On 15 May the usual crowd will be having a synchroblog on the theme of human rights, but this time we will be joining hundreds of other bloggers on the same theme. Obviously anyone is welcome to join, either in the synchroblog (which means having a list of links to other synchroblog posts) or to the general theme.
We had originally planned to make the synchroblog theme on Christian concern for ecology and the environment, but decided to postpone that to June, and follow the wider group with the theme of human rights.
One of the aims of this is to support the work of human rights organisations like Amnesty International.
7 Comments
5 May 2008 at 12:35 pm
Cool idea. I’m in.
7 May 2008 at 12:04 am
Great Idea- thanks for joining with the larger issue on this one. The issue of human rights affects every one and the only way we’re going to see real progress is for it to become a universal cry arising from the human family.
7 May 2008 at 8:48 pm
Great idea. Please let’s remember human rights are just that, and religion should not enter the debate. All humans should be welcomed to debate their rights – and the absence of rights for so many – without feeling excluded on faith grounds. The human family includes all regardless of race, faith, creed, etc.
8 May 2008 at 5:11 am
Bewilderbeast,
It is very important that religion should enter it.
For example the authors of the US Declaration of Independence wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
But whether they are “self-evident” is a moot point, because they are not necessarily evident to other people, like Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, George Bush and Tony Blair.
George Bush, for example, does not appear to believe that Iraqis are created equal to Americans, and certainly not that they have the same right to life, and there are some people his government has imprisoned at Guantanmo Bay who do not have the same liberty, and he has acted in such a way as to alienate these “inalienable” rights.
So there is room for debate on whether and how the Creator has indeed endowed all men with these and rights, and whether they are inalienable, or what it means to say that they are inalienable.
The invitation to blog about it on 15 May is open to anyone, regardless of religion, but the invitation to the synchroblog, as part of the wider effort, is to discuss it from a specifically Christian point of view, because religion cannot be excluded from the debate. One aspect of human rights is, after all, religious freedom, including the freedom to debate the issue from a religious point of view.
8 May 2008 at 2:43 pm
I am shocked and disguted you compare Robert Gabriel Mugabe to Idi Amin! Don’t you know the former is a deeply religious Roman Catholic Christian, while the latter is an Islamofascist?
Zimbabwe president Robert G. Mugabe is a deeply religious man, a Christian who regularly attends parish. He has never been ex-communicated, and his priest has commended him as an example to all Catholics!
President Robert is a former guriella who has led Zimbabwe from liberation from White-Protestant minority rule to its glory.
9 May 2008 at 11:35 am
Leemk, how serious are you ? Seriously..
19 May 2008 at 3:36 pm
Either you’re joking LeemK, or have fallen for some serious marketing that is entirely untrue.
If you’re correct in what you say, Robert Mugabe ought to get up to date with his own Catholic Church and have a review of the latest list of mortal sins (see http://www.futurechurch.co.za/item/updated-list-of-mortal-sins) He obviously falls short of these. His Priest is either lying (for whatever reason) or he is lying about his Priest. Or, in fact, he isn’t Catholic at all (evidenced by his Ancestral Worship antics– you would do a good job to do a little more research.) Whatever way, the facts speak for themselves.
Mugabe HAS led Zimbabwe into liberation from the previous racist regime. Pity that he couldn’t lead his country much further than that; pity that, in fact, he liberated Zimbabwe from whites only to enslave them to his own government and rule. He and his corrupt cabinet must go : that’s the bottom line.