Human rights work is at the very center of the biblical message. As the Lord himself says it:
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.
Human rights work has therefore always been central at the School of Mission and Theology. It has been central in the theological anthropology that has been taught here, and it has been central in the missionary work of our graduates. Throughout more than 150 year, graduates from this school have been agents for change, also as far as human rights are concerned, in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe. Some have fought institutionalised slavery, others have fought oppression of children, women and various other socially or ethnically marginalised groups.
These graduates of ours were of course children of their time. And today, fifty or hundred or even one hundred and fifty years later, we can easily see that some of them were part of structures that contributed to the oppression of other human beings. History will probably be able to say something of the same about us; a western minority, willingly or unwillingly being part of economic and political structures that oppress the non-western majority.
Still, these graduates of ours had visions of participating in the liberation of oppressed human beings, visions deduced from the biblical message and the Christian faith. And on this background they fought institutionalized slavery, the oppression of children, and the oppression of women and various other socially or ethnically marginalised groups. Our challenge today is then to share their vision, and participate in the same fight, based on today’s interpretation of the same biblical message.
One of those many graduates of the School of Mission and Theology who throughout his life shared this vision, was the late Bishop Bjørn Bue. And in memory of him we have established an annual human rights lecture, where human rights activists from different parts of the world are invited to present and reflect on their struggle.
