By Matthew J. Frizzell 
and Catherine Striley 
Human Rights Team co-chairs 

Our world needs peace, and we’re here to explain there is more than one way to be a peace church. 

Peace churches pursue peace through nonviolence and pacificism. They pursue peace by naming past and present injustice, protecting the vulnerable, fighting poverty, and working for change and equality. 

Peace churches also pursue peace and justice through the struggle for human rights. 

We are co-chairs of the Community of Christ Human Rights Team. We don’t see a difference between Community of Christ faith and the struggle for human rights. Our faith tradition upholds the inestimable Worth of All Persons and human equality. Fighting for equal rights is one way we explain Community of Christ’s role as a peace church. 
 
Our Enduring Principle, Worth of All Persons, is a simple way to show how Community of Christ’s faith and human rights correspond or overlap. When we proclaim the Worth of All Persons, we proclaim the dignity and inestimable worth of each human being, regardless of characteristics: national origin, tribe or family lineage, caste, sex, gender, race or color, age, physical characteristics or abilities, mental ability, legal citizenship, language, property, or wealth. Worth as persons is not determined, limited, or ranked by such characteristics. None of these human differences affect our fundamental human rights. 

Community of Christ joins other Christians who believe human worth is founded on God’s image in each of us—our shared humanity.

On the contrary, our human differences and unique characteristics reveal how difference, change, and uniqueness reflect God’s image in each person and our shared humanity. 

Community of Christ joins other Christians who believe human worth is founded on God’s image in each of us—our shared humanity. This belief is among the universally accepted Christian foundations for inalienable human rights. 

Genesis 1:26–27 states that God created humankind in God’s divine image. Theologians call this reference imago dei, Latin for “image of God.” Over centuries, teachers, prophets, and scholars have tried to understand and explain what imago dei means. 

The ancients believed imago dei meant humans were made just a little below the angels. God’s image is why human beings have a soul. More-modern voices told that God’s image is revealed through human abilities, intelligence and reason, and stewardship over creation. Other interpreters emphasize that being made in God’s image means God and humans have an inalienable relationship. Human beings among creation possess an innate and unique spiritual capacity to commune and communicate with God. Other voices tell us that God saturates all of life, all of creation. 

Regardless of how we interpret imago dei, what is consistent is the idea that God’s infinite, holy, and eternal nature somehow is part of human nature or reflected in human nature. This belief is the basis of our inestimable worth and fundamental right to exist, be free, reach our potential, and thrive as human beings. Imago dei reveals how Community of Christ faith and the struggle for human rights underly other Enduring Principles. 

Sacredness of Creation reveals how human rights are inseparable from human responsibility. Human beings are part of God’s good creation.

Sacredness of Creation reveals how human rights are inseparable from human responsibility. Human beings are part of God’s good creation. Genesis 1:26–27 also states human beings are created as stewards of creation. The stewards of creation also are part of creation. If our inestimable worth and human rights bear the Creator’s image, human beings also don’t exist apart from creation. Our rights are limited by our responsibility for the sacred creation we are dependent upon and divinely part of. 

Responsible Choices takes this idea of responsibility further. Responsible Choices is an Enduring Principle based on the idea of human agency. Agency recognizes human freedom, but that freedom is not infinite. Agency recognizes our freedom to make choices and be responsible for those choices. This is why animals and toddlers have freedom but limited or no agency. 

Responsible Choices names our right to choose but also be responsible for the rights and inestimable worth of others. I cannot be responsible when I embrace my freedom but diminish or disregard the rights and freedom of others. Our agency is limited to the rights and responsibilities we share with others. Responsible Choices names our responsibility for the divine image we share and capacity to bear responsibility for how it’s shared and revealed through each person. 

Imago dei ties together Blessings of Community, Pursuit of Peace, and Unity in Diversity. The struggle for equal and shared human rights puts this faith into action and fulfills each. 

Blessings of Community states our faith that God’s image and nature are shared in community. No individual is wholly apart or separate from others. Our interdependence is part of our humanity. Science confirms that humans are born vulnerable and completely dependent on others to survive. This interdependence begins in physical survival and continues through human development and our potential for spiritual thriving. God’s image comes into fuller truth, beauty, and goodness in relationships and community. 

No individual is wholly apart or separate from others. Our interdependence is part of our humanity.

Pursuit of Peace is the work of bringing the Blessings of Community into its fullness. Peace is pursued through God’s justice as revealed in Jesus. Shalom, which means peace, also is shared well-being, a state in which human beings and creation coexist and thrive. More than just the absence of conflict, we pursue peace by struggling for shared, equal, and fundamental human rights. 

Unity in Diversity is our Enduring Principle that says peace is possible in our differences. 

Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle or shards making a mosaic, we have faith that God’s image is revealed in our differences. Unity in Diversity is not contradictory, but counterintuitive. Evidence supports our knowledge that individuals and groups react to differences we don’t understand with negativity and fear. 

Groups will diminish and dehumanize others with differences as enemies, aliens, and “other.” When unity is defined as conformity and sameness, Unity in Diversity names prophetic faith in something counterintuitive. Peace is possible even amid our differences. God’s image upon humanity is revealed in difference. Respecting God’s image in others and protecting our shared human rights makes Unity in Diversity possible. The path of God’s justice and peace is not through unity as sameness and uniformity. 

We don’t see a difference between Community of Christ faith and our shared struggle for human rights. The Enduring Principles proclaim a faith where our principles and the struggle for human rights unite. We believe that inviting others to join the struggle is an obvious way Community of Christ can share its mission and identity as a peace church and invite others to journey in peacemaking. 

As we sing  “We will walk with each other…we will work side by side…” (“We Are One in the Spirit,” Community of Christ Sings 359), the Worth of All Persons proclaims our faith as wide as humanity.