7 Comments

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  Manganus 12/1/2005 at 2:08 pm

  I’m sorry to have to tell you that you seem to have misinterpreted the issue.

  Ã…ke Green was put on trial, but not for preaching from the Bible. Instead it was a trial on instigation of hate crimes. His sermon was easily interpreted as a call for, or at least a support for, murders of homosexuals, beside expressing the strongest disrespect. His chief thesis was by many understood as “if the nation doesn’t eliminate the homosexuals, then God will eliminate the nation”.

  In countries where the memories from Bosnia, Kosovo and Nazi concentration camps still are vivid, this is a somewhat sensitive issue, and the Christian co-responsibility for those crimes have learned both Christians and non-believers to remain observant on the risk that crimes are incited by preachers.

  Ã…ke Green denied intent, as would most probably anyone have done in his position, and has repeatedly asserted that his goal was to get to the front pages.

  The interpretation of the verdict has only begun, but at least two things seem obvious:
  1/ what’s considered criminal “hate speech” outside of the church is not criminal when in a sermon and closely related to the bible, this is clearly written in the Supreme Court’s verdict
  2/ to call a group of people “a cancerous tumour on the body of society” that deserves death according to Paul is according to this Court on the border to, but not beyond the border, of what’s criminal after the European Convention on Human Rights.
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  Paladin 12/1/2005 at 5:29 pm

  Manganus,
  I appreciate your point of view on the subject. If what you cite as his chief thesis is true, that’s merely his opinion about what God may or may not do. I don’t see that as a call for Christians towards violence, although the psychotic fringe can read violence into anything.

  Your a bit off base calling the crimes of those nations a “Christian co-responsibility” since anyone can claim to be acting on Christian beliefs while anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the Scriptures would see that they aren’t following the teachings of Christ.

  Hate speech is truly just another tool to impose one particular set of beliefs above another. There are already laws on the books for crimes such as murder, assault, etc. Creating a more severe penalty for a crime where intent (hate) must be surmised is a clarion call for injustice.
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  Manganus 12/2/2005 at 8:00 am

  If what you cite as his chief thesis is true, that’s merely his opinion about what God may or may not do. I don’t see that as a call for Christians towards violence, although the psychotic fringe can read violence into anything.

  Yes, the second half is merily about what God might do, but since that in effect is a threat, Green does in reality request his audience to act to avoid that terrifying alternative.

  It went to prosecution since Ã…ke Green’s sermon was (widely) understood as a thinly veiled call for human, not Godly, direct action to purge society from homosexuals, and also as instigating disrespect and persecution. Sweden’s Supreme Court agrees, but rules that it was not sufficient for conviction. I think one could say that some of Green’s utterings were qualitatively illegal, but not quantitatively.

  If you consider Serbian Orthodox Christian clergymen, or for that matter the German clergymen who continued their work in the Third Reich, to be true Christians or not, that is an issue I think fits better in your conversations with God than with unknowns here. Enough is to say that not so few Christians in this part of the world are weary of Christian co-responsibility for many wicked deeds from the Crusades and forth.

  I may personally agree that the very concept of Hate Speech is questionable, but that’s surely debatable. Should for instance Joseph Goebbels have been acquitted in the Nürnberg tribunals, if he’d lived long enough to appear in front of it?

  In any case, it’s important to remember that Green was not prosecuted for reading the Bible.
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  Paladin 12/2/2005 at 11:08 am

  If Green did promote his congregation towards violence he surely doesn’t understand the Gospel message and will be “corrected” when he kneels before God. But if he’s emploring people to help homosexuals turn away from their life of rebellion then he’s actually doing what God requests.

  Ultimately, we’re either living for God, or living for ourselves. Every day we make hundreds of decisions in either direction and only God can truly tell our hearts.

  It’s only through reading God’s Word that we can even have a glimpse of what He wants from us. And it’s clear from those Words that homosexuality is not something that God approves. I would hope that all true Christians would “Do everything in love.” -1 Cor. 16:14

  Thanks for your conversation Manganus.
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  Manganus 12/2/2005 at 5:13 pm

  It was nice talking with you!
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  Raven 3/14/2006 at 12:57 pm

  Wow, I’m late in reading this. Still, I feel like throwing my two cents in just for the sake of it. And really, it’s only one thing I have a major problem with, the second part of this is simply an observation.

