From here:
If religious criticism is intended deliberately to offend, to vilify or to slander, it is not acceptable and I would be outraged. And not just for my own religious faith, but also for others’. I am not against satire. I am against hatred. If satire is intended respectfully to challenge or question a fundamental belief, or to expose the hypocrisy of the institution or its leaders, it is perfectly okay.
There is no unlimited right to freedom of speech and no absolute right to freedom. To exist, freedom needs self-imposed restraints, and democracy requires a consensus based on mutual respect. What we have in the Paris cartoons is a misuse of freedom…it is secular fundamentalism that insists on the right to cause offence in the name of freedom. Religious satire is not off-limits when it serves the public good by exposing hypocrisy and causing us to live up to our ideals in a better way, but when its purpose is deliberately to offend, how is that different from hatred?
Michael Ingham is in favour of satire and freedom of expression provided it is respectful and not offensive, thereby rendering it not free and not satirical. Additionally, satire has to serve the public good. Who decides this? In the absence of an ecclesiarchy, the state; welcome back to the Soviet Union.
In a similar vein, the imam pundit notes:
In a free society, people have the right to offend, but people do not have the right to incite hatred or to stereotype an entire community. When you depict Mohamed as a terrorist, 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide are considered terrorists, when 99.9 per cent of them are peaceful. We must use freedom of speech with responsibility. That is the price of keeping a civil society.
If the imam is correct and 99.9% of Muslims are peaceful (I have a suspicion that figure is too high), we are left with 1.6 million who are not only not peaceful but, since the context is terrorism, are terrorists; I don’t find that particularly reassuring.
It always comes back to the same thing, doesn’t it. “You have freedom to say or write whatever you want, so long as whatever you say or write doesn’t offend me.”. There seem to be more and more of the “so long as” or “but” additions to freedom of speech remarks. If Charles Hebdo isn’t free to say or depict what it wants, neither are the rest of us.
The first time inconvenient truths, Biblical ones they were, presented in Paris in the form of Placards,1534, it met its official response with the Chambre Ardente/’Burning Chamber:incendiary of both paper and people. Plus ca change…………………
As Christian believers we are not free to do what we want; we are not free to say what we want. We are free to be slaves of Jesus. We are free to serve Him and others. We are responsible for what we do and say.
Michael,
Then I presume you would agree that Christians are not free to tell others what they can and cannot say – as Michael Ingham would like to do.
Christian believers are being guided by the Holy Spirit.
Here in Canada our Supreme Court has issued rulings that do limit our Constitutional Right to Freedom of Expression. These limits include: not telling lies about other people (which is slander), and not promoting hatred.
The first seems to be a perfectly reasonable restriction that we all agree with. I for one certainly do not want anyone spreading lies about me. It is “enforced” by our laws that allow a person to sue when they feel that they have been slandered.
The second so far is being enforced by our governments. However the government enforcement of this restriction seems to be very selective. Anyone who in slightest way appears to promote hatred against homosexuals can anticipate a weighty consequence, meanwhile it seems to be “open season” against Christians.
Nowhere in the Bible does God say, “You have the right to say whatever you want”. Freedom of human speech is not a biblical concept. God alone can say what He wants to say. We are not God. God wants us to obey Him and to speak according to His Word.
No doubt, but that is not the problem.
The problem is, what do you propose to do about those who want to say things that are not in accordance with God’s word? If you believe that such people should not be allowed free expression, then you would have, for example, to shut down all mosques in Canada since what is expressed in them is in accord with Allah, not the triune God of Christianity and, thus, not in accordance with God’s word.
I do not believe Christian believers can say what they want to say. I did not say non-Christians should not be allowed free expression. As I have said before, free speech is not a biblical concept; it is a secular idea. Unbelievers can commit murders, but this is not God’s idea. Others can worship false gods, but this is not God’s idea as well. The fact is that we live in the world that many do not obey the triune God and do not speak according to His Word.
The hypocrisy of Michael Ingham could not be clearer. It was under his apostate leadership in the Diocese of New Westminster that genuine Christians were forced out of property they had paid for simply because they stood up for the Gospel. Nothing could be more deceitful and Michael Ingham and his apostate colleagues are undoubtedly aware of that fact. His actions are clearly parallel to that of the terrorists in Paris.