Reflections On "Religious Faith and Human Rights”

This is heavily revised from an inadevetent posting of a draft earlier in the week. I hate it when I screw up. Thank heaven's I am not being graded!

*****************************
Recently, Dr. Williams delivered a lecture titled, “Religious Faith and Human Rights.” On web discussion sites, the lecture received less than complementary reviews. My purpose here is to make two assertions: that the response to the lecture is rather more a response to a failed leader than the content of the lecture: and that the content should be given a much more serious reading.

First let me consider the reaction. On a very prominent web site OF COURSE I COULD BE WRONG, we read from the blog owner, “GRAND TUFTI ARGUES THAT PEOPLE ARE NOT RECOGNISABLY HUMAN.” [1] Now that is one inflammatory headline! I shall argue below that it captures something of the way Dr. Williams has acted, but nothing of what he wrote and delivered.

As quoted on the web site, Dr. Williams said, “’Equal liberty is at root inseparable from the equality of being embodied. Rights belong not to the person who can demonstrate capacity or rationality but to any organism that can be recognized as a human body, at any stage of its organic development,' he stated.”[2]

Dr. Williams did indeed write and read (as far as I can determine) the statement. What the blogers have done is conclude that because Dr. Williams has treated Bishop Gene Robinson shabbily, he necessarily considers the bishop outside the parameters he is enunciating here. That is, if the archbishop has a working definition of ‘person’ and if the archbishop treats someone in a way that violates my sense of justice, he must, ipso facto be defining that person outside the defined boundaries of personhood. The idea is I submit too simple.

In fact, I think it clear that Dr. Williams has acted badly.

He has as convener of the upcoming Lambeth Council, refused to invite a number of bishops. Among these are a number of bishops serving American parishes but ordained by non-American (principally African) provinces.[3] A special case is a supporter of the current dictatorship in Zimbabwe.

Bishop Robinson however, is another case entire. He was clearly elected bishop by a competent jurisdiction, The Episcopal Church. He serves as ‘ordinary’ (the bishop in charge) of the diocese of New Hampshire within the canonically recognized province. No one has filed any charge that might lead to his removal against him.

No one could deny Bishop Robinson is controversial; he is an openly partnered gay man. Archbishop Williams knows or should know that he has invited other gay bishops from his own province. The key word here is, ‘openly.’ Those invited are less honest.

My conclusion is the same as the bloggers, Bishop Robinson has been treated badly.

But, it is a leap to say that Dr. Williams has denied Bishop Gene’s standing as a human person. In fact, Dr. Williams was being provocatively inclusive. His definition of a human person clearly reaches into pregnancy.

At issue are several items. First does being a person mean one is entitled to an invitation to Lambeth? Second, if at all, does Dr. Williams conduct as the convener of the Lambeth Council arise from the concepts in the essay? Finally, what is value of the essay on its own merit?

First, we know the answer, regarding invitations to Lambeth. Many personsbishops have been excluded in the past.[4] Personhood is not at issue, standing is. Who is invited to Lambeth speaks to the question of standing within a fragile concept, the Anglican Communion.

Second, based on the record, we can observe that politically expedient conduct that is disrespectful and in fact cruel, even towards friends, is within the scope of Dr. Williams’ treatment of persons.[5] Observing that Dr. Williams will toss a friend in to the path of rejection for political expediency is certainly not a defense of his conduct, and I have not intended to defend him. Sitting atop the Church of England hierarchy, with its press office and a nearly inevitable life peerage before him, he requires no defense from laity. Frankly, I think his actions indefensible.

None-the-less, there is no real reason to think his political actions arise from the concepts in the essay. Dr. Williams seems very able to compartmentalize his conduct. The academic who wrote the essay seems to occupy a different space, distinct from the political archbishop who dismissed New Hampshire and its bishop.

Let me offer one conclusion here: it is way to easy for all of us to dismiss ideas because the person advancing them has acted badly. No one can I think conclude that the archbishop has acted well. His ideas in the essay however may still be worthy. The glib dismissal of his ideas as a way to explain the conduct towards Bishop Robinson is to simple by half.

What then of the third question? How do we evaluate the content of the talk and essay?

Dr. Williams begins by observing that for some time, the magnificent poetry of the Declaration of Human Rights, the Magna Charta, and the Declaration of Independence has not been convincing. Quoting Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue, that there are in fact, “no such rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and in unicorns' (pp.66-7).” Rights were found in humanity McIntyre and Dr. Williams suggests, because older paradigms of morality were broken and the modern writers were seeking new ones.

Reaching back through the history of Hebrew and Christian thought on slavery, Dr. Williams suggests a thread. That thread is that some portion of humanity, of personhood survives even ownership, especially if the person is baptized. [6] Looking at the Hebrew and Christian history of thought regarding slavery he finds a consistent view that any human body, as such has standing as a human person.

Dr. Williams suggests that the key is exactly a recognizably human entity.[7] A human body is all that is required.

Now that is devastating analysis if it stands. It is devastating especially to our ‘choice’ ethos which posits that a person is defined by viability.[8] If a human body is all that is required, then as define that body, we may find it includes entities that are not in any sense viable. After all, my body is a continuum. If we observe the body at the macro level, a fetus does not initially appear to be embodied but at the detail level, its DNA is exactly the adult’s DNA.

Consider some implications. I have been in conversation for some years with a man whose views of; “race” are sharply different than mine. He argues that African-Americans are “other.” Frequently his view is that because of some characteristic, profile, lips, hair or even hip size, the African is an inherently less human person. On which basis he argues for any number of things ranging from forced, “repatriation” to Africa to ethical disapproval of ‘mixed marriages.”

What I think is happening here is a conversation about embodiment. If Dr. Williams is correct and personhood attaches to the body that is to the creation by God then one cannot be defined as superior unless one finds a way to deny recognition of the body of the other as human. Clearly that won’t work at either the gross physical level, or the DNA. One is left with cosmetic characteristics or performance on tests written by a dominant culture.

Similarly, the efforts of the “right to life” activists to make fetal images visible in posters, political campaigns and “public service” advertisements takes on a new meaning. If we recognize the body, we are aborting persons.

It seems to me that a discussion of how we recognize embodiment is a critical next step in the conversation on race, abortion, and ‘rights.’ Where that conversation may take us I do not know. But that we need to undertake it seems clear.

So, I think, the talk Dr. Williams delivered, on its merits, is worthy of discussion and even controversy. It is not about Lambeth, it is about who humans are in God’s order of things and what we carry with us as humans. That is heady stuff, not easily dismissed and certainly not to be dismissed because the messenger is capable of political expediency. Certainly we should be considering, if our secular world is considering (it is) what a human is what human rights accrue.


[1] http://revjph.blogspot.com/ as posted on 2 May 2008
[2] Ibid para. 3 quoting: “Religious Faith and Human Rights” Dr. Rowan Williams 2008
[3] See for instance the AMIA bishops
[4] Most Lambeth invitation lists have not included assistants or academic bishops for instance seminary presidents.
[5] The reader is referred to withdrawn Episcopal appointment of Fr. Jeffrey John
[6] Williams para 5
[7] Williams para 7
[8] Cf. Roe v. Wade