Noose Bulletin

“We must, indeed, all hang together,” Benjamin Franklin reportedly admonished his fellow signers of the Declaration of Independence, with definitive gallows humor. “Or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

It was a gentle warning, to count the cost of placing their signatures on a document whose assertions the British would inevitably consider treason. As it turned out, none of the 56 who chose to sign, anyway, actually found their way to the gallows.

Five, though, were captured, and tortured. Nine fought and died in the war. Twelve lost their homes to the enemy’s torches. A number of others lost their fortunes, spent the war as fugitives, or faced the death of their wives and children in the conflict.

It was a terrible price to pay for the life, liberty, and happiness they recognized as their “unalienable Rights” … the gracious endowment of a loving Creator. Not everyone, it turned out, found truths like freedom and equality to be “self-evident.”

A lot of people still don’t. Most of us, half-listening to the evening news, find that annoying, exasperating, infuriating – but not life-threatening. We can’t, and don’t, hear the sound of far-off gallows being hammered into shape and raised against the darkening skies.

For some, though – for a number growing rapidly, just over yon horizons – the hammers are deafening. Here’s a quick sampling of what those hammers sound like.

Dr. Päivi Räsänen has spent most of the last seven years in one Finnish courtroom or another, fending off criminal charges stemming from a single tweet she wrote to the leaders of her local church, questioning their biblical justification for financing a Helsinki “pride” event.

At 66, Dr. Räsänen is a figure of some influence in Finland: a respected medical doctor, 30-year-plus member of parliament, and former minister of the interior. But for that tweet, referencing Romans 1:24-27, she underwent a grueling 13-hour police interrogation, and has been prosecuted in every major court in the country – accused of “hate speech.”

In each instance, right up to the Finland Supreme Court, she was exonerated, but the government’s prosecutor finally secured the long-sought conviction by adding a new charge – “crimes against humanity.” The doctor was condemned this spring for writing a 2004 pamphlet for the people of her church on what the Bible teaches about human sexuality. The pamphlet, the government says, violates laws of hate speech passed by the Finnish parliament in 2011.

Again: in 2011. Dr. Räsänen has been convicted because her Scripture-based pamphlet violates a hate crime law that did not exist until seven years after she wrote it.

But then, Finland is so far away. Let’s consider Ireland, where Pastor Clive Johnston, 78, a retired Baptist minister, was recently convicted under criminal charges for preaching the Gospel one Sunday near a hospital.

The actual charges involved leading an anti-abortion demonstration. Curious, since Pastor Johnston made no mention of abortion during his open-air service. Such services are common and quite popular in Ireland, as they have been throughout the nation’s history. Police body-cams showed the pastor standing before a large cross, reading Scripture.

So, what was the crime? Authorities admit that Pastor Johnston didn’t threaten anyone; he demonstrated no violence, no harassment, no obstruction or intimidation. What the police did record, though, was his reading of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Guilty, the court decided. Such a verse, proclaimed near a hospital that performs abortions, was clearly a call for mercy on unborn children – and a violation of the buffer zone prohibiting any pro-life messaging outside an abortion facility.

Thank goodness Europe is so far across the ocean, eh?

How ‘bout University Heights, Ohio? Daniel Grand, a young Jewish man, invited a dozen friends over to his house to pray with him. In the Hebrew faith, men must pray three times a day with a “minyan” of at least 10 fellow Jews; sometimes that’s easier to do at home.

Somehow, word reached city hall of Daniel’s intentions; officials informed Daniel that he could not, without an official permit, use his home as a “place of religious assembly.” Poker games don’t require casinos; book clubs don’t necessitate libraries. But if you and your friends want to pray together in University Heights – you’ll need a permit, and zoning for a synagogue.

Daniel applied for the permit. He showed up, obediently, at a lion’s den masquerading as zoning commission hearing. Neighbors jeered and taunted him; the commissioners bade him come back to their next gathering for more of the same.

Daniel demurred, and the city pulled out the heavy artillery. Officials nudged his neighbors to spy on him … directed police to do drive-bys … cited him for made-up “housing code violations” … bent the tax code to penalize him thousands of dollars. They stopped his weekly trash pick-ups.

Meanwhile, Daniel figured out that, should he actually secure a permit to host friends for a prayer time … he’d have to move out of his house. It’s against the law, in Ohio, to sleep in a house of worship. So: you can’t pray where you live; you can’t live where you pray.

We’re not praying enough about these things, I fear – as individuals, or as churches. There’s a growing cost, everywhere, to referencing Scripture, praying, associating with “Christians.” We who do these things are seen as traitors, more and more, to a culture determined to leave God behind.

They’re out there, building gallows. And if, at least in prayer, we can’t hang together … the odds are building that more of us are going to hang separately.