Reported in the Age this week is the sentencing in the trial of Pentecostal Christian pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot. Judge Michael Higgins, of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, yesterday ordered Christian group Catch the Fire Ministries, Mr Scot and Mr Nalliah to publish apologies for comments made at a Melbourne seminar in March 2002, and in a newsletter and website article. Apparently they have vowed to go to jail rather than paying up to $68,690 to advertise in the local newspapers their public apologies for vilifying Muslims.
According to the Age article, Mr Nalliah called Victoria’s religious vilification law “sharia (Islamic) law by stealth”, “a foul law” and invalid, while Mr Scot said: “You don’t compromise truth for fear of jail.”
What’s at stake here?
Vilification
Anti-vilification laws are designed to keep a society free from vindictive hate-inducing behaviour that paints whole groups as vile or worthless. They are a response to what we have hopefully learned from the experiences of Nazi Germany, the Salem witch trials, and the anti-communist hunts of the McCarthy-era USA. Each of these waves of hatred started out in an atmosphere of fear. Hitler extermination policy capitalised on the German fear of Jewish, homosexuals, Gypsies, mentally and physically disabled, Gypsies, Jehovahs Witnesses, Social Democrats, trade unionists, Communists and Soviet prisoners of war. In the 1950s the United States were swept up in a wave of paranoia associated with the fear of communism in the house next door.
Who are these terrorists?
Right now we are experiencing a newly found fear of terrorism focused on the Muslim people, largely kicked off by the last ten years of Al Quaeda violence. We overlook the years of Irish and British terrorism. The years of Jewish terrorism. Years of ETA in Spain. Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. The bombing of the Oklahoma Building by American white supremacists. The lynching of African Americans by the white (often Christian) Klu Klux Klan members.
Free Speech
I’m reading a number of Christian bloggers bemoaning the threat to free speech, claiming they’ll no longer be able to proclaim the truth in their churches. There’s a fear that the anti-vilification laws will prevent a critique of other religions.
The truth’s a lot more than what’s wrong with someone else. Yes speaking the truth should be marked honesty. But that honesty should be one of care for accuracy, humility and self control. We should be aware of the impact of our words.
Earlier this week I wrote a review of Paula Harris’ article on postmodernism in the book, Postmission. Her comments are particularly helpful for us here.
Paula Harris writes that Christians in mission must answer the accurate critique that Christianity provided the metanarratives for slavery, womens’ oppression, apartheid, the Jewish Holocaust, the cultural genocide of indigenous people, the Crusades, and stolen generations. Apologetics for Harris is not just a matter of being right. It’s also about being humble enough to be wrong. She asks, “Am I holding my understanding of the gospel with humility? Does my faith express itself in gentleness, kindness, concern for justice?”
I’m with you 100%
they could change the law from anti-villification to anti-unfounded slurs, ill-informed accusations and unwarranted hyperbole act. however, that doesn’t roll off the tounge as easily.