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Freedom of speech is a lovely idea until the speech one freely makes leads to the death (murder) of four people in a country that doesn’t share that same freedom. What should be our response?
Here’s the backstory with some editorializing.
According to the New York Daily News…
Terry Jones, the crackpot Florida pastor who promised to burn the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11 in 2010, promoted the low-budget, anti-Muhammad film that sparked riots and triggered the killing of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens on Tuesday.
Known as “Innocence of Muslims” or “Muhammad, Prophet of the Muslims,” the incendiary flick depicts Muhammad, Islam’s holiest prophet, as a thuggish womanizer, and Muslims as homosexuals, child molesters and madmen.
Murder is wrong and I hope whoever committed these crimes will be held responsible. But should Pastor Jones be held responsible, too? How should churches, pastors, and Christian leaders deal with this so-called pastor? Should anything be done? Even if his actions aren’t incriminating (and I don’t know that they are or aren’t), shouldn’t the Christian community somehow address this tragedy?
This pastor says that “Terry Jones must be stopped and evangelicals must stop him….”
What do you think?
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I heard a bit more about this on NPR yesterday, and I’m just baffled by all the mass stupidity involved.
Apparently, the full movie was originally “released” to one little theatre in Hollywood for a single screening that barely anybody attended. It’s not even clear that it was really screened anywhere overseas. The only thing Terry Jones saw was the trailer on YouTube, which wasn’t getting any attention until he started promoting it–and from what I heard of the dialogue in the trailer, it was probably a pretty crappy film to begin with and the dialogue was so ridiculous it makes you wonder whether it was somebody’s feeble attempt at satire.
It almost sounds to me like Jones did the equivalent of treating an Onion article like “real news”, while the protesters over there did the same.
That’s absurd (both the OP’s suggestion and the first comment). What if some people group suddenly decided that Americans driving cars insulted mother nature and so began attacking people because of it? Where is the line where you say some depiction or action is ok, and anything more “caused” some lunatic fringe to attack people?
Terry Jones is offensive, an embarrassment to Americans and Christianity especially and he intentionally provoked Muslims with the film. Agreed. That does’t make him responsible for the completely overboard violent retaliation.
This morning, my wife asked why a Florida crackpot pastor with a tiny congregation and a California felon movie maker get worldwide attention. That’s the relevant question, and interestingly, the only major news media asking the same question is Al Jazeera.
At issue, the media’s sensationalizing trivial drivel from spectacularly inconsequential origins. These two have nothing significant to say to the world. There are millions with more relevant and beneficial contributions who are ignored by the media, perhaps because they lack the sensational splash that helps the stations ratings.
The movie trailer went viral after it was splashed across the middle-east by the news media. It wasn’t news, just sensational trash, but it was given center stage as though it was the American stance on Islam. Shallow-thinking viewers believed the media and people died.
Note to self; the major media outlets are not information sources. Not CNN, not FOX, not MSNBC, none of the major outlets offer investigative journalism, just drivel.
While the originators of the film are fully culpable in the subsequent violence, the greater guilt rests with the news media that sensationalized and misrepresented the film as representative of U.S. attitudes.
I sincerely believe that religious leaders should be the first to condemn these kinds of actions. If we don’t hold ourselves accountable then the secular world not only finds it offensive, but finds our teachings to be laughable. But, I could be wrong.
Should the actors?
What he did is protected speech in the US. It’s in poor taste, but it’s still protected. What protestors did is violence, which is wrong. Period. There are other ways to protest and THEY should be held responsible for THEIR actions.
That said, we as Evangelicals need to AT THE VERY LEAST speak out and make sure that it is known that Pastor Jones is not teaching what the Bible teaches and that hate of another person or their people group is not something we as followers of Christ condone EVER.
He will be held responsible for this when he stands before God.
If it were another religious activist promoting something in the US, he would be held in gitmo, but somehow, an idiotic drunk christian gets a pass
Held responsible for murder? No. Those men made a choice to react how they did to his video. Is this man a hate-slinging nutball from whom the Church needs to distance itself immediately? Absolutely. Men like this spread hatred in the name of Jesus. I think Christians should do what we can to separate our message from idiots like this. But we also can’t let fear of retaliation prevent us from speaking up. This guy was in the wrong, but where does that end? Are we to stop spreading the Gospel because it might get us killed in some countries? As awful as this was, and I can’t say that enough, I still think the benefits of freedom of speech can outweigh horrible things like this.
As rough of a situation this is, and as incendiary as this man’s actions are, I think blaming him directly for what ultimately transpired in Libya is irresponsible and a tad hypocritical. He does these things to get national attention, and we give it to him. It’s horrible to show such intolerance in such obviously attention-seeking ways, no one is disagreeing with that. However, 4 Americans are dead because a group of fanatics (that acted on their own and don’t represent the vast majority of Muslims) did something horrible. That’s were the blame lies. By bringing Terry Jones’s name up, you’re giving him exactly what he wants and nothing is resolved.
To me, claiming Terry Jones is responsible for the murder of these people is rather like a parent claiming that a child is to blame for being smacked because “you made me so angry.”
Terry Jones behaved badly. But he didn’t make anybody commit murder. And claiming that he made them do it is the worst kind of blame shifting.
How should people should treat Mr. Jones? Loving him is our duty. Not giving him media coverage is probably prudent as well.
