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This site explains the role of Christianity
in the development of the concept of human rights, with
specific reference to the UN's Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
Following a preamble,
the Declaration sets out 30 Articles, reproduced below on
the left hand side, along with a commentary on the right.
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Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act
towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
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This is contrary to traditional Christian
teaching, which held that not everyone is borne free and
that some have more legal rights than others.
For example, under the feudal system, explicitly
sanctioned by the Church as God-given, most people were
born into serfdom. Again, under cannon law illegitimate
children suffered numerous legal disabilities.
For many centuries almost all females in
Christendom were literally owned by their fathers, husbands
or other male relatives (if not by slave masters). Women
enjoyed much greater freedom and many more legal rights
in under the Greeks and Romans in pre-Christian times, and
that these rights were gradually removed by a programme
of Christianisation over many centuries during the Dark
Ages. Click here for more on
Christianity and its traditional approach to Women's Rights
For slaves the position was worse. The bible
clearly sanctioned the idea that people could be born into
slavery, and the Church sanctioned slave owning for many
centuries. The children of slaves belonged in Christian
law not to their parents but to their parents' owners. During
the 1,500 years of its greatest power the Church made no
attempt to stop the practice of slavery, and clergymen of
all main denominations were still slave owners at the time
of abolition. Click here for more
on Christianity and its traditional attachment to Slavery
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Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth
in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such
as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of
the political, jurisdictional or international status of the
country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it
be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other
limitation of sovereignty.
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The Christian Church has traditionally discriminated
against people on most of the grounds listed here.
Specifically, it has discriminated on the
grounds of race and skin colour (against non-whites), sex
(against women), religion (all regions outside specific
Christian sects), political opinion (eg against socialists
and communists), and social origin and property (eg practising
nepotism and discriminating in favour of nobles and churchmen),
birth (eg denying rights to illegitimate children and the
children of slaves), and other status (eg the sick and handicapped
- some of whom were debarred from marrying, some debarred
from becoming priests,and some such as the deaf denied the
right to become Christian thus being denied civil rights,)
Click here for more
on how Christianity has discriminated on racial grounds.
Click here for more
on how Christianity has discriminated against women.
Click below for more on how Christianity has
discriminated against and persecuted:
Click here for more
on how Christianity has discriminated on political grounds.
Click here for more
on how Christianity has discriminated on the grounds of social
origin.
Click here for more
on how Christianity has discriminated on the grounds of birth.
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Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
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These rights were unknown during 1500 years
of Christian hegemony, when Popes and Bishops could kill,
imprison and execute their enemies without any form of redress,
and often without even at pretence of a fair trial.
Well into recent times the Churches have
promoted the death penalty, denying the right to life. Some
still do.
Life: Click
here for more on Christianity and its traditional views on
Capital Punishment.
Liberty & Security
of Person: Click here for more on Christianity and its traditional
views on punishment and penal reform.
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Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and
the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
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As mainstream Christians pointed out for many
centuries, slavery was not merely permitted by God, it was
positively enjoined by God. To oppose slavery was therefore
to oppose the will of God. Churchmen themselves owned slaves.
As Clergymen pointed out the manumission of Church slaves
was impossible: these slaves belonged to God, and so only
God could authorise their freedom.
Click here for more
on Christianity and its traditional attachment to Slavery
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Article 5
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment.
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The Church not only used torture itself, in
many European countries it reintroduced torture after it had
been abolished.
A famous letter from a Pope to King Edward
II of England expresses outrage that the English common law
did not allow torture to be used.
Click here for more on
Christianity and its traditional attachment to torture and
to other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments and punishments
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Article 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person
before the law.
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Christianity taught that not everyone was
recognised by the law. Just as an Outlaw was not recognised
by the Civil Law, so anyone excommunicated was not recognised
by Ecclesiastical law.
Again, married women had no recourse to the
law, since the Church held that a woman's legal personality
was subsumed into her husband's.
Yet again, Church law did not recognise the
existence of certain categories of people. For example atheists,
dissenters and members of other religions could not make
wills, marry, , give evidence in court, hold public office,
or be represented in the legislature.
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Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any
discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled
to equal protection against any discrimination in violation
of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
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As has already been shown, not all were equal
before the law, nor did everyone enjoy equal protection of
the law.
To take the most blatant example, the Church
insisted that the ordinary law did not apply to Churchmen.
(Thomas Becket's disagreement with Henry II was based on
exactly this point - that Church law required discrimination
between Churchmen and laymen)
Among the minorities who did not enjoy the
full protection of the law in Christian times were: slaves,
women, children, excommunicants, pagans, Moslems, Jews,
heretics, blasphemers, apostates, the mentally ill, outlaws
and lepers.
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Article 8
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent
national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights
granted him by the constitution or by law.
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Since people did not enjoy any fundamental
rights - a concept alien to the Christian Church - the question
of legal remedies did not arise.
It is easy to find cases of people appealing
to the Church authorities for a fair trial and being denied
one - sometimes not receiving a trial at all: sometimes
receiving a trial that surviving documents reveal to have
been rigged.
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Article 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention
or exile.
