Finnish politician and pastor’s wife Dr. Päivi Räsänen awaits a verdict in her trial regarding comments she made on the Bible’s teachings about same-sex relationships. If Räsänen is found guilty, this will be the first time that a court in Finland has considered it a crime for someone to quote the Bible.
“The church of which I am a member has announced that it is an official partner of SETA Helsinki Pride 2019,” Räsänen tweeted on June 17, 2019 [Editor’s note: Quotes from Päivi Räsänen were obtained using Google Translate]. “How does the doctrine of the Church, the Bible, fit in with the idea that shame and sin are raised to the point of pride?”
Later that day, Räsänen tweeted again on the topic with a screenshot of Bible verses.
#kirkko on ilmoittanut olevansa #seta n #Pride2019 virallinen partneri. Miten kirkon oppiperusta, #raamattu sopii yhteen sen kanssa, että häpeä ja synti nostetaan ylpeyden aiheeksi? pic.twitter.com/cnjAQCrOc2
— Päivi Räsänen (@PaiviRasanen) June 17, 2019
Police conducted several interviews with Räsänen following her tweets, and on April 29, 2021, the Finnish Prosecutor General brought three criminal charges against her of incitement against a minority group. The charges pertain to Räsänen’s tweets, as well as comments she made during a radio interview in 2019 and a pamphlet she wrote in 2004. If found guilty, Räsänen faces up to two years in prison, although the prosecution is seeking a fine based on her income.
Päivi Räsänen ‘Distressed’ by Her Church’s Actions
Päivi Räsänen, 62, is a physician, pastor’s wife, mother of five, and grandmother of seven. She has been a member of the Parliament of Finland since 1995, serving as chair of the Christian Democratic Party from 2004 to 2015 and Minister of the Interior from 2011 to 2015.
Räsänen is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, which became an official sponsor of the Helsinki Pride Parade for the first time in 2019. YLE News reports that in a police interview explaining the reasons for her tweets about that decision, Räsänen said:
I was distressed when I noticed that the church was fully involved as a Pride supporter. I thought then about even resigning from the church. This is a very important issue about freedom of religion for me. The church’s policy was strongly at odds with the teaching of the Bible, as Pride celebrates things that are declared shameful and sinful in the Bible. However, I then decided to stay in the church and try to influence the church’s sleeping members.
In Räsänen’s 2019 radio interview, she alluded to research on genetic inheritance and suggested that because human genetics have “eroded” over time, same-sex relationships deviate from how people were originally created. Räsänen’s pamphlet also challenged the idea that people are born with a same-sex orientation and defended the teaching that God created marriage to be between one man and one woman. Räsänen testified in court that she wrote the pamphlet for her church in order to explain the Bible’s teaching on sexuality from her perspective as a politician, doctor, and Christian.
