The Church warns that Britain's Human Rights Act is often used to defend secularism.
In a paper published in advance of the upcoming 2009 General Synod, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams expresses concern that the Act encourages individualism and diminishes the Church's traditional role as an authority in the field of ethics.
"Human rights is habitually used as a discussion-stopper, as the way in which we speak about aspects of social morality," Williams writes. Human rights legislation has become a "tool of secular liberalism" and Christians should view it with concern.
The paper, written by the Church of England's Mission and Public Affairs Council, warns "Some Christians might defend the wearing of crosses or crucifixes in terms of human rights.
"We need to be careful when adopting this line of argument.
"It is undoubtedly the case that much of the secular debate is couched in human rights terms, particularly since the passage of the Human Rights Act."
According to Williams, "a purely secular account of human rights is always going to be problematic if it attempts to establish the language of rights as a supreme and non-contestable governing concept in ethics." Read full article here