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Under the Christian hegemony, pretty much
everyone other than the highest nobles were subject to arbitrary
arrest, detention and exile.
The concept of habeas corpus was and
still is unknown to Cannon Law.
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Article 10
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public
hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination
of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against
him.
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Under Cannon Law, cases were (and still
are) heard in camera. There was not merely an assumption
of guilt of the accused, but often an irrefutable presumption
of guilt - it was for example a crime to be merely suspected
of heresy (sic). Tribunals were almost never, if ever, independent
or impartial (Clerical Judges often stood to benefit personally
from sequestered goods).
Click here for more
on Christianity and its traditional idea of what constituted
a fair judicial hearing.
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Article 11
1. Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to
be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law
in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary
for his defence.
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The right to public trial and the presumption
of innocence were unknown to Ecclesiastical law.
There were none of the normal guarantees
of a proper defense - for example there was no right to
hear the charges, no right to examine prosecution witnesses
or even to know their identities, and no right to legal
representation. Under Church Law, judges also acted as juries
and persecutors.
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2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account
of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence,
under national or international law, at the time when it was
committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the
one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was
committed.
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Cannon Law has never acknowledged any problem with retrospective
legislation.
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Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with
his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks
upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to
the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
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During the Christian hegemony the Church was
free to interfere in all aspects of private life, Notable
examples are:
Obligatory Church membership
Compulsory Confession
No right to education
Strict sexual controls
Dietary restrictions
Restrictions on marriage
Control over books
Theatre and film censorship
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Article 13
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence
within the borders of each State.
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Under the Church sponsored feudal system,
most people did not enjoy freedom of movement and were restricted
in who they could work for and where they could live.
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2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including
his own, and to return to his country.
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These rights did not generally exist within Christendom.
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Article 14
1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries
asylum from persecution.
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The Church did allow a right of sanctuary
inherited from Roman Law but significantly watered down.
As the Trial of the Templars illustrated,
Church persecution was international.
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2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions
genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary
to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
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Article 15
1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.
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This is a concept unknown to Ecclesiastical
Law.
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2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality
nor denied the right to change his nationality.
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Although the Church traditionally had no concept of nationality,
it did have a concept of feudal allegiance. Under this concept
it was not permissible for anyone to unilaterally change
their allegiance, since their vassal status was sanctioned
by God.
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Article 16
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due
to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry
and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as
to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
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Men and women often did not enjoy the right
to marry or to found a family.
Examples include young boys sent to monasteries
for life and girls sent convents for life, and boys castrated
to provide singers for church choirs. For many centuries,
whenever they could, Churches prohibited marriage outside
their own particular sect. Marriage between Christians and
Jews often incurred capital penalties.
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2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full
consent of the intending spouses.
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Child marriages and other forced marriages were common for
well over 1000 years under Christian hegemony.
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3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of
society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
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Contrary to the views now encouraged by the Christian Churches,
Christianity has traditionally been hostile to family values.
As Christians never tired of pointing out until the nineteenth
century, Jesus himself insisted that his followers should
hate their families. Click here
for more on Christianity and Family Values.
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Article 17
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as
in association with others.
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As property themselves Christian serfs and
slaves could not themselves own property.
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2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
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Church law allowed, and it could be argued positively encouraged,
the sequestration of property. In some cases property was
seized by Church authorities from people on the grounds
that their ancestors had committed crimes.
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Article 18
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion
or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with
others and in public or private, to manifest his religion
or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
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The Christian Churches have historically opposed
all three of these freedoms.
For many centuries the Churches held that all
knowledge was contained in the bible, and that consequently
research and original thought were satanic. People's beliefs
- political, social and religious - were determined at birth
in Christendom by the dominant religious confession. It was
a crime to teach, or even to hold, any other faith.
Everyone dissenting from the dominant religious
confession risked imprisonment, torture and death. Victims
included apostates, "blasphemers", "pagans",
converts to Judaism, Islam or other religions, Gnostics, Ebionites,
Cathars, Waldensians, Hussites, Lollards, and members of thousands
of other sects. The Established Churches were trying to enforce
sectarian uniformity well into the twentieth century.
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Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression;
this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference
and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through
any media and regardless of frontiers.
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These freedoms did not exist under the Christian
hegemony, and were specifically denied.
Popes were still fulminating against freedom
of opinion, freedom of expression and freedom of the press
well into the nineteenth century, and maintained an Index
of prohibited books well into the twentieth. Even in the
twenty first century clergymen and theologians are not free
to express their opinions freely.
Churches have also prohibited the free exchange
of ideas through censorship of plays, films, videos, art
and other media.
Click here for
more on Christianity, its record of censorship and opposition
to the principle of freedom of expression.
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Article 20
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly
and association.
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This is a right unknown to traditional Christianity.
Non Christians generally had no right to life, let alone rights
such as this. Even Christians enjoyed such rights only if
they belonged to an approved sect.
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2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
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Religions are clearly associations, and many Churches have
tried to enforce membership. According to the Roman Catholic,
Orthodox, Anglican and many other Churches baptism makes
people, including infant children, members for life.
