Joy Pullman at The Federalist has an update on the case in Finland of Paivi Rasanen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola. Rasanen and Pohjola are accused of violating Finland's hate speech laws by quoting the Bible. Gentle readers can see where this is going. If the Finnish prosecutor succeeds, she will have made Christianity itself illegal in Finland. This could spread to the rest of Europe and the United States.
In an appeals court Thursday, Helsinki’s top prosecutor said publicly quoting the Bible and publishing a booklet about Christian sexual ethics violates Finland’s “hate speech” law. The appeal escalates this U.S. ally’s prosecution of dissidents from leftist politics, a marker of repressive regimes.
The prosecutor has charged Member of Parliament Paivi Rasanen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola for writing and publishing, respectively, a booklet supporting natural marriage.
“This [case] is a God-given wake up call for Christians and others worried about the direction our society is going,” Pohjola said in a post-court press conference Friday morning U.S. time. He noted convicting a religious leader for publishing theological documents would in effect criminalize Christianity in Finland and encourage similar oppression worldwide.
Rasanen is also criminally charged with posting a Bible verse to X (formerly Twitter) and stating Christian theology in a radio interview. The prosecutor wants all recordings of the radio interview taken down and the booklet to be unavailable online, and fines levied against both Christians.
The Finnish prosecutor apparently is upset that Rasanen and Pohjola have "insulted homosexuals." But stating a fact should not be considered an insult. After all, do not homosexuals insult God with their behavior? Of course, most don't believe in God, but that doesn't mean He does not believe in them.
But let's look a little deeper at these "hate crime" laws and their effects. Right now, the LGBTQ and whoever else is part of their community is powerful enough to have their tender feelings upheld by the tyrannical state. In Muslim countries however, insulting the prophet of Islam is considered blasphemy. So, will insulting the prophet of Islam qualify as a hate crime? What about politicians? While politicians clearly have power, they also have the ability to pass laws making it illegal to insult them as well. Ultimately, there is no moral standard to limit who might be the next target of these hate crime laws. And what if one hate speech law conflicts with another? Which one rules?
You see the problem. Who can know who might be next in the crosshairs of prosecutors and for what?
In interviews, Rasanen and Pohjola emphasized Christianity has always taught that every human is guilty of transgressing against God’s commands and that God unleashed His just punishment for every one of those sins upon His Son, Jesus Christ. This means every person is beloved and can be forgiven by God no matter what that person has ever done wrong.
“The prosecutor sees traditional Christianity as containing hatred and discrimination,” Pohjola told a local reporter after Thursday’s court session. “No value is given to the Biblical revelation that all people have intrinsic value as God’s creation.”
Due to Communist influence, much of the West has enacted speech restrictions similar to Finland’s. That includes dozens of U.S. states and cities. All it would take is courts to interpret hate speech laws the way these Finnish prosecutors are arguing to criminalize Christianity across the West.
“Politicians sell us hate speech laws by claiming they will target neo Nazi types and make us all safer,” noted Paul Coleman, an ADFI lawyer supporting the case. “Yet in no time at all they are turned against a Christian grandmother tweeting a picture of some bible verses.”
It is sad that so many Christian denominations have buckled to the LGBTQ and whoever else is in their community, as well as the pro-abortion lobby. Christianity has not changed in 2000 years. The Bible is the Bible, and the unchanging word of God. It lays down the apologetic Truth of human nature and human sin. It also tells us that God so loved us, miserable sinners that we are, that as Pohjola put it, he put the whole of his wrath on His Son so that He could forgive us. It is a story worth telling. The fact that this fantastic story is also true makes me wonder who could object?
While we here in the U. S. have the First Amendment, we have also seen that too many of our politicians are willing to ignore the Constitution in favor of plaudits from the New York Times and the Washington Post. Did I say that the Christian story is worth telling? It is also worth defending.
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