Human Rights, Got any?

When it comes to men governing men Christians understand that God is the source of human rights but just how does He bestow them?

I think that the answer to this "how" question will determine how we go about redeeming government.

I will tell you my aim in beginning this discussion. I hope to persuade my fellow Christians that God grants human rights only to individual human beings NOT to groups or institutions.

The importance of this distinction will become clearer as it is fleshed out.

I offer this quote as a beginning,

" Individualism holds that man has inalienable rights which cannot be taken away from him by any other man, nor by any number, group or collective of other men. Therefore, each man exists by his own right and for his own sake, not for the sake of the group.

Collectivism holds that man has no rights; that his work, his body and his personality belong to the group; that the group can do with him as it pleases, in any manner it pleases, for the sake of whatever it decides to be its own welfare. Therefore, each man exists only by permission of the group and for the sake of the group.

These two principles are the roots of two opposite social systems. The basic issue of the world today is between these two systems."