3.7) are radically different from the household code found in Aristotle’s writings, in that Aristotle speaks only of the obligations of wives, children, and servants, and not of the obligations of a husband, father, and master. Our western concept of the dignity of human life and of rights for all wouldn’t even exist if the West had not marinated in the gospel for 2,000 years.
Unfortunately, in the absence of a Christian worldview, the fruit of that worldview will rot on the vine. If humanity is not made in God’s image, then basic human dignity is twisted. "Women’s rights,” far from being the right to life and dignity in God’s good world, become the right to end life in the womb.
But rights and dignity are given to us by God. They are given in the context of God’s purpose for creation and all humanity, a purpose marred by sin. The fact is, we were created in the image of God, and given certain dignity. But having broken God’s law, we have, each of us, forfeited our status as image-bearers, and are now deserving of nothing but death. It is only as the gospel of Jesus Christ deals with our sin and guilt before God that we are free to exercise our rights to live as we have been created to live, in holiness and in relation to our Creator and Redeemer.
Only in this context can women truly embrace their rights, not to kill their children in utero, but to be wives and mothers and women before the Lord.
Whose rights, at what cost?
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