From religious freedom to social justice: the human rights engagement of the ecumenical movement from the 1940s to the 1970s

This article contributes to the historiography on human rights and (religious) internationalism by tracing how the ecumenical movement in the post-war decades sought to protect the religious freedom of its co-religionists in Catholic and Muslim countries, specifically Italy, Nigeria, and Indonesia. In cooperation with local actors, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs worked to anchor international human rights in the domestic sphere through constitutional provisions. These activities constituted a significant strand of Christian human rights engagement from the 1940s to the 1960s, which intersected with the Cold War and decolonization. The article then contrasts this with the turn to a more pluralistic and communitarian conception of human rights in the 1970s, animated by liberation theologies. As the World Council of Churches embraced a ‘revolutionary’ tradition and worked to resist military dictatorships in Latin America, racism, and global inequality, it gravitated towards Marxism-inflected and anti-colonial strands of human rights discourse.