![\"Landrum](\"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/images_news-2017_Landrum-lecture.jpg\" "\\"Dr")
<\/a>In the last ten years, Dr Landrum contended, various developments have affected the exercise of free speech. \u2018Globalisation has continued at a bewildering pace raising questions of control, censorship and dominant discourses.\u2019 Technological progress has changed the way we relate to and value other people. Social media have created the opportunity for an \u2018echo chamber\u2019 which distorts ideas and increases disenchantment with politics. The erosion of public discourse has followed. The language of binary opposition has developed. Freedom of speech is not used to discuss various aspects of an idea but rather to legitimise one point of view and demonise its opposite with hateful rhetoric.<\/p>\n
So, Dr Landrum asked, \u201cWhat is happening to our rights to free speech?\u201d A sacred\/secular divide is developing in which \u2018faith talk\u2019 is relegated to private discourse. At the same time, two myths are growing apace. The idea prevails that secularism is an unbiased ideology and that balanced, rational and morally neutral positions are possible. Alongside it grows the myth of progress \u2013 that things are moving onward and upward and to suggest otherwise is \u2018heretical\u2019. Alongside these two myths, human rights narratives are developing on hierarchical principles and when religious freedom clashes with other \u2018protected\u2019 rights such as sexual orientation, religious freedom has to give way. In the West, human rights discourse, Dr Landrum suggested, \u201chas become idolatrous \u2013 a totalising creed.\u201d The response of lawmakers to these developments and especially to the problems created by Islamist threats to security and public order is to legislate upon areas of human life where it had no previous access. The Law has become \u2018a secular religion.\u2019 Secularisation has further effects on society. It \u2018weaponises\u2019 human rights. This can be seen in state universities, traditionally centres for discussion and debate, now given the legal duty to monitor and control what is said on their campuses. Conflicts between the \u2018offender\u2019 and the \u2018offended\u2019 who thrive on controversy and notoriety lead to the passing of laws on \u2018hate speech\u2019 which is often very subjectively defined. Free speech, as traditionally defined, is a casualty in all these battles.<\/p>\n So Dr Landrum asked, \u201cWhy are these developments important for Christians and how should we respond?\u201d Our first response should be to recognise a paradox: the secular state often approves of what Christians do but not what they believe. Government funds more Church projects as its own social care provision recedes. At the same time, the secular state objects to Christian beliefs – particularly about sexuality. Christians should respond to these attitudes by abandoning our traditional apathy about civil rights and religious freedom issues. We should be alert to the development of new criminal categories for extremists which would certainly have categorised Christian heroes like John Wesley, William Wilberforce, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and, of course, Jesus of Nazareth as \u2018extremists\u2019. We should be alert to the influence of the state on what can and cannot be taught to our children.<\/p>\n Moving into a more political arena, Dr Landrum suggested that all Christians have a responsibility to promote religious literacy and campaign for freedom \u2013 not just for themselves but for other religions and for secularists who offend and insult our faith. \u201cWe should speak up for speaking up for justice, not just-us!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dr Landrum concluded with a reminder about witnessing which resonated with many of the Adventists in the audience. Religious freedom is like a muscle – if we don\u2019t use it, we will lose it. A video of the presentation can be seen on the Newbold College of Higher Education Facebook page<\/a> and will shortly be available on YouTube<\/a>. [ted<\/em>NEWS]<\/p>\n SEE ALSO:<\/a><\/a><\/a>
February Diversity lecture: Moving beyond immature faith.<\/a><\/p>\n
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