Posted on 05/09/2021 6:23:07 PM PDT by Southside_Chicago_Republican
FINLAND – Rev. Dr. Juhana Pohjola, Diocesan Dean and Bishop Elect of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland (ELMDF) has been charged by Finland’s Prosecutor General with incitement against a group of people. The charges stem from a 2004 booklet published by Luther Foundation Finland (the legal entity behind the ELMDF) which articulates historic Christian teaching on human sexuality.
“As a Christian, I do not want to and cannot discriminate against or despise anyone created by God,” Dean Pohjola said in reaction to being charged. “Every human being, created by God and redeemed by Christ, is equally precious.”
At the same time, he continued, “this does not remove the fact that, according to the Bible and the Christian conception of man, homosexual relations are against the will of God, and marriage is intended only between a man and a woman. This is what the Christian church has always taught and will always teach.”
Finland’s Prosecutor General began an investigation of the ELMDF in 2019 for its booklet “Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual Relationships Challenge the Christian Concept of Humanity,” despite an earlier investigation by Helsinki Police which concluded no laws had been broken. The booklet was published in 2004; Finland legalized same-sex marriage in 2017.
The booklet argues that homosexual activity must be identified as sin by the church on the basis of the teachings of Scripture. The author, Dr. Päivi Räsänen—a Finnish Member of Parliament—further argues that a failure to recognize sin as sin undermines the very need for a Saviour.
(Excerpt) Read more at ilc-online.org ...
Interesting how the USSR died and now the West is adopting their tactics to use against our own people.
Makes me wonder when the liberals will start gulags for the Jews and the Christians.
Perhaps the prosecutor never read the Bible which is very clear on the subject.
Jesus was very clear..They are going to hate you ,because they hated Me first.....
I am sickened at how far down the drain the West has gone, and I wouldn’t be surprised at anything that might happen. The soft persecution is already here.
Even if he has read the Bible, I don’t imagine that counts for much with him.
I don’t know the status of the Catholic Church in Finland but this should be of interest to Catholics as the issue with homosexual sin and the law will certainly be the same with Lutherans and Catholics.
Oh, yes. But what person who lives in a historically-Christian country would ever imagine he might find out what that is like?
“concluded no laws had been broken. The booklet was published in 2004; Finland legalized same-sex marriage in 2017.”
Perhaps they will be gracious and give him a pass since his book was written in 2004 and go after anyone who writes such a book from now on. :-)
Never...But the next 4 years are going to be realllllllly interesting
We pray that Finland's prosecutor-general Raija Toiviainen be converted and cease the persecution and prosecution of Dr. Päivi Räsänen, Rev. Dr. Juhana Pohjola, and their Christian teaching, and if not, that the doing and designing of Raija Toiviainen and Finnish officials supporting her efforts be bound to fail and have no success and that Toiviainen and those officials perish rather than the Gospel and the kingdom of Christ.
So we, too, pray for our angry enemy, not that God protect and strengthen the Finland prosecutor-general Raija Toiviainen in her ways, as we pray for Christians, or that He help her, but that she be converted, if she can be; or, if she refuses, that God oppose her, stop her and end the game to her harm and misfortune.
Eleven years ago? It was not even the same world then.
Maybe — but I am concerned it goes beyond the booklet.
That is a great prayer,
Rev. Dr. Juhana Puhola was not ‘inciting against a group of people’; but rather just passing along a message from Someone who the Finland Prosecutor General cannot charge, and to whom he will someday have to answer to his great dismay.
Agreed.
Thank you for that prayer; may it be so.
“Finland legalized same-sex marriage in 2017”
According to the Finnish Prosecutor General are we to take it that the government of Finland is now able to undefine sin?
That’s what it amounts to.
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