Cartoons and toleration (republished)
(This is the slightly edited text of a previous Prayer Notes published in 2006 in the wake of global rioting after the publication in Denmark of a controversial cartoon about the prophet Mohammed. It is offered again in order in conjunction with the sermon preached on 21st February 2010 on principled pluralism.)
Scurrilous and blasphemous publications, riots, buildings burned, controversial government legislation and passionate arguments about free speech. Britain has been here before. In the seventeenth century our nation was wrestling with such issues. It was only after a civil war, a failed republican experiment and many deaths and imprisonments that factions in Britain settled down to an uneasy truce. The reflection which came out of this era, and specifically the wealth of Christian reflection, should equip us to be powerful leading voices in this debate. I am not sure, however, that we are yet leading as we should.
The Bible
First of all it is important to understand that the New Testament vision for society does not include the idea of specific preferential treatment for Christians. In the Old Testament we are presented with a nation under God, living under God’s law, but in the New Testament the ‘nation’ is the church (1 Peter 2:9). The church is to follow the Old Testament precedent of maintaining purity among God’s people (1 Corinthians 5:7) but scripture does not at all envisage that such a policy will be pursued in the wider world (1 Corinthians 5:10). The church lives in the wider world as Israel lived among the nations (1 Peter 1:1). When the New Testament writers describe the role of government as instituted by God ‘to do you good’ (Romans 13:4) and ‘punish those who do wrong’ (1 Peter 2:14) they are not expecting governments to specifically privilege Christians or to specifically penalise non-Christians. Rather the New Testament portrays an early church that benefited from the Roman practice of the state not involving itself in matters of religion unless it involved sedition, or civil disruption (Acts 18:15, 23:29, 25:25-26, 26:31-32). Jesus’ policy towards dissenters was to allow them to walk away (Mark 10:22). The New Testament points us towards a policy of toleration in the wider community, in which we may deeply and passionately disagree with others, but be equally committed to opposing them only by persuasion, argument (2 Corinthians 10:3-5) and verbal criticism (Luke 13:31-32).
This in turn must mean that we must provide considerable space for freedom of expression even to the point of offensiveness. Heresies of all sorts are not to be punished by coercion but are to be opposed by truth.
History
This concept in Christian theology has been slow to mature in history. In the years before Constantine (272-337) Christians were the persecuted ones and theologians like Tertullian (155-230) advocated toleration and freedom of religion from this position of weakness. After Constantine made Christianity the official religion Christians rapidly came to see Christian Rome as the New Jerusalem and to suppress and sometimes persecute their opponents. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) initially advocated toleration but became convinced after experience with the separatist Donatists that mild religious coercion could be a good thing, asking “why ... should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?”(Treatise against the Donatists, Ch6) At the Reformation Martin Luther (1483-1546) initially advocated religious toleration but the peasants revolt, and his disappointment that the Jews did not convert to Christianity led him to advocate persecution, often with the most violent and intemperate language. In France the Edict of Nantes (1598) was an experiment in religious pluralism but it never really worked and collapsed disastrously in 1685.
In Britain the persecutions of the sixteenth century, the civil war of the seventeenth century, and the French persecution of the Protestant Huguenots made the population weary and fearful of religious persecution. Various thinkers began to advocate models of civil government which preserved extensive freedoms for religious minorities. Some like John Locke (1632-1704) were not driven specifically by scripture but others including John Owen (1616-1683) were profoundly scripturally based. John Milton added to the weight of Christian opinion, by writing Areopagitica (1644) in protest at the Parliament’s censoring Licensing Order of 1643. His friend Roger Williams (1603-1684) - the founder of Rhode Island – went further and wrote The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience which was profoundly scriptural and advocated full liberty of conscience within a pluralistic state. Williams and Locke in particular were massively influential in the development of freedom of religion in the United States. In the event England opted for an established Church of England with a limited toleration of dissenters (See Act of Toleration, 1689) and only moved very slowly towards our modern concept of freedom of religion. In the eighteenth to twentieth centuries the leading advocates of a pluralistic state like John Stuart Mill’s (1806-1873) On Liberty and Isaiah Berlin’s (1909-1997) Two Concepts of Liberty have not argued from Christian foundations but we must not forget that the idea of toleration has strong Christian roots.
Reflection
The decision about whether to prosecute or restrain reckless newspaper publishers or placard waving fanatics does not rest on whether the material is offensive (which it is) but on whether the disruption to society outweighs the freedom of expression which God himself allows. For myself I believe that the cartoons are potentially justifiable comment, in the same way that a cartoon of Jesus going on a crusade may be justifiable. I would be offended by such a cartoon but I could not claim that such an image was a wilful, reckless, misrepresentation of history designed only to cause strife. There is a case to answer, both for the crusades and for modern violence in the name of Allah. On the other hand it has long been recognised that some ‘fair comment’ is sometimes actually motivated by a desire to stir up trouble and sedition. Most Catholic sympathisers and radical dissenters who were executed under Elizabeth I were executed for sedition and treason not heresy. Their views would be tolerated within certain limits but not if they were used to foment uprisings. The judgment has to be made today as to whether the publication of the cartoons was to make a comment, or to damage the delicate fabric of society. In moments of high tension such as Elizabethan England and today, we sometimes have to require more restraint in order to keep the peace. (The German prohibition of holocaust denial is another modern example.) Placards calling for the beheading of the publishers, however, are simply incitement to murder. They are a blatantly advocating illegality. We have every right to demand that such expressions are prosecuted.
In the end as Christians we are not called primarily to prosecute falsehood but to argue against it, we are not called to punish insults but to bless those who curse us. The power of such lives and the Truth which they represent will always shine through. As John Milton wrote:
‘Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play on the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?’ | 
