A “bill of rights” is a formal summary of those rights and liberties considered essential to a people or group of people. Most countries have a bill of rights. As Christians who desire to love others well we need a “bill of responsibilities”. Regardless of how we feel about another person they are made in the image of God and thus are of great value and worth. We need to treat people with that value and worth.
Here is an example of a “Bill of responsibilities” from Scazzero’s book “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” (pg. 188-189):
Respect means I give myself and others the right to:
- Space and privacy (i.e. knocking on doors before entering, not opening one another’s mail, respecting each other’s needs for quiet and space.)
- Be different (i.e. allowing preferences for food, movies, volume of music, and how we spend our time.)
- Disagree (i.e. making room for each person to think and see life differently.)
- Be heard (i.e. listening to each other’s desires, opinions, thoughts, feelings, etc.)
- Be taken seriously (i.e. listening and being present to one another.)
- Be given the benefit of the doubt (i.e. checking out assumptions rather than judging one another when misunderstandings arise.)
- Be told the truth (i.e. counting on the truth when asking each other for information.)
- Be consulted (i.e. checking and asking when decisions will affect others.)
- Be imperfect and make mistakes (i.e. leaving “room” for breaking things, forgetting things, letting each other down unintentionally, etc. )
- Courteous and honourable treatment (i.e. using words that don’t hurt, ask before using, consulting when appropriate.)
- Be respected (i.e. taking one another’s feelings into account.)
Up to this point, I haven’t written out a formal “Bill of responsibilities” like this. I need to sit down with my family and come up with our OWN. There will probably be things that we add and we may not use all of these suggestions. The point here is to come up with your own “Bill of responsibilities” that you will live by. I see great value in this.
What would you include in your “bill of rights”?
***** EDIT Peter P made a great comment on this post about the use of word “right.” Click here to read it. As a result, I am changing my wording from “Bill of Rights” to “Bill of Responsibilities.” I believe this better reflects what I am trying to get across with this life skill.
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Wow, this is the first time that I’ve actually disagreed with you!
You see, I do not believe in the value of a Bill of Rights.
I totally understand what you are saying and I can see how it can be helpful but my belief is that a Bill of Rights is counterproductive, instead you need a Bill of Responsibilities.
From everything I have seen, the Bill of Rights is the biggest stumbling block the USA has. People knowing and understanding their rights does not seem to foster an attitude of looking out for other peoples rights instead it makes people selfish, self-centered and arrogant.
Where a Bill of Rights is designed to give equal treatment to everyone, it instead makes people fight to defend their own rights and jostle for the right to do what they want rather than look to defend the rights of others, as is evidenced by the culture of litigation which surrounds us.
When God created a nation (the Israelites) He didn’t give them a Bill of Rights, He gave them a Bill of Responsibilities – the Ten Commandments.
Instead of telling someone ‘you have the right to do this and the right to expect that’, He said ‘Thou shalt not’ (albeit not in King James English).
A bill of responsibilities forces each person to look to thier responsibilities. If any person ignores his or her responsibilities then there are consequences – they get punished for failing in their responsibilities and thus denying someone else what we would call their ‘rights’.
In my opinion, your family should not have a bill of rights but instead should have clearly defined responsibilities.
It is my belief that responsibilities promote humility while rights promote pride.
Hey Peter! Thanks for your feedback. Healthy disagreement is a good thing!
I totally agree with what you are saying. I too am not a huge fan of Canada’s “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” for the very reasons that you mentioned. I do like your change of words from “rights” to “responsibilities.” When I wrote this yesterday I was hesitant to use the word “right” but I chose to stay with it because that is what Scazzero called it. I think I am going to go back and add an editorial comment to this post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Jesus, as always is our great example.
He had every right to be born in a palace. Every right to the throne of David, every right to live in luxury, every right to demand adoration, every right to defend His own rights.
But He didn’t.
Jesus focussed on his responsibilities, setting aside every ‘right’ to fulfil the responsibilities he had been given.
The really hard part for us comes when someone fails in their responsibilities and thus ignores our ‘rights’.
How do we respond in this instance?
I certainly see how battling within a democratic system to protect the rights of believers for the good of the nation could be justified…. but what about when our personal rights are violated?
Keeping our eyes fixed on our responsibilities to love, to do good to those who hurt us, to ‘turn the other cheek’, to remain beyond reproach etc etc can be pretty hard when our rights have been violated and we have been personally hurt.
I like your idea for a family ‘bill of responsibilities’ my question is how do you police such a think without people slipping into a culture of constantly looking out for your own rights?
Thanks again Peter for your thoughts! I think the whole point of responsibilities versus rights is that we are taking responsibility for our own actions. I am responsible to love others, turn the other cheek, etc. I can’t “make” other people do these things to me (this is where rights comes in). I can only be responsible for my actions and changing me. Does that make sense?
That’s exactly what we try to teach our kids.
So often we ask them why they were doing something that they weren’t supposed to be doing and their answer is “Well he/she was…”
We tell them “You’re not responsible for his/her actions, you’re responsible for yours. Doing something you shouldn’t do is not OK just because they were doing something they shouldn’t do!”