ICC Note:

In many countries where Christians face persecution, blasphemy laws exist. Unfortunately, these laws are often used as a tool of persecution and create religious hierarchies where one religion is protected and others are not. In Pakistan, which has some of the world’s toughest blasphemy laws on its books, the law is often abused. Personal score settling, economic gain, and religious hatred are just a few of the reasons Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan are falsely accused of blasphemy. With International Blasphemy Day coming a the end of the week, Christians should unite against the use of blasphemy laws around the world. 

09/27/2016 Pakistan (Christian Today) – It’s International Blasphemy Day on Friday. Initiated by the New York-based Center for Inquiry in 2009 in the wake of the Danish Muhammad cartoons controversy, it’s designed to press home the need for everyone to be able to say what they like about religion without fear of being punished for it.

Forget for a moment that it was started by an atheist organization. Forget that blasphemy and mockery directed against the God in whom we believe hurts and stings. This is something all Christians should support, for three reasons.

1. Blasphemy laws kill people

In Pakistan they’re used to settle disputes between neighbors – a Muslim can accuse a Christian of blasphemy on spurious grounds and see him jailed and in fear of his life. Asia Bibi is still in jail facing the death penalty. In other Muslim countries Christians live in fear because of what a careless word or a false accusation might lead to. In Bangladesh, people who’ve identified themselves as atheists have been murdered. Blasphemy is punishable by death in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, too.

There’s something profoundly disturbing about the idea that God should require the services of an executioner to protect His honor. When Christians stand up against blasphemy laws, we aren’t denying God’s glory, we are affirming it: we’re saying he is untouchable by human ignorance, scorn or abuse.

2. Blasphemy laws compromise religious freedom

Some Christians are keen to oppose blasphemy laws in Muslim countries because they’re used against Christians, but want to retain legal sanctions against blaspheming the Christian faith in their own country. There are laws against blasphemy in at least 14 member states of the EU. The UK abolished the offence in 2008, but Northern Ireland retained it. Six US states still have blasphemy laws; the Massachusetts one threatens prison and a fine for anyone who “willfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, His creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures”.

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