UPDATE – Finnish Christian faces two-year prison sentence for espousing Christian views

by Seth Udinski

Seth Udinski, FISM News

 

FISM News has covered the shocking case of Finnish Christians Päivi Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola for the last several months. The two are standing trial for the act of publicly expressing a Christian worldview.

Last week, Fox News issued a report revealing that Räsänen and Bishop Pohjola could face up to two years in prison because they publicly shared their pro-biblical views several years ago.

As FISM News previously reported, the charges revolve around a 2019 Twitter post in which she questioned the Lutheran church for their support of the LGBTQ agenda and linked an image containing the passage Romans 1:24-27, where the Bible calls homosexuality unnatural and a perversion. She has also faces charges for a pamphlet she published in 2004 entitled “Male and Female He Created Them.” This trial is still pending.

Räsänen said she is still optimistic she will win, but that she is shocked something like this is happening in Finland. She said in a recent interview,

I’m very optimistic to win the case, but I have to say I’ve been very optimistic all the time. I would never have believed that this happens in Finland because we are a democracy with freedom of speech and freedom of religion in our Constitution…It has been very unbelievable … that this process has continued. So you never can know what happens…(The prosecutors argue) you are allowed in your mind to agree with the Bible. But you can’t state it publicly.

The prosecutors in this case are using an argument that secularists have used for decades, that religion should be a private matter only. According to Räsänen, the prosecuting team made a shocking parallel of the Bible to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Fampf.

FISM News will follow this vital case as it proceeds.

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