Why Christian Free Speech Matters

The Dark Consequences of "the New Morality"

Christian free speech is not about safeguarding “convenience” for Christians in our society; it’s about the freedom to do good for society by standing against long-term societal self-harm with the truth of Christ.

I was looking suitably stone-faced before the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday morning (as was Tim Dieppe!). We were standing alongside Kristie Higgs, who lost her school job 5 years ago for sharing a post (with a hundred or so of her Facebook friends) which had said that the introduction of LGBT+ ideology in primary schools would be "brainwashing" young children.

Apparently, she was wrong for doing this. Apparently, LGBT+ ideology is not "an ideology" at all, and implementing it at primary school level as the new normality is in no way tantamount to brainwashing. Apparently, what we call “LGBT+ ideology” is just a fact of life, an objectively “good” thing which we always should have known about and adhered to. To many, it makes as little sense to protest against LGBT+ ideology as it would to protest against oxygen.

Slightly less zealous adherents of the new morality might wonder, of course, that it is a little odd that it took us until the very, very recent past to realise this apparently “normal” moral truth about the inherent goodness of LGBT+. Still, better late than never… Christians should stop catastrophising and get on with their lives… It’s their own fault… Nothing to see here… Let’s all get back to our utopia of inclusive tolerance…

Ideology and the New Morality

How can you tell when a way of thinking has become “an ideology” within a society?

One fairly obvious sign is when that way of thinking cannot be questioned strongly without consequence; when you cannot challenge robustly and publicly without losing your job, your reputation, your livelihood, your freedom, etc. The totalitarian regimes of the 20th century offer us ample examples of entire populations swayed into collective madness by state-coerced dogmas which oppose, demonise, or eliminate ideological outsiders.

The point of fighting for Christian free speech under such conditions is not about making life slightly more "convenient" for Christians. The point is that if Christians can no longer speak and act Christianly, our society is heading toward an even darker place than most “normal” people thought possible. Few will even notice until it’s too late to change it.

The Facebook post which got Kristie Higgs fired stated that the normalisation of LGBT+ ideology would mean that "expressing fundamental Christian beliefs relating to the creation of men and women and marriage will in practice become forbidden." Honestly, who can deny this is not now the case in practice? How many Christians are truly free to say what the Bible says about human sexuality?

I don’t just mean simply describing traditional marriage and stating you believe in it; I mean saying what is wrong about “non-traditional” marriage, challenging that which opposes true marriage, saying why true marriage must be “the norm”, and saying why it’s harmful to say otherwise; I mean declaring the divine wisdom in male/female difference, and stating the implications of this, and what it all means for what we should or shouldn’t teach children in our schools. This is what it means to believe something and be willing to express it when it counts.

The judges, lawyers, politicians, journalists, and administrators presently stewarding our utopic Land of Tolerance will keep saying: "No, no, don’t be silly, of course you're perfectly free to believe whatever you like; we are merely saying you must not cause offence when you share what you believe..."

But what if Christian views themselves are seen as inherently offensive? What if defending Christian morality in public is now deemed "immoral"?

Despite the many freedoms we still enjoy (for now) it is abundantly clear that Christians are becoming anathema to the new gods of the sexual revolution. We are the new heretics, driven back to the catacombs of “private” belief because we cannot and will not show public honour to the new Caesars of the LGBT+ senate.

I expect that many people currently taken in by the new LGBT+ morality are not necessarily setting out to be malicious. They are not all consciously trying to eradicate Christian beliefs from public life. Most of them not only don’t understand Christian beliefs (but think they do) and see the New LGBT+ Morality as "obvious", as something that all good people should obviously agree with. “Why wouldn’t you want to enable people to be free to be whoever they want, and be with whoever they want? Why would you want to be more like a fascist?”

