Crooked human rights and restrictive freedoms

In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, many Christians had difficulty with it. It is not that they believe citizens shouldn’t have certain basic rights in relation to governments and each other. That in itself is legitimate. But the United Nations missed the notion that fallen humans have lost all rights to their Creator. Civil rights must also always be in line with the Word of God. Moreover, those Christians believed that human rights were a matter for sovereign nations, and not an issue for a world organization such as the UN.

No barrier against madness

The Dutch statesman Guillame Groen van Prinsterer (1801-1876) clearly understood the problem with the concept of human rights as it emerged at the time of the French Revolution. He writes in his ”Handbook of the History of the Fatherland”: ”As soon as authority and law do not come from above, they have their origins from below. Then they are based on arbitrariness and convention; They are conventional... As soon as this divine right of government (droit divin), as soon as sovereignty by the grace of God is denied, as soon as there is no legitimacy, no right on an unshakable basis, but legality, a right based solely on the change of circumstances of human law rest, then there is no barrier against the Revolution, even in its utter madness. … Beginning with the declaration of the rights of man, the Revolution will not end until the rights of God are recognised.”

Everything is made into a human right

What this revolution from below means, has become clearer in our time. Organisations concerned with human rights are increasingly expanding the definition of these rights. Abortion is being pushed as a human right. France became the first country in the world to include the right to abortion in its constitution. The European Parliament recently adopted a resolution to enshrine abortion as a fundamental right in the European Union. An unimaginable reversal of Divine laws: murder as a fundamental right!

The LGBT movement is also committed to anchoring and enforcing its ideology worldwide through human rights. ”Trans rights are human rights”, echoes Amnesty International . According to this organisation, these rights apply to everyone, including children. Legal gender recognition should be a fast, accessible and transparent administrative process, based solely on a person’s self-declaration. In addition to the right to murder children in the womb, there must also be the right to self-mutilate.

Recently, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of 2,500 retired Swiss women. They went to court to demand more protection from their own governments against climate change. Because insufficient climate policy damages their human rights, is the reasoning. The Court ruled in their favour. Global warming causes heat stress, which puts the right to a safe private and family life at risk. Absence of climate stress among citizens as a human right!

Rights and freedoms

Rights usually go hand in hand with freedoms. After all, freedoms provide the space to exercise rights. Rights and freedoms are two sides of the same coin. Here too, Christians have not traditionally been in favour of unbridled freedoms. Freedoms must be limited by the Ten Commandments, which God gave to His people. To give an example: freedom of expression is good, but God’s Name must not be blasphemed.

Curiously enough, freedoms are currently experiencing a reverse movement. For example, until a decade ago, freedom of expression was virtually unbridled in many Western countries. Sometimes to the sorrow of Christians. Now there is a movement towards curtailing this. However, the goal is the same as the expansion of human rights: to make room for new ideology.

That is why, for example, many governments are paying increasing attention to what is seen as ”hate speech”. According to ADF International, a legal advocacy network, hundreds of laws in this area are now in force in Europe. Finnish Parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen experienced what that means. She has been facing criminal charges due to her Biblical statements about homosexuality. After she was acquitted on appeal in November 2023, the prosecutor decided to appeal again to the Supreme Court. In April 2024, the court decided to proceed with the case. This issue is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. According to ADF, there are currently 79 active cases worldwide in the field of freedom of expression.

Continue to practice

Christians must pray for courage and faithfulness to survive in a world where rights and freedoms to practice faith are being restricted. Organisations such as ADF International and people like Päivi Räsänen show how Christians can aply this in practice.