Anonymous Asks (244)

“Is freedom of speech a biblical value?”

There is no such thing as a right to free speech. Jesus Christ didn’t have one. The apostles certainly didn’t have one. What they had was a divinely authorized responsibility to engage in costly speech. They walked out into the public square with a message almost nobody in positions of authority wanted to hear and inflicted it on the world in spite of all efforts to silence it.

As a result, the Lord Jesus was tortured and crucified. The apostles were delivered over to courts, flogged in the synagogues, dragged before governors and kings and, like Stephen, stoned by their own neighbors and kin.

The Law and Human Rights

To the extent that Paul, Peter and the others had “rights” under Roman law to which they could appeal, sometimes those rights were respected and other times — by far the vast majority of the time — they were not. In the end, most of the apostles went to their deaths because of what they had to say. Their speech was exceedingly expensive.

So do Christians have a right to free speech in a society that allegedly protects it? Practically speaking, no, regardless of what a nation’s constitutional documents declare. Our society is currently full of special protected classes: aboriginals, Muslims, blacks, people who identify as LGBTQ. It permits members of these classes to say outrageous, hateful and untrue things about others with no consequences provided they stick to the currently accepted victimization narrative. If you are not a member of a protected class (and Christians are not), one of two things happens when society wants you to shut up: you do it or you don’t. When you don’t, bad things happen to you.

That is the nature of countercultural behavior. We live in a world that does not stop to ask which lovely package of constitutional “rights” we are invoking today before happily steamrolling right over them. Your online accounts may disappear. Your bank account may disappear. Your job may disappear. Your friends and family may decide you are too toxic to be seen with. Your society may decide you ought to be in jail. (That’s only in Ireland so far, but if they get away with it there, watch out.) And it will go further. The Lord Jesus said so.

Supporting Rights for Others

Okay, so maybe Christians don’t get to share the gospel with the world or speak their minds consequence-free. But isn’t free speech a laudable principle? Shouldn’t we support giving others the right to free speech even if we don’t always get to enjoy it ourselves? After all, we are supposed to “do unto others”, right?

Frankly, I can’t see why. There have always been limits on speech enforced even in the freest of societies. Try saying the word “bomb” out loud in an airport if you doubt that, even in jest. Death threats generally provoke a response from law enforcement, and so they should. Slander and libel laws still serve to limit what you can allege about another person without proof. And if some limits are acceptable, Christians should find others acceptable as well. I don’t want radical Muslims to be able to shout “Death to Jews!” in public under the protection of law. (I don’t want them to be able to shout “Death to Christians!” either.)

Historically speaking, the only true theocracy in history enforced blasphemy laws, even on those who might be considered sojourners rather than citizens. I suspect during the millennial reign of Christ, the same thing may hold true. Why wouldn’t it? I like the idea of giving people a chance to say what’s on their mind, but only up to a point. There have always been limits, and there should be. Some things can’t be unheard.

Assessing the Danger

Back to Christians for a moment. Should the increasing dangers that attend sharing the truth shut us up? I leave it to you to decide, but we have the very powerful example of the entire New Testament to encourage us to open our mouths and say whatever the Lord commands us to say to the world regardless of the personal cost.

We certainly have a very defensible right to costly speech. It starts with these words: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Jesus promised us we have every bit of authority — every right in the world — to speak for him; indeed, we are obligated to do what he commanded: Go. Baptize. Teach. It is “We must obey God rather than men”, not “We prefer to.”

He just didn’t say we will always get to do it consequence-free.