According to this post (and the stories to which it links), a court in Australia has ruled that Pastor Daniel Scot violated the "Racial and Religious Tolerance Act" by "ma[king] fun of Muslim beliefs and conduct" in a seminar presentation. According to the judge, Scot's criticisms were not made "in the context of a serious discussion of Muslims'
religious beliefs; it was presented in a way which is essentially
hostile, demeaning and derogatory of all Muslim people, their god,
Allah, the prophet Mohammed, and in general Muslim beliefs and
practices." Apparently, the Act allows "genuine academic, artistic,
religious or scientific" discussion of religious beliefs. Scot, however, went too far.
The post notes that "Catholics and mainline churches have supported the Racial and Religious
Tolerance Act" and also "the criminal charges against . . . Scot."
This story returns us to earlier discussions about proselytism, evangelism, coercion, and freedom. I am inclined to think that Christians should -- for Christian reasons -- take care to make sure that their efforts at faithful witness and evangelism are always consistent with respect for hearers' dignity. To paraphrase Professor John Witte, Christians need to be attentive to the need to balance the Great Commission and the Golden Rule. That said, it strikes me that the liberal state is and ought to be utterly incompetent in striking and enforcing this balance.
Rick
"Pastor Scot, throughout the seminar, made fun of Muslim beliefs and conduct," Higgins wrote.
"It was done not in the context of a serious discussion of Muslims'
religious beliefs; it was presented in a way which is essentially
hostile, demeaning and derogatory of all Muslim people, their god,
Allah, the prophet Mohammed, and in general Muslim beliefs and
practices."
The problem, Higgins said, was that Scot argued that
Wahhabist Islam is the true Islam, and that more moderate, Western
forms are compromises of what the Qur'an really teaches.
I appreciate Patrick's thoughtful post about John 11:35, particularly his suggestion that Christians might "offer their best witness by mourning, as Jesus did, the consequences of justice, which lead to punishment, sometimes even to death." It seems we are presented with a challenge: to embrace, on the one hand, the truth of Patrick's observation that Christians "engaged in punishing (sometimes unto death) are engaged in a business that the God who desires the salvation of all must sorrow over" and, on the other, the Psalmist's love of the law (but perhaps not his loathing of the lawless?) (see Psalm 119).
Rick
I am a Californian by birth and rearing, and I hear something regrettably familiar in what is reported from California. Would that Californians and others were always as concerned with justice as they appear to be when their responsibility is to sit in judgment of a criminal and his crime. Christians should want to be prompt to do justice. Justice is only part of the picture, however. We cannot be certain that Hell enjoys a population, but if it does, God regrets this as the unavoidable consequence of the justice that attends our created human freedom. The fascinating history of exegesis of John 11:35 reveals our human resistance to acknowledge that even our Saviour was moved to weep about human death itself. If Christians have a contribution to make to public discourse and decision concerning criminal punishment and death, justice is a worthy starting point. But with the lex talionis as available to the trigger finger as it is, I wouldn't be surprised if Christians didn't offer their best witness by mourning, as Jesus did, the consequences of justice, which lead to punishment, sometimes even to death. This is not the only necessary witness, of course. This is a both-and situation, to be sure -- but what I want to hear loud and clear is that Christians engaged in punishing (sometimes unto death) are engaged in a business that the God who desires the salvation of all must sorrow over. My friend Richard Schenk OP suggests that our duties as Christians to punish do not arise without the need to regret our assignment. As Thomas Aquinas teaches in his Commentary on John: "He wept in order to reveal to us that it is not blameworthy to weep out of compassion . . . . He wept with a purpose, which was to teach us that we should weep on account of sin . . . . "
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Here is a provocative post, over at law professor Ann Althouse's excellent blog. Apparently, death-penalty expert Frank Zimring remarked recently that "what [is] most remarkable about capital punishment in California [is] that even with strong public support for it - a Field Poll in March showed 68 percent favored the death penalty for serious crimes - there [is] scant outrage over the courts' slow-paced application of it." California, apparently, "values law and order but seems to have little appetite for Texas-style justice."
To which Professor Althouse adds:
The suspicion is that Californians want to be able to express their condemnation, to say "you deserve to die," but they also want to say "we should not kill." It seems incoherent, but perhaps it is quite coherent. Thinking about it, I realize it is about the way I think of the death penalty.
I tend to think about the matter this way, too. That is, my opposition to the death penalty -- unlike that of many contemporary abolitionists -- does not reflect any doubts on my part that people are morally responsible agents who sometimes do horrible things and therefore deserve severe punishments -- perhaps even death. Notwithstanding all this, and wholly and apart from (non-trivial) concerns about the death-penalty's cost-ineffectiveness, accuracy, and racism, I guess I have concluded that we are foreclosed from giving some criminals what they truly deserve (and don't Catholics often pray that we will not receive what we truly deserve?) by a moral prohibition on unnecessary, intentional killings.
Rick
Friday, December 17, 2004
This is just a reminder of the conference on "Taking Christian Legal Thought Seriously" to be held parallel to the AALS Annual Meeting in San Francisco on Saturday January 8, 2005 from 8:30AM-3:00PM in the Hotel Monaco on Geary Street, just a block from the Hilton. There is a small registration fee, which covers lunch, which may be paid at the door. Many of our law prof readers will have recieved our hard copy brochure, but all interested parties are welcome -- you don't have to be registered at the AALS meeting. The event is cosponsored by the Law Professors' Christian Fellowship, the Lumen Christi Institute and the Journal of Catholic Social Thought. The panelist will include those working from both Catholic and Protestant traditions, including MOJ blogistas Rick Garnet, Susan Stabile and John Breen et al. For more info, feel free to email or call me.
-Mark
