So, About That Blasphemy . . .

In the aftermath of the Islamic attack on the free speech/draw a cartoon of Mohammad contest, I think it is time for us to review what we think about blasphemy laws. I want to argue that events like the cartoon contest should be protected speech, but I also want to argue that life is not as simple as some are trying to make it. Some of my points below may initially seem to be leaning in different directions, but bear with me. I do believe that we need to protect free speech, now more than ever, but not because the porn gods of scurrilous speech might get angry if we don’t.

1. Blasphemy laws are inescapable. No society exists in which absolute religious freedom of speech is permitted. Every society has a “god of the system,” and in every society it is possible for a man to go down to the city center and get himself arrested for saying things in public about the god of that system. Saudi Arabia does not allow blasphemy against Allah, medieval Christendom did not allow blasphemy against Christ, and modern secularism does not allow blasphemy against demos, the people, the god of their system. Secularism calls their restrictions “hate speech,” and not blasphemy, but the speaker down at the city center is just as arrested for all that. A society in which blasphemy against the central principle of integration is impossible is a society that is well-advanced in its disintegration, and has no such central principle. It is therefore ceasing to be a coherent society.

2. On a more mundane level, public order restrictions on free speech have always been understood to be consistent with the First Amendment. Shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater is not protected speech. If a radical imam had been preaching two hours before the shooting in Texas, and in the course of his sermon he had said something like, “Wouldn’t it be grand if somebody shot up the cartoon exhibit?” and his congregation had included the two shooters, arresting the said imam would have been completely in order. Incitement to unlawful violence can be done by words alone, and free speech cannot be used as a justification for egging someone on to unjust violence.

Here is the Supreme Court on the subject.

It is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. “Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution, and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942)

3. As far as Christians are concerned, even false religions are due a measure of respect — but this is to be determined by Scripture, and not by the devotees of whatever religion it happens to be. When Paul ministered in Ephesus, he did it so effectively as to threaten the trade of the silversmiths, who made their living by making images of Diana. The first thing to note here is the relationship that Paul had with certain pagan leaders of Ephesus. Incited by a speech given by Demetrius the silversmith, a rioting crowd headed down to the theater in order to yell for a while. Paul, naturally, saw this as a preaching opportunity, but his friends kept him from trying it. And Luke also tells us this: “And even some of the Asiarchs [who were pagan officials with a religious function], who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater” (Acts 19:31, ESV).

And a little bit later, the town clerk, also a pagan, said this: “For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess” (Acts 19:37, ESV).

So Paul had not been guilty of scurrilous blasphemy, as the town clerk testified, but he had been guilty of teaching people that the gods made with hands were not gods at all as Demetrius testified (Acts 19:26), and this was blasphemy as far as Demetrius was concerned.
What this means is that some of what the adversary considers blasphemy is simply speaking the truth, and we must not stop it. But the fact that they are in the grip of error does not mean that it is impossible to sin blasphemously against them. If Michael the archangel refused to deliver a railing accusation against the devil himself, then it is necessary to guard ourselves in our speech. We cannot say, “they are in serious error, and therefore anything goes.” “But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you”” (Jude 9, ESV).

And when Paul was on trial before the Sanhedrin, the same body that had railroaded the Lord Jesus to his death, the apostle popped off at the high priest. Paul’s eyesight wasn’t very good, and so he apparently didn’t know who he was speaking to.

“Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people’ ”” (Acts 23:3–5, ESV).

In many situations we find ourselves in, these are good examples for us.

4. But having said all this, we live in an insane time, one in which the crazy people in charge have developed the doctrine of “microaggressions.” If we allow the offended to be completely in charge of what is and is not offensive to them, and what must therefore be prohibited by law, you can rest assured that we will soon be at the place where absolutely everything is offensive. This is simply a maneuver designed to usurp complete control over speech, thinly disguised as sensible sensitivity. In this time, in this day and age, suppose we said, “Okay, no more cartoons of Mohammad.” Does anyone seriously think we would be done? Not a bit of it — they would be back tomorrow with a complaint that the deli on the corner advertizes ham sandwiches, and this is a grief to them. It is a microaggression that smokes to the sun and blackens the sky. Indeed, they have to avert their eyes every time they pass by in order not to wince at the blasphemy. This reveals they are in full pursuit of an incrementalist agenda, which in turn tells us that the issue is not free speech in a cosmopolitan marketplace, but rather a war of verbal attrition. They want to be in charge, and we must decide that they may not be in charge. What is considered blasphemous in this country is not to be determined by Sharia law. This is why it is important that another cartoon contest be scheduled pronto.

5. What Paul gives us is a particular tactic for evangelizing in cosmopolitan circumstances. Paul was functioning in a cosmopolitan empire, and the cities of Ephesus and Athens, to take two examples, had all kinds of people rubbing along together. His tactics were adjusted accordingly. But when push comes to shove, and we are in a mode governed by a clash of civilizations, there are some variations.

“And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words” (2 Kings 23:16).

And Jehu turned the Temple of Baal into a latrine (2 Kings 10:27). How’s that for multicultural sensitivity?

In addition, in the build up to these fundamental cultural clashes, there are practices which Scripture sets before us to imitate, and polemical satire is one of the arrows in our quiver. Jesus regularly made fun of things that the Pharisees believed to be sacred. Their phylacteries contained words from the Scriptures, and their flowing robes were emblems of their sacral dignity (Matt. 23:5). That just made them a bigger target. There are times when we are in comparable circumstances, and I believe this is one of them.

6. Keep in mind that with regard to speech the central thing that the First Amendment was designed to protect was political speech. James Madison did not have in mind the foundational right of strippers to tattoo messages about Harley Davidson on various places about their person. He did have in mind the right of people out of power to speak freely about the shenanigans of those in power. He had political campaigns in mind, and political campaigns take money. Therefore, monkeyshines like McCain/Feingold or opposition to the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court are the real battleground.

Madison wasn’t trying to liberate obscenity, he was trying to liberate the loyal opposition in rough and tumble political campaigns. He wanted money spent in political campaigns. But the solons of this present era reverse this. They want free speech to be gynecological in nature, and they want any effective opposition to the incumbent scoundrels to be bound and gagged. We have everything exactly backwards. But read the First Amendment again, and do so carefully.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

7. We have to distinguish actual heroes of free speech from those outliers who happen to be protected for the sake of protecting the political speech that must be protected. We do let some things get by us, but this does not mean that we should lionize the scoundrels involved.

The tragedy of the Charlie Hebdo massacre was in fact a tragedy, and was a clear sign of how our society is no longer self-governing. But the fact remains that the incident was a case of one kind of vile human being attacking another kind of vile human being. The Charlie Hebdo crowd are simply the Left’s Westboro Baptists, and to pretend anything else is to make up hagiographic martyrs for the sake of the false religion of secularism. If you have a cast-iron stomach, you can take a look at what I mean. If an angry military father at a Marine’s funeral drove his pick-up truck into a crowd of Westboro Baptists, that would not make the deceased into heroes.