UUSC Board Chair Delivers Thought-Provoking Lecture on Religion, Torture, and Human Rights

On Wednesday, May 2, the Rev. William Schulz, former long-time director of Amnesty International USA and current chair of UUSC’s board of trustees, spoke at Harvard Divinity School on the topic of "Religion, Torture, and Human Rights." His wide-ranging remarks connected the recent ascendance of neoconservative political philosophy to the foundational moment of American exceptionalism – the creation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and John Winthrop’s sanctification of it as a “City Upon a Hill.”

He noted that the act of holding one’s society up as model for others to follow is predicated on assumptions of inherent moral superiority. Such a position is, at best, precarious, and can lead easily to disdain of other societies that decline to follow the “model” society’s lead.

This disdain can lead to contempt, as has been illustrated all too vividly by the attitudes and policies of the U.S. government of the past six years, vis-à-vis the international community. Of equal concern, this same arrogance and hubris have also instigated disregard for key precepts underlying the best of the American model: due process of law, respect for minority rights, and unqualified rejection of torture.

The continuing influence of American exceptionalism on political thought, at least as exemplified by neoconservatism, has not served the United States well in the contemporary world. Although contempt for world opinion and disregard of key principles of our own society are linked, the latter, especially, has been most damaging to the United States’ standing.

Our greatest resource, Schulz argued, and the true source of American standing in the world, derives from those moments when U.S. society has been at its best, when due process and minority rights have been protected and advanced. Indeed, these very values lie at the heart of the leadership role played by the United States when the instruments and institutions comprising the foundation of modern human rights were devised.

To the extent that the current government has enacted policies and practices contrary to those values, the United States’ greatest resource has been diminished, placing human rights in grave, unprecedented danger.