Keep Speaking

There are consequences to what we say.  Sometimes our words can get us in trouble; that's why we have to allow the Holy Spirit to control our tongues.  But, there are times in which we speak Biblically-informed truth, and there are those who will want to shut us up and shut us down. 

In Acts 4, there was a so-called "council," led by the High Priest, who tried to keep Peter and John from doing the work of the risen Christ and attempted to shut them down. We can read this:
18 And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered and said to them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.
20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
21 So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them, because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done.

Perhaps you have heard about the case of a real estate agent in Virginia named Wilson Fauber, who also has served as a minister. The Christian Post reported that while running for public office, he shared Biblically-based posts on Facebook about the sanctity of marriage.  The article stated that his attorney, Michael Sylvester...

...explained that Fauber “posted the biblical view on marriage,” sharing thoughts from the Rev. Franklin Graham on the matter. “He never faced any ... blowback or pushback,” Sylvester said.

Fauber’s social media post highlighting the biblical position on marriage came up when he was running for public office eight years later. Asked if he “still stands by his Christian beliefs on this topic,” Sylvester told CP that his client answered in the affirmative: “He loves everyone. He serves everyone. He doesn’t hate anyone, he doesn’t discriminate against anyone, but he stands with the Word of God.”

Seems the National Association of Realtors had implemented a rule that said that realtors "must not use harassing speech, hate speech, epithets, or slurs based on race, color, religion, sex disability, familial status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”

In February of this year, Sylvester's organization, the Founding Freedoms Law Center, shared:

Founding Freedoms Law Center (FFLC) attorneys argued the final ethics appeal on behalf of our client, Wilson Fauber, who had been found guilty by the Virginia Association of REALTORs (VAR) of ethical violations, including “hate speech” against the “LGBTQ+ community” for Biblical messages he shared about marriage and sexuality on his personal Facebook page. VAR also found him to be in violation of another ethics provision simply for sharing publicly the ethics charges brought against him – VAR’s gag rule for anyone it seeks to punish. The VAR appeals panel has now ruled against Fauber, upholding the original decision as final.

Fauber is quoted as saying: “This is an attack not only on my Christian faith, but on every REALTOR who wishes to express their conscientious or faith-based opinions about important moral issues.”

You might say that Fauber's words and actions echoed what Peter and John said in Acts 4: "we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."  There may be loss involved for speaking out, for being obedient to the Lord.  

You might even be called a "biblical terrorist."  That's what happened to Julie Mauck, a Georgia real estate agent who faced harassment at the hands of transgender activists who wanted to shut her down and lose her job.  The Daily Signal reported on March 23:

Transgender activists tried to hound a Georgia real estate agent out of business because the realtor urged a public library to move a sexually explicit book out of the children’s section. When she sued, the judge dismissed her case.

Now, the Georgia Court of Appeals has taken up her case and her attorney just filed her official brief Thursday, a copy of which was exclusively provided to The Daily Signal. Her supporters say the case may set a precedent that gets to the heart of cancel culture.

“They completely misstated, misquoted me in order to try and cancel me,” Julie Mauck, the realtor, told The Daily Signal in a Friday interview. “They actually filed an ethics complaint for hate speech against me” based on the misquote.

She also recalled activists attacking her as a “biblical terrorist.”

When Mauck filed a defamation lawsuit against the activists, a trial court judge struck down the lawsuit, claiming that it violated an anti-SLAPP law (a law designed to protect people from frivolous defamation lawsuits).

There may be a price to pay for speaking out.  The spirit of cancel culture is strong, but there is a Spirit who is stronger.  And, if we're following the Holy Spirit, what we may lose on earth may in fact be a gain for the Kingdom, and we can be confident that God will take care of us.

There may be a price for obedience - but there's also a price for disobedience. And, obedience has its rewards, including the satisfaction of knowing that we are following the Lord. So, we have to make the choice: are we going to follow Christ and depend on Him to enable us to handle the consequences or are we making ourselves vulnerable to the consequences of disobedience?