Theology and the Boundary Discourse of Human Rights

Author/Contributor(s):	Regan, Ethna ; Regan, Ethna
Publisher:	Georgetown University Press
Date:	04/14/2010
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

What are human rights? Can theology acknowledge human rights discourse? Is theological engagement with human rights justified? What place should this discourse occupy within ethics? Ethna Regan seeks to answer these questions about human rights, Christian theology, and Christian ethics. The main purpose of this book is to justify and explore theological engagement with the discourse of human rights, and to identify common ground between modern theologians and human rights activists. She defines human rights as a "dialectical boundary discourse of human flourishing, attributing to rights the position of protective marginality in ethics, i.e. rights are necessarily marginal in that they are not ends in themselves, but in this marginal position they play a crucial protective role." Regan finds justification for theological engagement with human rights in the writing of modern Catholic theologians such as Karl Rahner and Johann Baptist Metz and in liberation theology. She also examines and critiques counter-arguments to theological engagement from conservative Protestant and Catholic theologians such as John Milbank, Stanley Hauerwas, and Alasdair MacIntyre.