S t u t t g a r t – The churches want to continue to be strong defenders of international standards for human rights. This became clear during an international conference at the Evangelical Academy, Bad Boll (near Stuttgart) in southern Germany. Sixty church representatives from 14 European countries participated in the meeting, including the General Secretary of the European Baptist Federation (EBF), Tony Peck (Bristol/Prague). He explained the Baptist stand on questions relating to human rights. As a religious minority, the Baptists have been concerned with the question of freedom of religion and faith since their beginnings over 400 years ago. Peck expressed the opinion that there undoubtedly exists a tension as far as human rights are concerned, since they can be derived from a biblically grounded moral stance, but also out of the secular understanding of universal human rights. Peck expressed that on the one hand there is indeed a broad measure of agreement; on the other hand, because of their convictions, the churches might be vulnerable to legal action, for example, concerning the rights of women and the employment of homosexuals in church organisations. Some churches reject this on the basis of their biblical convictions. In connection with this, Peck criticized decisions by the European Court of Human Rights in which secular interpretations of human rights could have serious consequences for faith communities. Even if he himself might not agree with the convictions of these communities of faith, it would be unacceptable for a dominant group to question the moral integrity of another group, he said. According to him, the moral convictions of Baptists are less the affair of individuals, but rather the common convictions of the faith community which holds them. Among the Baptists, this community is mainly the local church.

Participants in the conference expressed the intention of further pursuing this dialogue, in order to support the churches in their human rights endeavours. The conference was jointly organized by the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches in Europe, the Church and Society Commission of the Conference of European Churches and the Moscow Patriarchate.