God in the dock

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – By now I suppose you have heard about the Lutheran bishop in Finland who, along with a member of the Finnish Parliament, has stood trial for something called “ethnic agitation.” A crime that under Finnish law could result in a two-year prison sentence. (See Christopher Manion’s column in last week’s Wanderer, “Religious Freedom on Trial in Finland, p. 1A.)

The trial is finished ending a three-year campaign of legal harassment by the Finnish government. We are now awaiting the court’s ruling, which is expected soon.
Naturally, we’d like to know what heinous crime the bishop and the MP did to find themselves in such a predicament. And what in the world is “ethnic agitation” — it sounds really bad, is it?

Well, under Finnish law, ethnic agitation is when a person or organization “makes available to the public or otherwise spreads among the public or keeps available for the public information, an expression of opinion or another message where a certain group is threatened, defamed or insulted on the basis of its race, skin color, birth status, national or ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation or disability or a comparable basis.”

Got that? What it means is that you violate the law if you publicly disparage any racial or religious group. It is akin to a hate crime, except that your weapons are words, not sticks and stones. In short, if you make someone feel bad about himself, you have committed the crime and must go to jail.

So what was it that was said or done to entice the government of Finland to prosecute a bishop and a Member of Parliament with the ends to place them both in jail for two years?

The bishop involved is Juhana Pohjola (the spelling is easier than the pronunciation), and the MP is Paivi Rasanen (ditto the pronunciation), a 62-year-old grandmother of seven. Their crimes are speaking aloud the words of (gasp!) the Bible.

The nefarious activity started when Rasanen, who is not only a Member of Parliament but a medical doctor and a former interior minister, published a pamphlet some six years ago about the biblical teaching on marriage. And to compound her civic sin, she later appeared on a radio program about the subject and later tweeted out a picture of a Bible passage. She was charged with three counts of ethnic agitation.

Her cohort in crime, Bishop Pohjola, apparently helped circulate Dr. Rasanen’s pamphlet and made it available on his church’s website. The events occurred during a debate within the Lutheran Church as to whether or not to recognize same-sex marriage in Finland.

What about freedom of religion? Well, according to the state prosecutor, it still exists in Finland, but “the Bible cannot overrule Finnish law.” Thus the use of the word “sin” harms another’s self-esteem and is harmful.

The prosecutor opened the trial by reading several unrelated verses from the Bible as examples of problematic (bad) speech.

Apparently, however, the prosecutors are not all bad. They magnanimously offered to drop all the charges if only the defendants would publically renounce their beliefs. They refused and are now waiting to see if standing by their beliefs will cost them prison time.
So what, it’s only Finland, right? Well Finland is a liberal European democracy that claims to stand for the basic human rights, including freedom of speech and religion. However, like so many other European nations, it takes its “wokeness” seriously and bends over backward to please its secular gods.

This case reminded me of one of the cases that early on sparked my interest in religious freedom and how the government officials are doing their best to remove our God from society only to replace Him with a god they create for themselves: The religion of Woke.
It was the case of Ake Green.

Ake Green was a Swedish Pentecostal minister who was tried for violating Sweden’s hate crime law. He was accused of violating the law when he preached a sermon in his church to his membership against homosexuality, concluding that you could not be a Christian and an active homosexual. He told his congregation that homosexuality was a “sexual perversion” and a “tumor in the body of society.” For this he was tried and convicted of violating Sweden’s hate crime law.

Originally, Green, whose congregation was small, had invited members of the local press to attend. None did. However, an activist from a local LGBT group did get ahold of the text of the sermon and publicized it, which started Rev. Green’s trouble with the law.
Green was found guilty for showing disrespect against homosexuals and sentenced to a month in the hoosegow. An appeal was made to the court of appeals where the judgment against the reverend was overturned on religious liberty and free speech grounds. The prosecution then appealed to the Swedish Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court found that Pastor Green had violated Swedish law regarding his “hate” speech about homosexuals and that his speech and religious freedom were superseded by the Swedish law which prohibited same. However, the Swedish law was trumped by the European Convention on Human Rights to which the nation had to follow. Thus the top court was forced to dismiss the charges against the reverend.

A similar thing may happen in Finland, and the bishop and MP might be acquitted. But is all well? The answer to that is a resounding NO.

All around the globe, including in the United States, the idea that even prosecutions like this could be entertained by the courts, much less initiated by governmental bodies, speaks to the dangers we face as a Christian society, or so we claim to be. Some see us as living in a post-Christian era.

Unfortunately, too many in our political community are moving to make it so. You only need to look at the treatment religious people in some places received during the pandemic: churches closed, strip-clubs and abortion clinics open.

And remember, it was only about a year ago when the U.S. House of Representatives, with every single Democrat voting aye, passed the Equality Act that would outlaw certain religious practices and compel others, it would classify as hate speech biblical views that would no longer be subject to discussion, and it would force something called “gender equity” on schools and communities of faith — just to name a few anti-Christian provisions of Princess Nancy’s bill.

These stories are providing a clear warning of what is ahead. It’s more important than masks or trucks. It goes to our very existence as followers of Jesus Christ.

These are things all of us need to stay on top of lest we lose the inheritance given to us by our Creator. We live in a democracy; there are more of us than them. But if we remain silent and bury our heads we will lose.

(You can reach Mike at DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday morning at 9:30 CT on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)