Oh I wasnt suggesting he was responsible for murder! I just meant responsible for any part of the storyline. That’s all.
It’s fair to call his positions irresponsible and invective. But to hold him legally responsible for the deaths violates his constitutional rights and jeopardizes everyone’s rights.
All good points regarding of brother Terry, but I wonder if this is equivalent of yelling FIRE in a theater? There are times when speech is limited due to the affect in the safety if others.
I’m not sure he should be prosecuted, but I am sure he should be ignored in the future.
Let him rot on the vine of irrelevance.
Doesn’t strike me as the same thing.
If this had been a case where the movie caused a riot and 4 people were randomly trampled, I think it would be more comparable.
However, this was a case of 4 specific people being targeted for murder because of their ties to the US. Even if one thinks of it as a “crime of passion”, it still requires bit more premeditation than just a mob running amok.
Much has already been said, but should the title be in quotes — viz. “Pastor” — when we refer to this guy?
The gov’t is now saying they think this was a planned attack to coincide with 9-11. I guess my question to you would be: why blame the pastor, he didn’t make the film? If that’s the case, blame youtube for hosting it, blame the filmmaker for making it. Blame every news agency out there for linking to it. I don’t think the pastor’s website was getting that many hits for it to matter, but hey that’s just my two cents.
Exactly. This guy ^ speaks for me too.
How should this be addressed? I think it can be a jumping off point for a discussion on self-awareness. We need to be more aware that what we say and do affects others outside of our little bubble. Hate begets hate. Jesus preached love for a reason. I think this is a good example for what happens when our pride and prejudice can be a catalyst for something terrible.
Do I think he should be held responsible? No. The mob is responsible for blaming an entire country and its ambassador for the thoughts and opinions of a small group. It’s outrageous, sad, and terrifying. But do I hope this man realizes the consequences of his hate, and it eats him up inside. You bet.
While what he has done is reprehensible, should he be held for murder–no. We hold to freedom of speech in this nation.But should he be held accountable, yes. He should not be allowed to be a pastor. Ironic how he interprets the scriptures on homosexuality and all the scriptures on judgment literally but chooses not to interpret I Corinthians 13 literally.
Will he be held accountable, no. Because he pastors an independent fundamentalist church who doesn’t believe in the overall church and considers anyone who disagrees with their pastor heretical. May God have mercy on his soul and those of his parishioners who give him power.
This makes me sick. I think every Christian leader in every church and on every website and on every Christian television program needs to use their freedom of speech and condemn this man, his teachings, this film, and the people who murdered Ambassador Stevens and the three other victims.
I don’t believe that radical Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere need much prompting to attack our country and its people. The film, hosted on You Tube was in my opinion just an excuse to do so. However, If any kind of conversation is ever going to occur between the West and the Middle East, especially with radical Muslims, we have to take responsibility for making that dialogue a possibility.
How do we do that? We shout down the voices of hate with a louder one made of love.
Actually, while I agree that freedom of speech is especially protected when it’s critical of religion or government, I think that what these film-makers did is beyond an act of speech. Terry Jones did burn that Quran this past spring and as warned, it directly provoked a string of deadly attacks against Americans in Afghanistan.
In my, non-lawyer, ordinary opinion, that sets a precedent for Terry Jones that makes him culpable for the retaliatory violence in response to the film. In other words, his experience this spring means he was aware that he would cause harm to American citizens by dubbing this movie in Egyptian Arabic and releasing it in the middle east yesterday. To my mind, that proves premeditation and criminal intent, pushing this into the territory of a crime, rather than an act of speech. And crime can be punished but not prevented, so I don’t consider censorship an issue in this particular instance.
That also depends how involved Terry Jones was in the film making process. Without Terry or Terry’s experience non of the rest of the movie makers presumably have an intent-proving precedent. But I personally think in addition to “promoting” the film, there is plenty of evidence that he also funded and had input creatively and in marketing the film. And since some of the best reporters in the country haven’t been able to confirm that Sam Becile even exists, It’s just all up in the air how much of Terry is really in this movie.
There’s a truth to all this that hasn’t come out yet. It’s just too coincidental that some out-of-left-field trailer comes to light just in time for 9/11. It was made previously and not a whiff of it until, conveniently, 9/11.
I’ll hold my speculating until that truth is out.
He has no legal responsibility for his speech. That is as it should be. However, I could understand how one could feel that his actions bear moral responsibility.
im glad that for once i came across mature comments, believe me half the blogs i have gone through to actually see what the film was all about, they had comments such as “Muslims should go die!” ….so yeah good to know that some people are sane enough to see that what terry jones did was truly morally wrong, legally or not, and the Muslim reaction was not any better, that is not how a Muslim nation should react, with violence, Islam a religion of peace is now being depicted as a religion of violence…
Freedom of Speech is a term that Americans simply do not understand. Speech and words are free, but how you use them is not free. It is against the law of lie to a law provider/enforcer. It is against the law to smear someones good reputation. It is against the law to threaten to murder someone.
Following those lines, we need to start enforcing anti hate-speech laws. Like hate crimes, it should be against the law to incite killing and violence against anyone including religious, race, orientation, gender, disability, protected status such as veterans, age etc. Most of the more developed societies are doing it, its time we do it.