Their ignorance over the disastrous wider effects of this way of thinking is itself the product of the ideology—or, the "brainwashing". It’s not up for debate. It’s as obvious as oxygen. They simply cannot see it any other way. They cannot imagine why anyone would want to challenge these things strongly. They have no idea how deeply the ideology is now embedded within them, intellectually, emotionally, even spiritually.

The comprehensive cultural propaganda—via films, books, plays, lectures, curricula, documentaries, shows, songs, laws, paintings, clothes, toys, flags, corporations, murals, holidays, etc.—has made this ideology “the norm” within western society. It has been comprehensively effective. Regardless of whatever the people involved thought they were doing at each stage of the process, I believe its true roots have been nothing less than a demonic conspiracy.

The new consequences for challenging the New Morality have far darker consequences than many have yet seen. To quote again from the post which Kristie was not allowed to share publicly with her friends within the Land of Tolerance:

"We say again, this is a vicious form of totalitarianism aimed at suppressing Christianity and removing it from the public arena".

That was said 5 years ago. Who can now deny something like this is happening, and will inevitably continue to happen in coming years?

Why Christian Free Speech Matters

It is increasingly obvious that we live in a secular theocracy where it is not permissible to blaspheme the LGBT gods. These issues are already radically altering the future of this formerly great Christian nation.

Most people see cases like Kristie’s and think, "Ah, another cancellation. Oh well! What can you do?!" They assume the balance of their life and society will stay roughly the same as it is right now. But it won't. It can and will get much worse than this. Many people have no idea what's coming and drastically need to wake up.

Are there far greater persecutions of Christians in other nations across the world right now? Absolutely. But just as we stand with them in prayer, proclamation, and support, we must not let our foot slip in the mud in our own homeland too. This is where God has placed us to stand and fight for the foundations which many of our forebears worked so hard to build.

It is from these Christian foundations that the Gospel was sent abroad to many foreign lands, radically transforming their cultures for good, and enabling so many Christians to flourish as they now do in so many places beyond the formerly Christian (and decreasingly Christian) nations of the west.

You see the remnants of these foundations everywhere you look in places like London. It’s why Christians hold events like the March for Life there every year, in the hopes of reawakening the moral embers of the nation in a place where the very buildings still speak of a civilization that had the confidence to project its Christian values to the wider world, a culture worth defending. We know, of course, that at root what we need is revival.

So, defending Christian free speech in western nations is not simply a case of Christians wanting an easier time of it; nor is it an act of ingratitude for the many existing freedoms we still have compared with other nations. Rather, this is about the freedom of Christians to stay Christian, to keep living as Christians, to raise our children Christian, and to keep talking like Christians.

We do this because we believe it’s true, yes; but we also do this so that we may continue to do much good in this part of the world God made, for the good of that world, to the frustration of Satan, and to the glory of God.

In God’s Hands

Christians living and talking like Christians is good news for all, not just for Christians. When we do this, we should not be embarrassed to say that we will change the world. What else are we here for? What else is supposed to happen when Christians truly live and work unto the Lord within this world in the power of His Spirit?

Yes, the future of the nations is in God's hands, not ours. But this means that we are in God's hands too, and thus we must be willing to go where he calls us to go and to say what he calls us to say. Indeed, in the words of that old children’s hymn which used to be sung in virtually every school assembly in this land: “He's got the whole world in his hands”.

We must live and speak like this is true, especially if—in the words of that old prayer which used to be prayed in virtually every school in this land—we wish to see “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”.

Jesus called us to keep our saltiness or become trampled underfoot (Matthew 5:13). Christians are called to love their neighbours. This means warning them not to keep walking into ever bleaker darkness, and showing them the light of salvation. In order to show people the way, we cannot keep acting like passive doormats as our beliefs are perpetually trampled into the mud.

We must stand and we must fight. This is how we love our neighbours. Pray those with ears to hear and mouths to speak will continue to do so, whatever the cost. Pray for many more with ears to hear and mouths to speak, for the good of the world, to the frustration of Satan, to the glory of God.