Onward Christian Soldiers

Ever since "fire and brimstone" preaching went out of favor in Christianity, the rate of increasing irrelevancy of the mainstream Churches to the broader culture has only been exceeded by the rate of the ever greater declines in membership. Apparently, however, these Churches have decided it's time to get off the sidelines.

Our esteemed mainstream Churches took a bold stand this week: Lutherans, Catholics, United Methodists, Presbyterians, and members of the United Church of Christ joined with the Islamic Society of North America and other "faith groups" in solidarity against ....... hate.

This would be fine if it was just another innocuous Church thing. However, in these degenerate spiritual times, leave it to our spiritual leaders to focus their shallow theological vision on not just hate, but Hate; specifically, Hate Speech. This particular category of speech is a pure invention of our contemporary culture, claiming that certain speech should be defined by the level or degree of hatred the speaker has towards the victim. This ties neatly into our current obsession with racism in society, and seems a good fit for other discrimination as well, like that against women, Muslims, Hispanics, Gays, and other groups to be named later by our cultural leaders. It certainly seems that bias against one or another of these groups can be described as hatred. Should speech in aid of that sort of bias be allowed?

Our spiritual leaders took a stand, and said no.

But they are taking a stand on quicksand.

Continue .....
As commonly deployed, charges of Hate Speech devolve into nothing more than transparent attempts to outlaw certain political, cultural, and religious differences of opinion. The most common circumstance involves those who are anti-immigration. Never mind that their actual position is anti-illegal immigration, which ought to be uncontroversial in any nation pretending to a government of laws. Our cultural watchdogs insist on branding any such political position as Hatred of Hispanics. The Lutheran Church itself picks up this line, trotting out the usual suspects of Hatred on the Right, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, et al., and joining with others to petition the FCC to investigate these purveyors of Hate. Presumably, they want these people shut down, although they don't actually say that. But, for what other reason would you call down the investigatory powers of a powerful government agency on some of your fellow citizens?

To ascribe Hatred to a political position entails a truly amazing ability to read minds, as there is nothing in the anti-illegal immigration position per se that necessarily entails a visceral dislike of Hispanics. But, let's assume for a moment that our spiritual leaders have a special insight into these people's souls (souls being the prime brief of our Christian Churches), and find true Hatred there. Is supporting government suppression of Hate Speech really what Christian Churches ought to be about?

In a free society, the answer is a resounding no. Open debate is the sine qua non of a free society, and should be restricted on only the most narrow and concrete grounds. Personal emotional states are entirely too vague a criteria to support a rule of restraint on debate, not to mention that the presence or absence of a particular emotional state is speculative at best.

But on the grounds of self-preservation, Christian Churches ought to reject this sort of thing. Haven't they read any newspapers lately, for instance, about the attacks on the Mormon Church in California for opposing Gay marriage? The near-constant refrain was that Mormon's were perpetrating Hate against Gays, just for following the dictates of their religion and their conscience. If the mainstream Churches get what they want, how long will it be before the charge of Hate, along with legislation to back it up, will be extended against parishes and denominations that refuse, on religious grounds, to solemnize a gay marriage?

Not long. In my opinion, our Churches are not on a slippery slope with all of this trendy Hate stuff, but a sheer cliff.

Khrushchev famously said that capitalism would sell Communists the rope to hang Capitalists. With this foray into social policy, our mainstream Churches are penning the crimes upon which Christian orthodoxy - and freedom of religion and speech - will be charged, convicted, and sentenced.