While religion and human rights often seem to clash, in this lecture and discussion Professor John Witte Jr will argue that religion and human rights ultimately need each other.

On the one hand, human rights norms need religions to bolster them. While there is value in declaring human rights ideals of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” or “life, liberty, and property,” these abstract ideals of a good life and a good society depend on the visions and values of religious communities to give them content, coherence, and concrete manifestation. Religions may also provide some of the essential meanings and measures of shame and regret, restraint and respect, responsibility and restitution that a human rights regime presupposes. Religions must thus be seen as indispensable allies in the modern struggle for human rights.

On the other hand, religion needs human rights for its own protection. While religious believers and groups might quietly accept the current protections of a modern human rights regime—the guarantees of liberty of conscience, freedom of exercise, religious non-discrimination and self-determination, and more—a passive acquiescence in a secular scheme of human rights ultimately will not prove effective. And failure to press unique religious rights claims will eventually leave many religious beliefs, practices, and communities too vulnerable to political dynamics of liberalism and anti-liberalism. Religious communities must reclaim their own voices within the human rights discourse, and reclaim the resources internal to their traditions to engage and affirm human rights.

This event will be moderated by Dr Marietta van der Tol.