Free speech revisited

In the January 2024 issue of Forward in Christ, WELS President Mark Schroeder highlighted a religious freedom case in Finland. Finland’s prosecutor general had brought criminal charges of “ethnic agitation” against a Lutheran pastor, Rev. Juhana Pohjola, and a former member of the Finnish Parliament, Dr. Päivi Räsänen. They had been accused of incitement of hatred against a group of people (the homosexual community) because they publicly proclaimed and taught the biblical teaching on marriage and sexuality. In March 2022 and August 2023, Pohjola and Räsänen were acquitted of all charges and then had the charges dismissed entirely. That’s where President Schroeder’s article ended.

Unfortunately, there are new developments. The prosecution made a final appeal to the Finnish Supreme Court, and on April 19, 2024, the court agreed to hear the case again. The date for this third trial has yet to be set.

Räsänen, a medical doctor and grandmother of 11, continues to have a peaceful outlook. She stated recently that the Lord has allowed her to witness clearly to law and gospel, sin and grace. She has been asked, “What do you mean by sin? What is the main message of Romans? What about these words in Genesis?”¹ Each time the Lord has allowed her the peace to testify clearly and confidently. She has no fear of what might come next.

However, the very notion that the Finnish Supreme Court would take up a case that was unanimously thrown out by a lower court does send a message. It can have a chilling effect on free speech, even if there is a third acquittal. Others may be hesitant to speak biblical truth.

We Americans treasure the religious freedom to believe according to our conscience and proclaim the truth of God’s Word in our communities. That freedom is not something to take for granted but rather something to exercise vigorously while we can. We work while it is day. And when that freedom comes under attack, we must testify with the apostles, “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

A forgotten war

The international community has been mostly silent about the conflict within the African nation of Sudan. A country of nearly 48 million people, Sudan has endured over one year of civil war. Nearly 8.2 million people have fled their homes, including about 4 million children.

Just five years ago, there was hope when a popular revolution overthrew the country’s dictator, Omar al- Bashir, after 30 years of oppression. Under al-Bashir, strict Islamic laws imposed the death penalty on anyone who apostatized from Islam. Those elements were removed from the official legal code, and other democratic reforms were implemented. But in 2021, an army general together with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) deposed the prime minister, and hostility erupted. A different military group, the Sudanese Armed Forces, opposes the RSF, and the fighting between the two sides has turned the country into a war zone. People have fled to the neighboring countries of Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Sudan. More than 90 percent of the country’s 19 million school-age children have no access to formal education, and over 220,000 are in immediate danger of starvation.

The Christian church, which makes up 5 percent of Sudan’s population, has not fared well during the civil war. Islamic punishments have returned. Sudanese Christians are suffering acutely. The nation ranks number eight on the Open Doors World Watch List of countries where it is hardest to be a Christian.

One Christian leader spoke recently about his despair and yet his hope in God: “Our issues are not on CNN, and no one pays attention to news from Sudan. It makes the church feel like no one cares. . . . But we are all aliens and strangers in this world, like Abraham, living in tents. . . . Like with Samson’s lion, [God] can turn a carcass into something sweet.”²

I encourage you to lift your voice to the One enthroned on high and earnestly plead for these fellow Christians, knowing that he can work all things for their good, even in war (Romans 8:28).

¹ decisionmagazine.com/paivi-rasanen-to-appear-before-finnish-supreme-court

² christianitytoday.com/news/2024/april/sudan-christians-civil-war-arab-africa-evangelical- alliance.html

Author: Benjamin Schaefer
Volume 111, Number 8
Issue: August 2024

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