We are not immune to the forces of history -- but neither are we helpless before them. We cannot lament paradise lost, but must find hope in the kingdom at hand. We must answer the fratricide and fragmentation of nationalism, with the brotherly love and integration of ecumenicism. We must teach our people tolerance, which is ultimately based on respect for the sanctity and rights of individual human beings. Indeed, if there is one place where the spiritual and secular universes converge, it is in the individual, in the human person.

Among those of us who place our faith in spiritual institutions, this means that of all the precepts of our diverse religions, the first principal must be the divinity or each and every one of God's children. Among those who place their faith in temporal institutions, this means that of all political principles, primary emphasis must go not to collective but rather individual human rights.

Indeed, this is one of many areas in which we as people of faith have something to teach our secular colleagues. In recent years we have heard some say that human rights are relative -- an unfortunate and potentially catastrophic idea. Man was created in the image and likeness of God -- and there can be no different standard of treatment for those human beings who happen to be Asian, another for Africans, and yet another for Europeans. Culture may be relative -- but humanity is not.