John Witte's review of Samuel Moyn on Human Rights and Christianity

In the latest issue of Books & Culture, there is a review by Prof. John Witte of Samuel Moyn's new book, Christian Human Rights.   Like everything Witte writes, it is well worth a read.  Here's a bit:

Human rights norms ultimately need Christian or comparably sturdy religious or philosophical narratives to ground them, and to adapt and apply them to the culture of each local community. There is, of course, some value in simply declaring human rights norms of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” or “life, liberty, and property”—if for no other reason than to pose an ideal against which a person or community might measure itself, to preserve a normative totem for later generations to make real. But, ultimately, these abstract human rights ideals of the good life and the good society depend on the visions and values of human communities and institutions to give them content and coherence—to provide what Jacques Maritain called “the scale of values governing [their] exercise and concrete manifestation.” It is here that Christianity and other religions must play a vital role. Religion is an ineradicable condition of human lives and human communities. Religions invariably provide many of the sources and “scales of values” by which many persons and communities govern themselves. Religions inevitably help to define the 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, along with many other philosophical, moral, cultural resources. To exclude them from the struggle is impossible, indeed catastrophic. To include them, by enlisting their unique resources and protecting their unique rights, is vital to enhancing the regime of human rights.

The review is appreciative, but critical (persuasively so, I think).  Check it out.