March 14, 2008

Greetings from Japan! It has been five months since we relocated in the Osaka-Kobe area and began our new ministries. There is much to report on, but today we’ll focus on an aspect of Tim’s work that has continued from before. For the last several years, Tim has served as the representative for the “Southern Presbyterian Mission in Japan,” which includes serving on the board of the Yodogawa Christian Hospital. On March 11, the anniversary of the founding of YCH, Tim preached a short message at the morning chapel to over 300 doctors and nurses. Since his message related to Tim’s work at the Buraku Liberation Center, we thought we would share the English translation with you:

What are “human rights?”

I have here a 1000-yen bill. Physically speaking, it is nothing but a piece of paper, but because the Japanese government puts its guarantee behind it, this piece of paper has a value of 1000 yen. As this bill is used in circulation, it will over time get dirty and perhaps even a bit torn. In fact, I can purposely crumple it up, throw it on the floor and grind my foot on it. So, how has this mistreatment affected the worth of this bill? Does the degree of wear and tear decrease its value to, for instance, 800 yen? Or if it really got dirty, would it only be worth 500 yen? No, of course not. It is still worth the same 1000 yen.

What if we apply that same principle to human beings? What is it that determines our worth as human individuals? Just as it was the guarantee of the creator of the 1000-yen bill that gave the bill its inherent value, so it is the guarantee of the Creator of each of us human beings who determines our inherent value. Unfortunately, however, this principle is not often realized in the world we live in.

Since last October, I have been working on the issues of “human rights” and “discrimination” through the ministry of the Buraku Liberation Center of the United Church of Christ in Japan. In our brief time together this morning, I would like to look at this issue of what “human rights” really are and what they are based in.

First of all, we need to ask “What is the basis for “human rights?” How is it that the “human rights” we normally think of came into being? Did they simply evolve on their own in various cultures? Or is there something from outside of the human experience that they are based in? The biblical answer to this question is that our value as human beings comes from each of us having been created in the “image of God.” This is the inherent value present in each human being, and it forms the basis for human rights.

If, however, this biblical view of human beings and the resultant human rights they possess is wrong, and if we have simply evolved from lower life forms by random-chance mutations and natural selection alone, as Darwinian evolution proposes, then the “natural” social order should indeed be “the survival of the fittest.” Following this to its logical conclusion would mean that society should simply follow the “law of the jungle” and let the weak die off.

We rightly cringe at such a thought, but why should this be the case? It is because we truly are “created in the image of God,” the very grounding of human rights? If this were not so, then our present concepts of human rights would merely be a construct of each culture and we would have no valid basis for criticizing the abuse of “human rights” (as we perceive them) by anyone else. But intuitively, we know that there really are universal human rights.

Discrimination that is based on who a person is (as opposed to what he or she has done) is in direct violation of these universal human rights. Discrimination of people based on who they are as opposed to what they have done—such as is the case with buraku discrimination—is one form of such sinful behavior. It is based on the misperception that certain people are inferior because of their family heritage. The same can be said of racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic discrimination, along with discrimination due to a variety of handicapping conditions. No one can choose such factors in his or her own life. They are a given, and so making value judgments based on such factors is what leads to the injustice of discrimination.

Who you are is God’s gift to you. What you do with what you’ve been given is your gift to God. It is true that God judges us based on what we’ve done, but he values us based on who we are—namely, as creatures created in God’s own image. As a result of how much he values human beings, he became one of us and then gave his life for us on the cross to provide the basis for the forgiveness of our sins. Because every human being is created in God’s image, God wants all of his children to likewise value other human beings based on that and not on any contingencies such as one’s family tree or social status.

So, let us remember that we truly are created in the image of God, and this is what our value as human beings is based on. There is nothing else that can really serve as the basis for human rights.

Let us pray: O God, as people who live in a society filled with various forms of discrimination, we often forget what our value as human beings is really based in, and we end up devaluing other people and causing them pain. Help us to pause and think deeply about what it means to be human and who we really are as your unique creations. Lead us into a proper understanding of that and help us to work together towards a society in which all humans are valued and given dignity. For it’s in Christ’s name that we pray.

Blessings,

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 249