DAVID F. LLOYD in his essay “Rights verses Responsibilities” Summer 2001 Issue of Vision:… RIGHTS OR BLESSINGS? Interestingly, God never promised rights. He promised blessings, and that is the critical difference. A self-sacrificing individual who serves his or her society, a people that truly looks to God, doesn’t need to be and indeed isn’t focused on rights. Such people are focused on other people and on God, and on their responsibilities to both. This is the lesson of social responsibility: “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Romans 13:9). Our narrow and selfish preoccupation with our rights threatens to engulf and destroy us. It is not until we begin again, as individuals and as nations, to look outside ourselves to our religious, moral and social responsibilities —to other human beings and to God—that we will reverse national, social and spiritual decline.”