"But what will count is a perhaps not numerous centre, big enough to be at home in both the old and the new, painstaking enough to work out one by one the transitions to be made, strong enough to refuse half- measures and insist on complete solutions even though it has to wait." - Bernard Lonergan

In 1976, the Alliance published a brief statement on the theological basis of human rights. Many things have changed in the two decades since then - for better or worse - both in the world and in theology. We thought it was time to look again at the continuing struggle for human rights and at how we might understand theologically our involvement in that struggle. By a happy coincidence, similar thoughts occurred to the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation, and so the WARC initiative led to a tripartite consultation on the subject in Geneva in March of last year.

Our original intention in revisiting the 1976 statement had been to revise and update it. During the consultation, it became apparent almost at once that mere revision would not suffice. What was required was a fundamental rewrite.

That work is still in progress. Meanwhile, to stimulate further reflection in our member churches, we are publishing some of the papers from the Geneva meeting. This is one of our celebrated "double issues in two parts".

In this first part, we publish a theological analysis by Alan Falconer, who reviews the history of the emergence of the 1976 statement and proposes a line of theological reflection complementary, rather than in opposition to, the statement's; Jill Schaeffer's brisk survey of the history of WARC's commitment to justice and human rights since 1875; and Clement John's analysis of the first half-century of UN and WCC involvement with the same concerns. John's paper develops points he made during his presentation in March last year; but in its present form it was written for the WCC's own review of its human rights work in Morges, Switzerland, later this month. Even in this form, it should be regarded as a working paper.

The second part, to appear in September's Reformed World, will carry articles by Russel Botman, Julio de Santa Ana, Charles Harper and Sun Soon-Hwa on the four foci of the Geneva consultation.

Páraic Réamonn