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Article 21
1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government
of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
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This right did not exist under the Christian
hegemony. The only people eligible to take part in government
were the beneficiaries of the Church sponsored feudal system
- including popes, patriarchs, cardinals, primates, metropolitans,
archbishops, bishops, abbots and priors.
In the Twenty First century the Vatican remains
the only absolute monarchy in Europe.
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2. Everyone has the right to equal access to public service
in his country.
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The idea of public services, popular in classical pagan
times, dwindled and perished in the Dark Ages under the
Christian hegemony. The idea of such services - libraries,
theatres, schools, public hospitals, sports grounds, police,
baths, and so on were revived as the power of the Church
diminished during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
The idea of people having equal access (for
example irrespective of their religion) is a characteristically
secular humanist concept.
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3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority
of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and
genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage
and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting
procedures.
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The will of the people played no part in the selection of
any government in any jurisdiction under Christian control.
Citing biblical texts, all Churches taught that all governors
were appointed by God. So it was that Popes, Emperors, Bishops
and Kings were all divinely appointed. To claim otherwise
was both treason and blasphemy. The ideas of genuine elections,
universal suffrage, and secret votes in national elections
were all opposed by all mainstream Churches until long after
they were established.
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Article 22
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social
security and is entitled to realisation, through national
effort and international cooperation and in accordance with
the organization and resources of each State, of the economic,
social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity
and the free development of his personality.
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N/A
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Article 23
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment,
to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection
against unemployment.
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No such rights existed anywhere that the Christian
Church held power.
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2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to
equal pay for equal work.
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No such rights existed anywhere that the Christian Church
held power.
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3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable
remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence
worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by
other means of social protection.
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No such rights existed anywhere that the Christian Church
held power.
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4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions
for the protection of his interests.
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No such rights existed anywhere that the Christian Church
held power.
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Article 24
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable
limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
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No such rights existed anywhere that the Christian
Church held power.
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Article 25
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate
for the health and well-being of himself and of his family,
including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of
unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or
other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
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No such rights existed anywhere that the Christian
Church held power.
The ideas of unemployment benefit, old age
pensions, disability benefit, etc are all characteristically
secular humanist ideas pioneered by people like Thomas Paine.
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2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and
assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock,
shall enjoy the same social protection.
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The only states afforded special recognition under Christianity
were Clerical Ordination and virginity. New mothers were
regarded as sinners, requiring a purification ceremony ("The
Churching of Women") before being allowed back into
the Christian community.
It was Cannon Law, rather than Civil or Common
Law that enforced discrimination against those born out of
wedlock.
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Article 26
1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be
free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary
education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional
education shall be made generally available and higher education
shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
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With a few notable exceptions, the Christian
Church enjoyed a monopoly of teaching and learning in Europe
for well over 1,000 years. During this time the bishops and
abbots licensed all teaching, with the result that education
was restricted to clerical candidates and rich families.
During the middle ages it became a criminal
offence for laymen to own or to attempt to read the Bible.
The Churches violently opposed the introduction in the nineteenth
century of free, secular, and universal education.
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2. Education shall be directed to the full development of
the human personality and to the strengthening of respect
for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote
understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations,
racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities
of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
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Historically, the prime purpose of education according to
the Christian Churches has been indoctrination. Where education
was permitted at all it was not directed at the development
of personality and the idea of respect for human rights and
fundamental was demonised, if it was considered at all.
The whole purpose of education under the Christian
hegemony was to perpetrate and strengthen the prevailing Christian
system of belief. For many centuries there was not the slightest
interest in genuine education, let alone promoting understanding,
tolerance or friendship among nations or between racial or
religious groups, just as there was no interest in research
or original thinking.
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3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education
that shall be given to their children.
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Since parents had no right to have their children educated,
and risked punishment if they tried to educate them themselves,
this question did not arise.
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Article 27
1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural
life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific
advancement and its benefits.
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No such rights existed under the Christian
hegemony.
All arts were either banned or restricted to
religious themes - eg painting restricted to Biblical stories,
theatre restricted to Mystery Plays, Singing restricted to
religious worship.
Any attempts at advancing science was likely
to invite accusations of heresy, eg Friar Bacon, Paracelsus, Da Vinci, Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, and thousands of other astronomers, alchemists, herbalists, anatomists, and other scientists - even philosophers and mathematicians.
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2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and
material interests resulting from any scientific, literary
or artistic production of which he is the author.
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This right was unknown to the Christian world until modern secular societies introduced concepts like copyright and intellectual property rights.
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Article 28
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order
in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration
can be fully realized.
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N/A
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Article 29
1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the
free and full development of his personality is possible.
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N/A
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2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall
be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law
solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect
for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just
requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare
in a democratic society.
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Christian Churches have sought to restrict all manner of
rights and freedoms. Among the many activities they have
restricted or prohibited have been freedom or worship, free
speech, scientific endeavour, sex, eating meat, drinking
alcohol, reading and writing, painting, sport, gambling,
entertainment and education.
Click here for more
on Christianity, its record of opposition to and control of
various types of ordinary enjoyments.
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3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary
to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
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Article 30
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying
for any State, group or person any right to engage in any
activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of
any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
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N/A
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