Conference Sources of Human Rights: Religion’s Role in Defining Human Dignity Sunday, October 6, 2002

Andover Newton Theological School and Hebrew College Newton Centre, MA

At a time when headlines are dominated by human rights abuses worldwide, the ways in which religions define human rights merit closer scrutiny. Are human rights divinely ordained? Does one have to believe in God and divine revelation as the source of human rights, or are there equally valid secular sources for fundamental human rights? Do human rights, by definition, refer only to individuals, or to collective rights as well? Are human rights universal or dependent on specific cultural and religious attitudes toward other faiths, women, children or social groups? These are among the challenging questions to be debated and discussed by scholars and lay leaders in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism at this two-day conference on the neighboring campuses of Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Presented by The Interreligious Center on Public Life, the Toleration Project at Boston University, and The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.