Baptists and Human Rights at the United Nations
By David F. D’Amico
Introduction
Human rights issues clamor for the attention of interested Christians around the world. The suffering minorities oppressed politically, economically, and religiously in many countries of the world – Myanmar, Egypt, Syria, Indonesia – to name a few, receive some media coverage in the United States.
Baptists have championed human rights, concentrating their efforts on religious freedom, from the days of Thomas Helwys against King James I in 1611, to the present.
On December 10, 1998, the UN commemorated the 50th anniversary of the adoption by the General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) approved in Paris on that date in 1948. I was a participant of forums, conferences, and celebrations. It is appropriate as the 63rd anniversary is remembered on December 10, 2011, to survey some of the salient aspects of Baptist participation.
I. The organization of the United Nations
Leaders representing mainline Protestant denominations were active in the preliminary discussions leading to the creation of the UN. Forty-two non-governmental (NGO) international organizations were invited for the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944. Many were religious.
The ecumenical Protestant community organized in 1948 into the World Council of Churches had strived in the interwar period for an international world organization. John Foster Dulles, a Presbyterian elder, and later secretary of state, became the principal adviser to the United States delegation in San Francisco in 1945. There were Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Methodists, Presbyterian and Baptists significantly involved in the deliberations of the conference leading to the formation of the United Nations.
Enlightened Baptist leaders participated actively in the proceedings. J. M. Dawson, the chairperson of the Baptist Joint Committee of Public Relations, now Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, narrated in his memoirs the sense of expectancy he experienced when he attended, in 1945, the organizational meeting of the United Nations in San Francisco. “To that meeting I carried a hundred thousand petitions from Baptists, North and South, white and Negro, asking that the Charter to be adopted would include a guarantee of full religious liberty for every human being.” [Dawson, A Thousand Months to Remember, p. 161].
Dawson later addressed the Baptist World Congress in Copenhagen in 1947 setting high hopes for the value of the UN in world affairs. “We hope also for the United Nations to inaugurate a new birth of religious freedom for the world.” [1947 Baptist World Congress Minutes, p.71].
II. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Commission on Human Rights was established June 21, 1946, under the Economic and Social Council. Eleanor Roosevelt was chosen as chair. Dr. Charles Malik, from Lebanon, was the rapporteur. It met in three long sessions between 1946 and 1948. It drafted the UDHR which was adopted in Paris, December 10, 1948.
An eyewitness reported about the membership of the commission in its political and religious composition.
“In half of the 18 countries comprising the Commission most of the population was Christian, in three it was Islamic, in one it was Hindu, and in five most of the people were officially regarded as atheist. . . .A BBC broadcast quipped about “eighteen politicians chosen to make a new draft of the Sermon on the Mount.” [Howard Schomer, “All Human Beings,” Gear–Global Education and Advocacy Resource,” June, 1998, p. 6.]
III. Baptists and human rights
The Baptist World Alliance, under the guidance of its Human Rights Commission, published a
Booklet, “Baptists and Human Rights,” written by James E. Wood, Jr. Under the auspices of Church World Service of the NCCCUS the Program Ministry for International Justice and Human Rights, a task force on the UN, of which I was a chairperson for two years while serving as CBF representative to the UN, actively promoted human rights issues through seminars, conferences and other venues.
The task force, in cooperation with the American Bible Society, launched the republication of the booklet, “Life in All Its Fullness: The Word of God and Human Rights.” One million copies were printed on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the UDHR and distributed to interested churches and organizations, including the then Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, led at that time by James Dunn.
IV. President Jimmy Carter and human rights
President Carter is an active Baptist layperson and has shown publicly how his religious beliefs have shaped his public life. He observed: “America didn’t create human rights. Human rights created America. [Dan Ariail & Cheryl Hcekler-Feltz, The Carpenter’s Apprentice: The Spiritual Biography of Jimmy Carter (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p. 72.]
One of greatest achievements of the Carter presidency was the Camp David Accord between Israel and Egypt in 1978. Since 1981, the Carter Center in Atlanta has been devoted to many initiatives. Among the many aspects of the work of the Center one, the Human Rights Program is directed by Karin Ryan, director, Human Rights Program. In 1994, the Human Rights Program formed the International Human Rights Council, chaired by President Carter and comprised of 28 leaders from around the world.
Conclusion
As Baptists continue their efforts for religious liberty and human rights, we are the inheritors of peace and justice. Although human rights are a lofty ideal, individuals and nations are still struggling to measure up to the model of the Prince of Peace and to enforce all human rights for all peoples of the world. Baptists must pray, become informed, and earnestly attempt in their own spheres of influence to be God’s instruments for human rights.
Amid the uncertainties of the status of the political implementation of human rights, communities of all the world religions will continue to play a significant role in the 21st century.
