Is it finished? Lessons from the Finnish prosecution of a Christian MP
by David Robertson, Christian Today:
There is good news this week from Finland. The Finnish Christian MP, Päivi Räsänen, together with a Lutheran bishop, Juhana Pohjola, have been found not guilty of hate speech charges, while the prosecution has been ordered to pay 60,000 EUR in charges. That is the good news and to be warmly welcomed.
The bad news is that the case was brought in the first place. This was despite the police saying there was no criminal case to answer. This trial was a political trial brought for ideological reasons and there are important lessons for the Church throughout the West to learn from this case.
Mrs Räsänen was accused of making derogatory comments on three occasions including in a 2019 tweet, opposing the Lutheran Church’s participation in the Finnish Pride week, and using Bible verses to argue her position.
The state prosecutor had argued that using the word “sin” could be “derogatory” and “harmful”. This is an astonishing argument. Using the word ‘sin’ could be derogatory for any group. Is the prosecutor really saying that the State should ban sin – or rather speaking about sin?
See also:
Finnish Court Rebukes State Prosecution Of Christians For Saying God Made Men And Women Different, by Joy Pullmann, The Federalist
For Christians, the Bible is the Word of God. We must have the possibility to agree with it,
from Evangelical Focus: Read and watch the speech that Päivi Räsänen (Member of the Finnish Parliament) gave on 19 February 2022 at the General Assembly of the Spanish Evangelical Alliance.
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