Defender of the Word: Clean Snow, Dirty Justice in Helsinki
The snow outside the Helsinki courthouse looks clean—pure, untouched, falling softly like a blanket over old sins. Inside, everything is dirty. Cameras crowd the marble steps, lenses fogging in the cold as journalists jostle to glimpse the woman more dangerous than drug traffickers and violent repeat offenders: a grandmother with a Bible.
Her name is Päivi Räsänen—medical doctor, former Interior Minister, MP for over two decades. For nearly seven years, the Finnish state has hunted a criminal record for her 2019 social media post of Romans 1:24–27. No slur, no violence, no threats—just Scripture's plain words and a direct question to her Evangelical Lutheran Church: How can you sponsor Pride while claiming to stand on God's Word?
In a sane country, that's church debate. In our soft-totalitarian West, it's criminal prosecution.
From Tweet to “Hate Speech”
Räsänen tweeted the verses—warnings against exchanging natural relations for unnatural—and challenged her church's rainbow march. The machine activated. Police interrogated her for hours: not on plots or weapons, but on her interpretation of Romans 1, her views on sin, and why she wouldn't conform to the regime's creed.
They exhumed a 2004 pamphlet on Christian marriage and sexuality, plus a 2019 radio talk, cobbling a charge of “agitation against a minority group”—a law from the penal code's war crimes chapter. Absurd: genocide protections now weaponized against Bible quotes.
Lower courts acquitted her twice, unanimously. Helsinki District Court (2022): Courts don't reinterpret Scripture. Court of Appeal (2023): same. Prosecutors rejected “not guilty,” appealing to drag her and Bishop Juhana Pohjola to the Supreme Court. Hearing: October 30, 2025. As of February 2026, they await the ruling—expected first half of this year.
The ordeal is the penalty: interrogations, trials, appeals, looming fines or prison—while real threats (violent crime, migration chaos, grooming) get shrugs from the same authorities.
Rainbow Inquisitors
Ideological socialism slips in with rainbow badges and human-rights pins. The elite ignoring knife attacks, no-go zones, and death-preaching extremists become inquisitors when Christians cite Scripture on sexuality. “Inclusion” means forced affirmation, backed by prosecutors and police.
If Romans 1 is “hate speech” today, any clashing verse could be tomorrow: life, marriage, state idolatry. The warning to pastors, believers, parents: The text stands unchanged, but the regime demands you pretend your doctrine shifted.
The Glitch in the System
There she stands in the dock, Bible in hand—not a bomber, demagogue, or grifter. A physician who once oversaw internal security, now subversive for echoing centuries-old church teaching.
Judges press; she doesn't flinch, doesn't nuance, doesn't recant. “I will continue to defend my beliefs.” That's the real offense: immovable conviction. Soft tyranny needs cowards—mumbling pastors, silent believers, “personally opposed” politicians who enable conscience crimes.
Räsänen is the glitch: polite, educated, compassionate—yet unyielding that no government edits God's Word or forces lies about it.
When an Example Backfires
A prosecutor win warns every Christian in “progressive” democracies: Bible in lap, doctrine private, mouth shut—or face the example. If Finland—a human-rights poster child—can do this, nowhere is safe once activists seize courts, media, churches.
But the regime dreads the alternative: believers inspired by her stand, refusing whispers. Thousands—from Helsinki to Houston—reading “forbidden” passages aloud, steady and unshakable, knowing the speaking God towers over parliaments and prosecutors.
They aimed to make an example. They may succeed—just not as planned.
Stand against the crushing tide and let the witness speak. The rock of ages does not bend for the weary or the weak. (From "Defender of the Word" – listen: https://youtu.be/p4qkRGXlWhA
Will you stand, or will you be silent?