  “But if he’s emploring people to help homosexuals turn away from their life of rebellion then he’s actually doing what God requests”

  I’ve not read the entirety of the bible, and I’ve rarely gone to church, but I have an issue with this for several reasons. For one, as I was always told and lead to beleive, God was supposed to be all-loving and all-caring. Why, then, when one’s sexuality turns towards the same sex he suddenly turns his back on you, according to most christians? While I don’t expect anyone to know God’s workings, I honestly beleive that while he didn’t intend for homosexuality, he is in all honesty alright with it. The only reason I would gather why he doesn’t approve of homosexuality, unless He’s a homophobic, would be in the aspect of procreation, continuing the human race.

  However, in the interest of that, from what I have seen homosexuals are more likely to adopt than heterosexuals. With my vast sea of friends, and their friends, and their friends (alas the tree), from all walks of life, I have posed this question as a survey. From what I’ve gathered, on a purely random scale, was that gays are twice as likely to adopt than straight couples. And, did Jesus and God not promote love among mankind? Which, in turn, would mean he should love gays for being willing to adopt children.

  Though, a last word for that subject… If god was all-caring and all-loving, loving all of his children equally, why would he turn his back on those that defy his intentions? Why would he send you to a frozen barren wasteland? (Hell was originaly a frozen place, the boot Dante’s Inferno turned it into the fire-pit)…. And, another thing, why have so many wars been fought in God’s name if he truly loved all?

  And now, for my observation…. Yes, sorry that took so long. Anyways, let’s continue shall we?

  “Ultimately, we’re either living for God, or living for ourselves. Every day we make hundreds of decisions in either direction and only God can truly tell our hearts.”

  Why can there be no middle-ground? Why can we not be living for ourselves and for God at the same time? Such is why I dissaprove of organized religion, what with one extreme or another. I honestly beleive that we are able to live for ourselves and for God, which I myself do every day. I beleive that one shouldn’t have to be told what to beleive to become closer to God.

  And why can we not truly tell our hearts? Why can we, though imperfect as we are, be unable to tell what our hearts want? Sure, in this modern world we are less-likely to find the truth of us, but why can’t we? I beleive that if we live honestly to ourselves, honestly to what we TRULY know about our hearts, we will eventualy find some form of enlightenment.

  I thank you all for sparing your time to read this, but I have one last parting gift. A way to live in an enlightened state without the cockameme bull floating around today in the media and other forms of mass-broadcasted beleifs.

  Life your life to the fullest, spend all time you can spare with your family and friends, do everything you want to do before it’s too late, and if you don’t have time, then make some. Believe what you will, say what you will, act as you will. Be true to yourself and don’t cling to something you don’t wish to beleive in. If you beleive in God or some form of a god, or even many gods, then don’t be afraid to act accordingly. Modernized society is run by the media, what with emaciated fashion-models and over-muscular emotionless men, they mold our youth and, if we let them, us, into what the media perceives as the ‘should-be’. Live, free of the chains the media shackles around us. Be true to yourself and your emotions, as well as your beleifs.

  I do this everyday, and I couldn’t be happier, so try it for yourself, you’ll enjoy it.
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  Paladin 3/14/2006 at 2:18 pm

  God was supposed to be all-loving and all-caring. Why, then, when one’s sexuality turns towards the same sex he suddenly turns his back on you, according to most christians?

  I would say because, despite when many are trying to argue, humans aren’t born homosexuals, it’s a choice each of us chooses to make. It’s part of God’s original plan that man and women be different yet complimentary. That doesn’t change the fact that God loves each of us, far beyond what we can understand or deserve. But He loves us despite our sin, He doesn’t love our sin.

  Any time we rebel against God by choosing to do what we want instead of what He’s already outlined is in our best interest, that’s where we wound Him further.

  Some poorly behaving Christians say idiotic thinks like “God hates gays” but that’s not Biblical. He loves the sinner while hating the sin. And for that indictment, we’re all in the same sin-filled boat.

  That’s why grace is so amazing.