by Rolaant McKenzie
June 9, 2024
In the 1993 American science fiction action film Demolition Man, it is 2032 in San Angeles, California, a megalopolis formed from the merger of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. It appears to be a relatively crime-free, ideal society that was designed by its seemingly benevolent technocratic ruler, Dr. Raymond Cocteau.
Order was maintained through a cashless system that involved everyone having to receive an implanted microchip in their right hand that would monitor their health and all financial transactions. Ubiquitous listening boxes monitored the speech of everyone, wherever they were, and issued fines automatically deducted from a person’s digital account for anything said that was contrary to Dr. Cocteau’s rules.
Those who refused to be implanted and controlled by Dr. Cocteau’s speech and behavioral laws were compelled to live in the underground of the city, only resurfacing periodically on raids to acquire food. Desiring to eliminate this last resistance to his rule, he secretly thawed violent criminals from the California Cryo-Penitentiary, a prison in which convicts are cryogenically frozen for lengthy terms, and sent them underground to destroy them.
But Dr. Cocteau’s rule was ended when he was killed by the same criminals he unthawed to murder others, and the people underground and on the surface of San Angeles started the process of working together to combine the best aspects of societal order with personal liberty and embrace freedom of speech.
The obsessive efforts to control speech and other freedoms exhibited by Dr. Cocteau in Demolition Man are reminiscent of the current efforts of many governments that once respected freedom of speech and religious expression to censor speech under one guise or another, especially to supposedly protect certain special interest groups.
On April 1, 2024, in Scotland, the Hate Crime and Public Order Act of 2021 came into effect, which allows for criminal penalties to be imposed on anyone the government deems to have said something hateful based on police guidelines that are largely secret. Someone expressing views on the biological realities of men and women and marriage between a man and a woman, either verbally or on social media, could be punished under this law, even retroactively.
In Canada, on February 26, 2024, the Online Harms Bill C-63 was introduced to supposedly combat the abuse and sexualization of children on social media platforms. What it actually proposes is that the government determines if anyone has said something it decides is hateful and imposes severe criminal penalties, including against those whom the government thinks will likely say something hateful in the future.
Various places in the United States are introducing laws and policies to define “hate speech” as including not affirming another person’s preferred gender identity or pronouns, with punishments that include heavy fines and varying lengths of imprisonment. These efforts to control speech have encouraged corporations to compel their employees to deny their beliefs in the binary, objective, and immutability of sex or face disciplinary action up to termination. One example is a young woman, Taylor Trice, who lost her job in 2022 at a Starbucks coffeehouse in North Carolina because she would not violate her Christian faith by using preferred pronouns or participating in “Pride Month” activities.
Pro-Hamas and anti-Israel demonstrations taking place on many university campuses across the country during the 2024 graduation season have endangered the wellbeing and safety of their Jewish students. On the heels of this, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 to prohibit “hate speech” specifically against Israel and Jewish people. In this unconstitutional act, antisemitism is defined so broadly that there are concerns that such a law could be used to criminalize Christians for their beliefs, particularly regarding the events leading to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ found in the Bible. It could also set a precedent that could later be turned on Jewish people who read passages in the Torah prohibiting sodomy.
Prosecutors in Finland, even after losing two unanimous lower court rulings, still pursue charges of “hate speech” before the Supreme Court of Finland against MP and former Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen and her friend Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola. In 2019, Räsänen shared her Christian views of marriage and sexual morality on Twitter, in a radio debate, and in a 2004 booklet she authored called Male and Female He Created Them. Bishop Pohjola was charged because he published her booklet to his congregation in 2005.
Efforts to censor speech under the guise of not upsetting one special interest or another have Marxist ideas as the common thread driving them. According to Richard Wurmbrand, author of the book Marx & Satan (1986), Karl Marx came from a God-fearing family but rebelled against God and Christian values early in his adulthood. Wurmbrand, by examining his poetry and other literary works, built the case that Marx became a follower of Satan, which can be seen in the fruit of the political philosophy named after him: hatred of God and humanity, abolishment of freedom of expression, an obsession with destroying Christianity, and mass murder.
Because Satan seeks to blind people from believing the gospel of Jesus Christ so that they will remain lost and join him in his final destination in the lake of fire (2 Corinthians 4:1-4), it is reasonable to assume that he will inspire people like Marx to develop philosophies that seek to destroy freedom and prohibit the proclamation of the gospel.
Acts 5:17-32 describes how the authorities forbade preaching about Jesus, but Peter and the other apostles answered them by saying, “We must obey God rather than men.”
We must not be intimidated into self-censorship through fear of persecution. Jesus is always with us and has promised to never leave us (Matthew 28:18-20; Hebrews 13:5-6). The strength and joy He provides help us to overcome censorship, unabashedly share the gospel, and speak the truth on moral issues.
Bishop Pohjola, in a late April 2024 interview with LifeSite News, said that now is the time to exercise our freedom of speech; otherwise, we will lose it. We all need Jesus Christ and His healing grace in our lives. As Christians, we have the wonderful opportunity to share the good news about the forgiveness of sins and salvation in Him.
© 2024 Rolaant McKenzie – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Rolaant McKenzie: rolaant@gospeloutreach.net
Website: http://www.gospeloutreach.net/
