Human Rights: The Role of the State and the Church

Abstract

The role of state and church in foreign policy has become blurred in part because some religious figures on both extremes of the political spectrum have claimed for themselves semi-official standing in politics. In an era of crusading politics and ideological polarization, religious leaders have—more recently on the far right and somewhat earlier on the far left—asserted that they speak for a definable body of religious opinion. In making this claim and defending it as religious spokesmen, they have preempted for their followers free and open discussion of complex issues, including relations with the Soviet Union, American policy toward South Africa, and human rights. Ironically, their claim to speak for the religious right or the religious left, and by implication for the whole of the right-minded religious community, has come at a time when more detached observers and thinkers are inspiring a search for great clarity of thought on certain outstanding issues of foreign policy. For example, successive administrations in Washington, D.C. have redirected the focus on human rights from an essentially skeptical view (Richard Nixon Henry Kissinger) to a public campaign for human rights (Jimmy Carter) to a pulling back from too great an emphasis on human rights (Ronald Reagan). Thus, objective observers can point to a body of historical experience and public policy that illustrates how perplexing the molding of a human rights policy can be. Moreover, human rights are a manifestation of a larger issue with which the nation has struggled since its founding—the issue of morality and foreign policy. It is often asked why it is that the United States returns to the writings of the Founding Fathers preserved in The Federalist Papers and other early political writings. One answer is that Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John