Occasionally, very occasionally, I meet Christians who wish the United States would revive public laws against blasphemy. They dislike the coarse culture that does not allow them to move in the public square without having their most cherished values assailed in the most casual manner.
The difficulty is that laws are not an effective way to end crude talk and their social cost is greater than their benefit. Such laws are hardly ever enforced since enforcing them would give the state great power over individuals. Does anyone wish to give the state the power to enforce such speech codes? Christian experience has said, “No.” We have a clear, hard won, historic distinction between the role of the state, in Dante’s language the “imperium” and the Church. Blasphemy laws seem to muddle roles.
Western Christians, especially in the Anglo-sphere (English speaking world) have learned the hard way that such laws tend to make religion look ridiculous. Enforcement attracts the sort of tight lipped kill joy that is the bane of any religion. Reacting to such laws is the only thing that can make a Mark Twain out of the local childish village atheist.
This is not to say that such language is not serious. I love my wife and would rebuke any person who slandered her in my hearing. Such man could not be my friend. How much more likely is this to be true of my Savior!
Social pressure is adequate to stop most crude talk. We rightly shun those who use the “n-word” to refer to African-Americans. I would be loath to do business with any person who used such filthy talk. In the same manner, I am much less likely to do business with anyone who uses my Lord’s Holy Name as a curse or a by word. That is my right in a free nation as it is his right to repulse me with his blasphemy.
Christians nations have long recognized. . . recognized generations before “secular pressure” could have forced them to do so. . . that they are the most healthy when they allow members to leave if they feel they must. Even nations with national churches have long agreed that persons can full citizens (even atheists) while disagreeing with the core, recognized values of the state church. In fact, properly understood these national churches were a way of allowing for diversity of thought while maintaining a means for the majority to achieve recognition of its central values without coercion. England was a Christian nation by history, culture, and population. The state could recognize and even promote Christian activities, but it would not punish minority opinion. In fact, by the Victorian age religious minorities were allowed full citizenship rights in a nation that was overwhelmingly traditionally Christian. When Christians had the power to choke off Darwin or Marx in England, they did not. They allowed both men to scribble away and attempted to battle their ideas.
The American solution to this problem provides for even more liberty. It is perhaps no accident that as a result the American church is even more robust. The majority Christian population elects Christian (in a cultural sense) representatives to our government. Not surprisingly such representatives have reflected their world view in their politics. . . both right and left have been inspired by the Christian vision in the US. William Jennings Bryan could urge more government to help the poor based on the Gospel while Ronald Reagan could argue that the best way to help the poor, a Biblical mandate, was to increase economic liberty. Both were reflecting their Christian convictions and trying to work them out. Fundamentally their areas of agreement (the poor should be helped) were more important than their areas of disagreement. We have not historically believed that the ideas of religion must be kept out of politics, for then most American individuals would not be able to serve in politics!
We have believed that state and Church have different roles. The state may encourage public morality, but it cannot coerce belief. Christians can work for the state and in it, but they Church does not run it. We are citizens and Churchmen. We synthesize the roles, but we do not confuse them.
The result is predictable. Western Christianity not only survives, but it thrives. Since it is true, Christianity has nothing to fear from freedom. It can welcome constitutional forms of government, because it has internal confidence. It knows secularism, its greatest foe for the last 200 years, is dying unable to sustain a culture of life. We have taken the best shots of Darwin, Freud, Marx, and company and prospered. In fact, the most powerful Western state (the US) is the most religious. Because we chose to not live in a hot house, but fight bad ideas with better ones, our faith is strong and robust.
Islam has never been so wise. It has chosen to hide from secularism or competition. As a result, men like Bin Laden must live in fear. They do not think they can defeat materialism or Western ideas so they turn to the power of the state.
Of course, this brings us to the case of Abdul Rahman. He is a man who, from an Islamic point of view, has committed the ultimate blasphemy by rejecting Islam and embracing another faith.
To my Islamic friends, I would say this: if Islam is true, then I wish to believe it. I want to hear your ideas. I want truth more than I wish to be right about my particular thoughts. However, if you are confident in your beliefs, then you have nothing to fear from the free market place of ideas. I am quite content to allow a majority Islamic population to encourage general Islamic culture in the state. In this sense, I part company with my more strongly libertarian friends. However, encouragement ends with the use of force. If you wish to fund schools which begin the day with Islamic prayers, I would not be offended. . . if you do not make me pray them. Allow me full freedom to vote against your ideas, to argue, to set up an alternative culture to that of the majority and I will rest content. You may use your majority status (says Western tradition) to argue for your point of view, but it is wicked, and almost as bad self-defeating, to use force to make me conform outwardly.
Many faithful Christians have lived for centuries in peace in Islamic lands, yet you have not been willing to give them full liberty. Your evangelism in the West for centuries has fallen on deaf ears. Why? You have not done battle with our best and our worst. As a result your apologetics is often childish and dated. I am forced to wrestle with the ideas of friends who have every possible idea. I have seen beloved students reject my views and follow ideas I think destructive and which have proven destructive in their lives. And yet I would not force them to an external faith if I could for, as you too believe, such a faith would be a mockery of the true love of God.
God placed a tree in a Garden and told men not to eat of it. He allowed men to break His single, loving law. If God will allow a Fall, at great pain to Himself, then we should not force men to love Him. If He who had a right to demand love did not do so, then who are we to demand it?
As hard as it will be to stand, and I know the pain, you must allow men to turn their backs on what you think is the Truth. It is the only way to confirm your faith that it is the Truth for only the Truth is never insecure and endures. If you wish us to be attracted to your Faith, or even for your faith to survive, it needs the flexibility and vigor gained by recognizing the different roles for church and state in our fallen world.
You must set Addul Rahman free and let him live in peace as a minority in your culture. Or are you less sure Islam is true, then I am that Christianity is true?