Swedish Pastor Faces PRISON for So-Called “Hate Speech” in Sermon (Update)
Alliance Defense Fund (e-mail alert) | 11/8/05

FROM: Alan Sears, President
 

A Call to Prayer: Swedish Pastor Faces PRISON for So-Called “Hate Speech” in Sermon…

Today, I am asking believers around to world to join me in praying for the trial of Swedish Pastor Ake Green (left) before the Swedish Supreme Court this Wednesday, November 9th. Pastor Green has been charged with committing a “hate crime” for preaching a sermon which presented the biblical position on homosexual behavior. (At ADF, we are suspending all work for a few minutes to pray for Pastor Green).
 

Unfortunately, this “remote” case – on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean – may directly impact you and your church – much sooner than you think!
 

Pastor Green preached a sermon in his small church in Borgholm, Sweden, in which he discussed what the Bible has to say about homosexual behavior. His sermon (which can be read at: www.akegreen.com/sermon_transcript.htm) concluded with a strong message of God’s grace and love for those trapped in sexual confusion. He said: “What these people need, who live under the slavery of sexual immorality, is an abundant grace. It exists. Therefore we will encourage those who live in this matter to look at the grace of Jesus Christ. We cannot condemn these people. Jesus never belittled anyone. He offered them grace.”
 

The sermon was published in a local newspaper and very shortly thereafter Pastor Green was prosecuted under Sweden’s “hate crime” law for “causing offense” to the homosexual community. The prosecutor, Kjell Yngvesson, said: “One may have whatever religion one wishes, but this is an attack on all fronts against homosexuals. Collecting Bible citations on this topic as he does makes this hate speech.”
 

On June 29, 2004, Pastor Green was sentenced by a district court to one month’s imprisonment for his sermon. Soren Andersson, the president of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights, said that Green’s jail sentence demonstrated that religious freedom could never be used as a reason to “offend people.”
 

A spokesperson for another national “gay and lesbian” association added: “Hatred and defamation is not to be accepted, just because it’s based on religious beliefs or religious scriptures. You have some limits when it comes to freedom of speech.”
 

On February 11, 2005, the Gota Court of Appeals overturned his conviction (the prosecution was now calling for six months in prison), ruling that Sweden’s free speech laws protected him from prosecution. They stated that Pastor Green had a right to preach about “the Bible’s categorical condemnation of homosexual relations as sin,” even if such views were “alien to most citizens.” For more information on the case, see the following article: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/050510f.asp?.
 

Nevertheless, the prosecutor and Swedish advocates of homosexual behavior have not given up, and have appealed this ruling to the Swedish Supreme Court.
 

THIS CASE IS PERHAPS THE MOST STRIKING EXAMPLE YET THAT “THE PRETENSE OF TOLERANCE IS OVER” – “TOLERANCE” OF THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA MEANS THE SILENCING AND PUNISHMENT OF THOSE WHO PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL.