Finland’s supreme court just gave a major setback to freedom of speech, religion, and conscience. Paivi Maria Rasanen is a Finnish politician. A physician by trade, she entered politics in 1995 and has served continuously in parliament since that time. She also served as the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic party from 2004 to 2015, and as Finland’s Minister of the Interior from 2011 to 2015.
It seems that over 20 years ago, she co-wrote a pamphlet with her pastor for her church in which she affirmed traditional marriage. Her legal problems, though, began in June 2019 when she addressed the leadership of her church and questioned its official sponsorship of an LGBT event in a post on X. For that tweet, Paivi was charged as a criminal. In April 2021, the Finnish Prosecutor General brought three charges of “agitation against a minority group” against her under the country’s War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity law.
Following that, Rasanen was unanimously acquitted on all charges by two lower courts. However, the prosecutor kept appealing the decision until finally (March 2026) the Supreme Court upheld the conviction in a 3-2 decision. She was found guilty of “hate speech” on one charge relating to the expression of her beliefs on marriage.
In another case, Canada is not far behind. There is currently a bill that has just been passed by the Canadian House of Commons (Bill C-9) called the “Combatting Hate Act.” It is designed to amend the Criminal Code to strengthen hate propaganda laws, create a standalone hate crime offence, and restrict public displays of hate or terrorist symbols. One of the provisions of the bill would be to remove the “good faith” religious exemption in current law that protects speech based on religious texts. This will have the effect of criminalizing religious expression. All that is left for this to become the law of the land is for their Senate to pass it.
In America, we already have political jurisdictions that have attempted to criminalize Christian values, speech, and actions. So far, these attempts have been ultimately knocked down in appellate courts or, in some cases, even the Supreme Court. But efforts continue by those who think Christian beliefs represent hate – and those efforts are increasing. I wonder how long it will be before we get to the place where Finland and Canada have already gone.
Many Christians are of the opinion that they should avoid engagement in politics. That, though, is a very unbiblical thought. Christians have been tasked to be salt and light in the world as we take the gospel out into society – and we can’t do that without engaging every part of society. Christians need to be heavily engaged in every societal institution – family, arts and entertainment, education, media, government, business, and church. The places we are not willing to engage are all places we have ceded to the enemy. But why is it so important to do that? There are actually two main reasons for it.
First, it is God’s will. This world is the environment we live in. When the environment is oppressive, it becomes more difficult to do the work of Christ in the world. Of course, we will never have utopia on earth because of sin, but we are called to have a positive influence on every part of society to the highest degree possible. Christ expressed that desire in the Lord’s prayer when He said, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
The other main reason we should engage politics is that God has given us that responsibility. Relatively few people in the world live in the kind of society we have – a democratic republic. Under this form of government, we have leaders, but we don’t have rulers. In fact, our ruler is the law, and even our leaders are subject to it. But the leaders don’t get into their positions by forcing their way in. They are selected by the citizenry as representatives. Thus, they are subject to the populace – us.
That being the case, we have a responsibility to choose people who represent the beliefs and values we believe are right. That makes us stewards of the political system. We have a stewardship responsibility before God to know how our representatives are leading, and to hold them accountable. At the very least we must vote – every election. But we should also engage our leaders and encourage them to always do the right thing – and if they don’t, we have a responsibility to work on replacing them.
Christians should have the highest voter turnout of any group because of the responsibility God has placed on us. But according to surveys, only about 50% of Christians actually do in any given election. So where are you? Do you take God’s direction for your life seriously? Do you need to give that some more serious thought?