The Big Picture: Deadly cartoon pandemic

News Analysis
by Jeremy Halcrow

The deadly Danish cartoon pandemic has coughed up more confused comments than any other media-born virus in memory.

Chaser’s bad joke

Cartoonist Michael Leunig was the latest to bizarrely claim victim status after a drawing which had been rejected as ‘anti-Semitic’ by The Age was submitted by Richard Cooke, a writer with the Chaser, to an Iranian-run competition to find the world’s ‘best’ Holocaust cartoon. The response by Leunig that he was being persecuted, shows he fails to grasp the seriousness of the global issues at stake .

Gay Jesus art

In contrast, the Kings of Spin panel on Virginia Trioli’s ABC morning show rated Bishop Robert Forsyth the most ‘sensible’ commentator on the issue. A potential ambush on the cartoon controversy was imminent when the PM program asked the Bishop if an artwork depicting Christ in a homosexual context was blasphemous. In response the Bishop was clear, consistent and unequivocal, saying that the work was ‘deeply offensive to Christian believers because our Lord Jesus Christ is no ordinary man but in fact God himself’, but it should not be banned.

“All of us will one day appear before the judgment seat of God, including the people who do these things. That’s the big question in life; not protecting Christians from offence.

The law should only be used to stop people calling for violence, or inciting the kind of hatred, racial hatred, that will lead to violence and discrimination of a serious kind. But other than that, we need to have a free society, free from the interfering of the law in these kind of debates.”

“And that includes what’s happening with these offensive cartoons of Mohammad?” asked the journalist.

“Well, exactly. I think that these cartoons may be offensive to some people, and I’m very sorry if they are. But the idea that that justifies violence, threats of killing, or that governments should go weak-kneed under threats against those kind of attacks is outrageous.

We Christians need to take it, and so need to others, and to deal with our opponents with gentleness and respect, as in fact Jesus tells us to do.”

Hitler invading hell

Later Bishop Forsyth told SC that the cartoon controversy highlights the battle developing between theocratic Islam and western secular society. He fears that Christians are often confused about which side they should back.

“To me there is no question. We Christians should make common cause with Western secularism. When the Nazis invaded Soviet Union, Churchill defended his support of the communist Soviet Union saying, “If Hitler invaded Hell I would at least make a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons”. Churchill recognised the greater danger. So should we.”

“Although secularism is a real danger to the Christian faith it also gives many protections also. There can be no question that we should stand for freedom of speech, human rights and the separation of church and state,” he said.

This is a good point. Christians should be pushing for greater religious freedoms in the world, not less. By lending support to Muslim leaders who want to silence religious debate, we fail to stand up for our brothers and sisters persecuted under Islamic theocracies. We also bring closer that future date when Australian ‘hate’ laws significantly curtail evangelism.

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