Here is the Prezi of a speech I prepared for Seekers’ Chapel. I haven’t written out my comments so some of the Prezi slides may not make as much sense as others. The main point of the speech was…”even though we live in a country that values free speech, there is a point where free speech–even religious speech–can transition to hate speech and persecution. In my opinion, believers are called to participate in a higher standard of public speech–that does not resort to threats, denigration, or violence–even though these things may be accepted by the culture and be perfectly legal to say.
I note a progression of violence that begins with a legitimate (though sometimes trumped-up) societal problem or ill:
- Blame assigned to some group–usually one that is poor and without the resources to defend itself,
- Speeches are given which assigns blame to the group,
- Hate Speech begins to crop up among groups in the society,
- Marginalization of people and groups begin to occur, leading to
- Civil Rights violations as police and societal groups pass implicit and explicit laws targeting profile groups,
- Persecution of the more vocal and visible groups via defamation, public shaming and blaming, and targeted legal actions,
- Violence, killing, and justified harm against the “so-called” perpetrators of the societal ill,
- Genocide
I conclude with Karen Armstrong’s “Charter for Compassion”