Human Dignity

This seems like an easy subject to cover but I think there are two major ways in which we have distorted this and we need to set right.

Animals/Plants

The first way is in comparison to other living organisms on earth—this one we are going to cover very briefly.

In Spain, they have passed a law protecting apes with the same laws and protection as humans.

According to the Guardian, “landmark legislation to enshrine human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos.”

They should enjoy the right to life, freedom and not to be tortured—one note the acknowledge no knowledge of experiments with Apes in all of Spain yet the forced this law through.

This protected apes from torture and captivity and even death. It also banned apes in circuses, television commercials and films and greatly restricted use of them in zoos.

The bottom line is this—society wants to protect animals with the same laws and restrictions as humans

In Switzerland and other parts of Europe they had done the same with plants

It is legal in some countries to cut your grass but if you were to pick wildflowers you could be committing a crime

Society has tried to equate animal or plant rights with those of humans. There is one major issue with this: God did not intend it to be that way. Why do we know this? God made us in His image.

Genesis 9:6 ESV

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

There is punishment for those that kill man, not animals or plants. God has special protection for humans because he made them in His image.

There is a place for animal rights, as in animal cruelty. Christians have long defended this; William Wilberforce (who knows who that is?) was in charge of an animal anti-cruelty group.

The point should not be to protect the “rights” or “lives” of animals, but rather to respect and care for God’s creation. We are to be good stewards but we do have dominion over animals, plants, etc.

Humans

Psalm 8 ESV

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

We have been created with intrinsic dignity, far greater than anything else. We are far greater than any other created thing and it is an insult to try and elevate anything to the same level as humans because we are made in God’s image.

We have a problem with not valuing human dignity when it comes to other humans as well.

One way we do this is through thinking we as Christians are superior; we are somehow better than others

Why is this a problem?

We are all broken, sinful image bears with nothing to bring to the table

All of us, who know Christ, are subjects of God’s mercy and grace, nothing that we have done is part of this equation

Ephesians 2:1–5 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Titus 3:3–5 ESV

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

Both of these passages remind us we have nothing to do with our salvation and we are not any different than any other religion or group when it comes to human value or dignity

We also struggle with human value when it comes to race, age, gender, etc. Christians should be on the frontlines when it comes to civil rights in the sense of caring for and protecting other groups of people.

Galatians 3:28 ESV

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:11 ESV

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

We who know Christ are now in Christ and this unity goes above any race, culture, socio-economic, gender or identity status

I took the time to read the Letter from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It has been a while since I have read it, and it was eye opening to me. Dr. King is writing a letter to the church leaders who are calling him out for being part of peaceful protests. I don’t want to get into it too much but I have two quick comments:

Dr. King had a legit reason and rational for his protest. He works through in the letter the steps they took before they get to their last step, which they called direct action which included peaceful marches. He even went out of his way to postpone demonstrations to accommodate mayor elections and other city events. They tried to make change through laws and elections but in the south there were entire negro communities who were not able to register to vote and so an entire ward or district didn’t even elect their local leaders.

Dr. King believed that all humans should be equal. Unlike the current movement, there was legit reasons and circumstances that forced them to take a stand. There is a paragraph in the letter that makes your stomach turn and if I had time I would read out loud about things they were dealing with that were not okay.

We as believers believe in equality of man. There is no superior race, people group or religion.

Ultimately, and I believe this is Dr.King’s main argument, it was believers, the church, the scripture that fleshed out this concept of “universal human rights” and it stems from an understanding that all men and women are made in the image of God.

All religions, cultures and civilization take their ideas on human rights from the concepts developed by Judeo-Christian tradition.

“Egalitarian (belief in human equality especially in respect to social, political and economic rights) universalism (Applies to all), from which sprang the ideas of freedom and social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, of the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct heir of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love.”

That is a mouthful to say the concept of justice and love from scripture is where all the world gets their understanding of universal human rights.

The entire world is broken down into two groups:

a. those in Christ are united by a common bond, all that matters now is that we are in Christ.

b. Those who are not in Christ are united by a common bond, they are enemies of the most-Holy God and on the road to destruction.

"All of this obviously just scratches the surface of this issue. But in an era of easy abortion coupled with ultrasounds and genetic testing to determine if the child is worth keeping alive, of designer babies, of calls for legalized euthanasia, and a host of other challenges to human life and worth in our culture, we as Christians need to rediscover and recommit to the centrality of the image of God for determining human value.” (p18)

This has to do with religion. This has to do with sanctity of life. This has to do with end of life care. This has to do with race. This has to do with our view of the world. The way we view our value and worthy in comparison to the world effects everything we believe in.