By Rollin Grams, Bible and Mission.
To the memory of Charlie Kirk
How do we sort ourselves out, wanting free speech while concerned about certain kinds of speech? Is all speech of equal worth? What speech is worthy of concern? Who gets to regulate such things? What do we say about speech in the public square, and what do we say about it as Christians in our own community?
Let’s begin by defending free speech. Without it, societies turn into tyrannical and oppressive institutions. The great divide between the USA and Great Britain or Europe is that the former defends free speech while the latter oppose hate speech. The problem for the USA is that free speech offers very little regulation for some really nasty people. The problem on the other side is that someone or some group gets to decide what ‘hateful’ means, and we have enough evidence in the past few years that Christians are being targeted for their age-old beliefs under the laws of hate speech. Face it: laws defining ‘hate speech’ have become hateful themselves.
So, what do we do? A few starters. The main concerns for ‘free speech’ are religious and political. If one wants freedom of religion, one needs freedom of speech. If one wants a political society that entertains different ideas, one needs free speech. When a government decides that some religious or political ideas are wrong or hateful, it becomes the arbiter of religion or politics—it becomes fundamentalist or tyrannical. This is not theoretical; it is the case in the UK right now. The only question is how oppressive the government intends to become, not whether it is oppressive in regulating religion and politics.
Other societies have dealt with this dilemma over the centuries. The book of Daniel includes the story of Persia exploring the control of religious speech, prayer. Daniel ended up being thrown to the lions for praying to God because it was against the law. When Jewish authorities tried to shut down early Christian preaching in Jerusalem, Peter famously responded, ‘We must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5.29). Paul says,
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Romans 10.14).
Free speech is necessary for a religion, Christianity, that believes in salvation through preaching the Gospel and responding in faith: Word and belief. Religions that want to establish themselves not through persuasion but oppression are anti-free speech, like Islam especially. Try street corner preaching in Saudi Arabia. Even ‘Church of England’ England has had cases trying to silence street preachers in recent years.