Annals Of Anti-Christian Europe

As Mr Dreher points out, Europe is no longer 'post-Christian', it is anti-Christian!

From The American Conservative

By Rod Dreher

Two items this morning from post-Christian — indeed, anti-Christian — Europe.

First, a church in Edinburgh has been kicked out of a venue where it was going to have a summer conference because one of the speakers, an American evangelist, holds traditional Christian views on homosexuality. The City of Edinburgh is the venue owner; it is a public space. Excerpt:

The council said at the time: “We’re committed to promoting diversity and equal rights for all. We have high standards, which we expect those hiring and visiting our venues to respect and observe. We have cancelled this booking and served notice to terminate the contract.”

Now Destiny Church is trying to raise £150,000 to cover the cost of legal action against the city council over the cancellation.

A fundraising page set up at GoFundMe has so far raised over £12,000.

In a video update to supporters, the church’s founder, Andrew Owen said that the council’s actions should be of concern to churches everywhere.

“We as Christians are facing a crisis in our nation,” he said.

Addressing the cancellation, he said: “If that is allowed to stand, every single church in the UK will face the same challenges. You will be locked out of public venues, you will be locked out of the public space.”

Traditional Christians as pariahs. No better than racists. Drive them out of the public square!

The Scottish church being bullied by the City of Edinburgh has launched a Go Fund Me to pay for their legal fight against the city. Help if you can.

Meanwhile, in Finland, the police inquiry into the Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen, a Lutheran who believes what all Lutherans believed about same-sex behavior until the day before yesterday, continue to persecute her. I interviewed her about her ongoing ordeal last year. It continues. From a statement she released this week:

A moment ago I received information from the Finnish police that Ms. Raija Toiviainen, Prosecutor General of Finland, has ordered criminal investigations of my comments on two television programmes, interviews, first with Maria Vietola and then with Ruben Stiller. This is how the third and fourth criminal investigations of my speech are getting underway. I have already been interrogated on two separate occasions by the Helsinki Central Police in Pasila, and now there will be at least two further interrogations. In my opinion, this situation is inconceivable and totally absurd.

TV host Maria Veitola came to my home for an overnight on her serial programme “Yökylässä Maria Veitola” [Maria Veitola, Overnight visit], broadcast on Finnish MTV3 on 1 Feb. 2018 and on Finnish TV-channel AVA on 27 June 2018. In this programme we discussed the Bible, the significance of Jesus, of sin and of grace. This mandate of a new investigation addresses very similar comments on homosexuality as those taken from my pamphlet published in 2004.

The second order for criminal investigation is for my appearance in one episode of the YlePuhe [The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation, Talk Show] series with host Ruben Stiller on the topic “What would Jesus think about homosexuals?”[translated]. This was broadcast on 20 Dec. 2019 at 1:02 pm. This radio discussion can be found at the following link: here.

Previously, the police had reached decisions regarding both these programmes that there was no reason to initiate a preliminary investigation as no crime had been committed.

The police arrived at a similar conclusion last autumn with respect to my pamphlet: “Male and female He created them”, 2004, Luther Foundation Finland [here]. Nonetheless, the Prosecutor General proceeded to order a preliminary investigation of this booklet, which is why I was interrogated by the police earlier this week [2 March 2020]. The preliminary investigation of my Tweet from last summer has been completed, and that case is now under consideration for whether or not to raise criminal charges.

These requests for investigations and the criminal procedures arising out of them are attempts to restrict free speech and the freedom of religion. Concurrently, there is a danger that the media and publishers will begin to limit certain topics of discussion and leave particular discussants outside public discourse. We must not yield to the vicious circle of fear and being silenced.

This is breathtaking. The prosecutorial powers of the state are being brought to bear against a Christian woman who is merely talking in the media about her religious beliefs.

The Homintern is real. Don’t read this and think, “Wow, too bad for them, but thank God we live in America.” It’s coming here too. We have a First Amendment, but US Christians and church groups are going to have to go to court to fight for it. Thank God for organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom. If you’re a church person, you should be directing some of your tithe to it. The liberty you save may be your own.