Why Mockery May Be the Best Medicine
Marcy Marc and the terrible horrible no good very bad Christians
“Culture Minister Marc Miller expressed support Tuesday for removing a religious exemption on hate speech from the Criminal Code. Miller told reporters he doesn’t “think people should be using the Bible, the Qur’an or the Torah to escape from committing a hate crime or claim that … what would otherwise be a hate crime is done in the name of a religious text.”
Before we begin, can we all just pause to savour the lip-smacking irony of our new culture minister’s priorities? The very first thing he does is pour a box of hex nuts into the crankshaft of culture’s engine: speech.
Marc, which should always be pronounced with a soft c, is a masterclass in the kind of exquisite schizophrenia we’ve come to expect from the Liberal Party. Where else can you find a system that claims to be the godfather of democracy while at the same time baptizing it with sulfuric acid? Where else can you find a system so bent on ensuring “diversity is our strength” that it evicts every last shred of actual diversity from society? Where else can you find a system so determined to transcend the unworkability of multiculturalism that it piledrives the only means by which multiculturalism is possible.1
Watching the Liberal party try to govern is like watching someone trying to win the Tour de France while jamming a bamboo stake in their spokes at the end of every wheel rotation. It’s why they perennially exist as a body of mangled aluminum at the base of the first hill. And the worst part is that instead of just moving off the track so others can get by, they stay where they are . . . you know, to “help.”
Restricting speech isn’t a new play for government. There comes a point in every government’s life where he must choose to either stay in his God-ordained lane, or veer over into oncoming traffic and kill thousands of people. Most choose poorly. In fact, we see a governing body doing exactly this in Acts 4:
What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in [Jesus’] name.”
Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
“We must warn them to speak no longer . . .” “They commanded them not to speak . . .”
Sound familiar? That’s because the play never changes. And that’s because the devil never changes. And that’s because the same god that wanted people to stay blind during the Roman Imperial period wants people to stay blind today. And the easiest way for him to do that is to employ his harem of effete handmaids, also known as Canadian MP’s, to forbid people from turning the lights on.
They won’t call it restricting speech of course. They’ll call it “preserving unity.” They’ll call it, “keeping people safe.” They’ll call it, “condemning blasphemy.” They’ll call it, “preventing hate crimes.” But none of these reasons are why tyrants want to restrict speech. The reason the ancient scribes and pharisees hated uncensored speech is the same reason modern scribes and pharisees hate it: at some point, they know it’s going to come for their hypocrisy. They know it will force them to admit to an authority beyond their own. In free speech, they smell the aroma of repentance and it comes as the scent of death.
Marcie and his den of cretan chihuahuas want us to believe that secularism is the last refuge of common sense between various fanatical tribes. What they conveniently forget is that secular regimes are responsible for some of the frankest genocides in history. Why? Because secular regimes have no god beyond their own appetites, which the Scriptures affirm are bottomless peat bogs.2
It’s Time to Know What Time it is
Canadians need to understand what time it is. Those who think the main players can be reduced to left and right, socialist and capitalist, globalist and nationalist, rich and poor, Jew and gentile, conservative and liberal, are like they people who don’t change their clocks after daylight savings time and are always an hour late, or early, for everything.
If you view any of the above dichotomies as the fundamental point of earthly conflict, you’re not part of the conversation. You’re not even at the right address.
The fundamental players are the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of Christ.3 That isn’t to say the victor is still up in the air — in fact Revelation 12:9 expressly says that the devil was “thrown down to earth” — but it is to say those are the sides.
It’s true that you can’t have a free society without free speech. But the devil isn’t afraid of a free society — at least the kind many conservatives seem to want to reduce it to. If it were possible to achieve low taxes, big families, free markets, small government, intact nationhood — but no Christ — many would be all in. As would the devil himself. Such a society is, in fact, exactly what the Israelites wanted: peace on all sides, milk and honey, but . . . hold the Jehovah, please.
Not only is such a society impossible without Christ. It’s not even desirable. Christ isn’t simply a set of bare principles or a useful hook to hang our Western traditions. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star. He’s the fairest of ten thousand. He’s a lion and a lamb. A judge and a redeemer. A fountain of living water to his people and a cataclysm to his enemies. In him all things hold together, and without him nothing was made that has been made. He is the priceless pearl, the greatest treasure, the flawless crown, and the everlasting Man.
The ultimate tragedy of a secular society would not be the loss of our stuff, but the loss of our Christ.
In favour of not panicking
So there’s the 4000 foot view. But how should Christians respond specifically to the threats of kings and rulers? How should we respond specifically to Marcy Mark, and the ranks of constipated Frenchmen shooting craps in the alley behind his house?
One thing’s for sure. Now isn’t the time to panic. Nor is it the time to be angry, shrill, or despairing; especially at a time of year expressly celebrating the triumph of light over darkness. What the high-pitched whine emanating from parliament should tell us is that we’re getting warmer. The church is exactly what she should be: a threat. To coin a phrase, the kingdom of God arrives neither late, nor early, but precisely when it means to.
The other piece of good news is that Psalm 2 is patently clear as to how we should respond to threats both foreign and domestic:
The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; Yahweh ridicules them.
The problem with responding with a straight face to Liberal threats is that we risk granting them a dignity they don’t deserve. You don’t have a measured conversation with someone trying to knock over the hoover dam with a badminton racket. You point and laugh. There’s no other course of action left to you at that point. James B Jordan notes, “What is the means by which the demonic realm is vanquished? In a word: mockery. Satan’s great sin (and our great sin) is pride. Thus, to drive Satan from us we ridicule him.”
Part of what this means is that it’s time to dump the phony Canadian civility like its your late great aunt Donna’s bathroom potpourri jar. It’s time to crack open a fresh can of ranch-flavored mock-sauce. It’s time to roast some chestnuts over the open fire, where “chestnuts” are the varied insane threats that seem to be increasing in frequency. It’s time to tell Marc, the Liberal party, and the whole roster of Bloc buffoons on their payroll, that we just don’t care. That we’re going to keep teaching, and preaching, and speaking, and writing as free men, because that’s what Christ has called us to be. And that we’d rather obey God than man.
Should there be anything left after a decade-and-a-half of numbskull Liberal rule — by God’s grace, we’ll be there to rebuild.
P.S. I hope you all appreciate my cover photo. No AI slop here. Just terribly-doctored photoshop art generated by yours truly. Hire me for your next fancy awards ceremony!
“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all,” Colossians 3:11. The only conceivable way for multiple cultures to exist in the same geographical area without everything going to heck is if the respective cultures are first transformed, and then submit, to Christ.
“At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another,” Titus 3:3.
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12