The year was off to such a good start.
Finally we said goodbye to Newsweek’s scandalous butchery of the multi-faceted academic debate regarding the historical reliability of the Bible – a reliability that has eminent, respected and authoritative defenders from the late great F.F. Bruce to the esteemed denizens of Tyndale House in Cambridge University. Perhaps the New Year would usher in a season of common sense to Western culture. No such luck.
The unread book
In early January, the fire chief of Atlanta, Georgia, Kelvin Cochran, was fired. ‘Why?’, you ask. Because he had written a book entitled Who Told You That You Were Naked? in which he explained his Christian faith. Now, before I go any further I must admit two things: 1) I have not read the book and 2) I am probably not going to. By all descriptions it is an important book, even though reviews said it is not a literary, or intellectual, masterpiece. I will not read it, not because I do not have the time, or because I do not care for what I am told are its points, but because I want to have the same lack of information as that of the executive director of a group who, reportedly, demanded that ‘frankly the only course of action at this point and time is his (Cochran’s) immediate and permanent dismissal’. A judgment from a man who had not read the book either.
How can a fire chief be judged by someone’s uninformed opinion of his religion? In what I can take from reading the debate as recorded in the venerable New York Times, there is disagreement as to whether Cochran had asked for the appropriate permission to publish the book (he says he did), and annoyance that he handed out the book to his subordinates (he says three in total). No one has unearthed any claims of sexual harassment, undignified behaviour, inappropriate conduct – and given the media attention you would think that if there was any it would by now have emerged. What everyone seems to agree is that a) Cochran wrote a book, b) at some point he spoke out against sexual activity of any kind outside of heterosexual committed marriage, and c) he got fired for it.
Lest the dear readers of en would forget, let me remind us all that this took place in a country that has as its First Amendment: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances’.
What exactly is going on?
Some say this is an issue of freedom of religion. I think it is that, but a step further too. It is an issue of freedom of speech. Given the more than valid concerns aroused by hate-filled diatribes of extremist Islamic groups, the powers-that-be are set on clamping down on any articulation of any of what they deem to be ‘extreme’ views. But as far as I can tell, Cochran did not advocate repression, violence or any such kind of extreme views. He merely stated his case that, as Christians have long believed, sex is for marriage.
‘First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.’ (Martin Niemöller)
I do not suggest that the situation is as extreme as that – yet. But as I reflect on Scripture, and the counsel of Paul to ‘submit to authorities’ in Romans 13, and the contrasting example of the apostles who refused to be told not to preach and who kept on anyway (Acts 4), I ask myself whether we are in a Romans 13 or Acts 4 situation?
The purpose of this column is not (nor is there space) to examine all the intellectual reasons for the venom that is spouted out against those who hold views that until recently were thought to be standard, nor to express the important balance of Scripture of being ‘against sin’ but ‘for the sinner’, nor the necessity of recognising that we are all sinners and therefore not coming to any situation with Pharisaic judgmentalism, but with Christian love. All this nuance is important. We are to be salt and light, to befriend and love and reach out to any and all, whatever orientation or inclination. Such were some of us.
But with all this discussion in mind, the news about one Atlanta fire chief is news that should put backbone into Christians and all who are for not just freedom of religion (though that too), but freedom of any true kind whatsoever.
