JACKSON, Tenn. — March 18, 2021 — The right to religious liberty is central to Baptist identity and conflicts with the modern view of rights without basis in truth, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said at the fifth annual David and Lanese Dockery Lectures on Baptist Thought and Heritage March 16 at 51社区.
Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Evangelical Theological Society, delivered two lectures on the topic 鈥淩eligious Liberty and Contemporary Baptist Thought鈥� in the Grant Events Center.
After an introduction and prayer by Ray Van Neste, dean of Union鈥檚 School of Theology and Missions, Mohler began his first lecture, entitled 鈥淩eligious Liberty and the Imago Dei: Why Recognize Any Liberty?鈥� by delving into the history of rights talk. He discussed the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Franklin Roosevelt鈥檚 Four Freedoms as examples of modern visions of human rights without metaphysical rationale.
鈥淭he problem ... is that most of the conversation about human rights and liberties offers no grounding whatsoever, no metaphysical grounding, no ontological grounding,鈥� Mohler said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 simply a moral assertion, and one of the things we need to recognize ... is that moral assertions apart from ontological reality don鈥檛 last long.鈥�
Mohler discussed the shift from conceptions of rights grounded in the idea of human dignity by creation in the image of God to rights talk centered on pre-political natural rights and finally, during the last century, to the idea of explicitly political rights. These new rights are not added to the old rights but rather push them away, Mohler said.
Mohler presented several theses on how Christians should understand human dignity and rights, arguing that all human beings have rights as a gift from God defined by him. These rights are based on creation in the image of God and are thus pre-political, but the government should affirm them. Central to these rights is the affirmation of 鈥渢he dignity of life as divine gift.鈥�
鈥淪uch rights will survive only if they are sufficiently acknowledged as gifts of the divine creator,鈥� Mohler said.
However, Mohler said, few arguments are being made today in support of the classical view of rights. As a group whose identity includes the right to religious freedom due to theological understanding and experience with persecution, Mohler called on Baptists to 鈥渞ecognize that religious liberty is at the front line鈥� of today鈥檚 crisis of the theory of rights.
鈥淏aptists both have been and must be the first-line defenders of religious liberty,鈥� Mohler said.
Mohler said that Christians should hold to a view of rights grounded in the biblical theology of humanity as bearers of God鈥檚 image whose souls belong to him and not to the Caesars of the world. He also examined historical understandings of rights prior to modernity鈥檚 secular vision of humans as having no rights beyond those bestowed by the government.
Mohler said the central conflict is between the classical view of human rights arising from human dignity and the modern view of rights that do not exist pre-politically.
鈥淲e have no reason to expect that religious liberty will be long respected by a secularizing society,鈥� Mohler said.
Mohler鈥檚 second lecture was entitled 鈥淩eligious Liberty and the Looming Crisis: So, Which 鈥楲iberty鈥� Shall Prevail?鈥� Both are available for viewing in their entirety at .