I want to introduce you to someone for the purposes of prayer. This individual, Marine Le Pen,\u00a0is entirely secular in her political views and comes from a Catholic background. She is a member of the European Parliament, outspoken, brilliant,\u00a0 controversial, and stands in\u00a0a large\u00a0arena of influence.\u00a0And her outspokenness has landed her in hot water, threatening her freedom in her native France.<\/p>\n
She spoke to a crowd in France in December of 2010 about the growing population of immigrants illegally entering that nation. She warned against the surge of these masses into the nation and likened the current obstruction of public streets and squares\u00a0all over\u00a0France on a weekly basis for Muslim prayers\u00a0to the WWII Nazi\u00a0occupation of parts of French territory. At the time, the media and political class decried her comparison as racism, but she found increasing popularity among the French people.<\/p>\n
In fact, her impact had grown to the extent that she was named on the 2011 TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world, landing her somewhere on the list between\u00a0President and Mrs. Obama.<\/p>\n
And now, earlier this\u00a0month, it was reported that her immunity from prosecution as a member of the European Parliament\u00a0has been removed,\u00a0opening the door\u00a0for her to face\u00a0criminal charges of inciting racism due to her December 2010 comments.<\/p>\n
Why should we care about the fate of secular figures in France or anywhere else in the world, for that matter? One reason is that many of us on American soil have\u00a0at least a portion\u00a0of our roots in Europe, and our culture is linked by blood and history to all parts of Europe and the world. And central to our American civilization and that of the western Europe we’ve visited on business, vacation, and mission\u00a0trips in our lifetime, is the right (purchased with both American and European blood) of men and women from every race, religion, and walk of life to\u00a0live freely and to speak and debate openly. My\u00a0thought is that the\u00a0outcome of any decision concerning\u00a0Ms.\u00a0Le Pen’s freedom\u00a0of speech will\u00a0profoundly influence, one way or another,\u00a0the longevity of the right to speak freely for the rest of western civilization.<\/p>\n
I feel strongly about freedom of speech. I was raised in a family in which\u00a0fundamental Christianity was scorned, but I watched as the lone voice\u00a0on behalf of Christ—my grandma—refused to bow her knee to the prevailing viewpoint or back down in silence.<\/p>\n
I also discovered something very enlightening in my personal Bible study a few years ago.<\/p>\n
I was reading Hebrews 10:35-36, “Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.”<\/p>\n As I dug into the various words in that verse, I\u00a0stumbled upon\u00a0something amazingly liberating about the word “confidence”. It is the Greek word parr\u0113sia<\/em>, and means primarily “freedom in speaking, unreservedness in speech”\u00a0 [Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for parr\u0113sia (Strong’s 3954)<\/i>“. Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2013. 24 Jun 2013.]<\/p>\n In other words, believers are commanded\u00a0not<\/em><\/strong> to throw away or discard as valueless\u00a0their “freedom in speaking and unreservedness in speech”.<\/p>\n This is why freedom of speech is so important. It is bound intrinsically with our confidence level—especially in Christ!<\/p>\n Therefore, I urge you,\u00a0when you think of it, to pray bold prayers for Ms. Le Pen,\u00a0likely to\u00a0face criminal charges for her right to speak freely in her native France. Pray for her focus to turn toward the God who can deliver her, and pray for others to rise up powerfully on her behalf—in the legal realm,\u00a0in the arena of public opinion,\u00a0and in prayer. And pray that God has His way in revealing once again to the nations\u00a0the precious right He’s given us to boldly, confidently speak freely.<\/p>\n “Therefore, Culture, do not throw away your confident right to speak boldly and freely, discarding it as a worthless thing. Instead, endure in the face of twisted, trumped up\u00a0charges against you or your faith and stand resolutely, doing the will of God with unshakable faith. And when you have done the\u00a0will of God with endurance, you shall receive the promised reward—freedom preserved, not only for yourself, but\u00a0also for generations to come” (my very loose paraphrase of Hebrews 10:35-36).<\/p>\n Hold fast your confidence!<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I want to introduce you to someone for the purposes of prayer. This individual, Marine Le Pen,\u00a0is entirely secular in her political views and comes from a Catholic background. She is a member of the European Parliament, outspoken, brilliant,\u00a0 controversial, and stands in\u00a0a large\u00a0arena of influence.\u00a0And her outspokenness has landed her in hot water, threatening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-june2013","category-prayerperspective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1738,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions\/1738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}