To distort reality, you need to quash the truth. The greater the distortion, the more crushing the force. That’s why the Censorship-Industrial Complex isn’t going away any time soon.
This past Thursday, October 30, 2025, it hauled Finnish Member of Parliament Päivi Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola before Finland’s Supreme Court.
Päivi is a medical doctor, a mother of four, and the grandmother of 12. Juhana was a pastor in the state Lutheran church until he was kicked out in 2014, after which he was elected Bishop of an independent diocese that rejects the new dogmas of the state church.
Their case stems from a tweet that Päivi posted in June 2019. It was a photo of the Finnish Bible opened to Romans 1:24-26. And it asked how the Finnish state church could square its sponsorship of a Pride event with the Bible.
That single question was enough to indict Räsänen - a sitting member of parliament and a former Minister of the Interior. Before long, it swept Bishop Pohjola into its maw.
Räsänen was subject to numerous grueling interrogations by the police. She was repeatedly asked to explain and defend the words of the Bible. She was promised that if she recanted her words, the charges would go away. Then, she was given two weeks to think it over. Like Martin Luther in 1521, she answered, “Here I stand.”
These interrogations became so regular that the Finnish press laughed that Paivi was “going to have another Bible study at the police station.” The police also opened an investigation into everything that she had said or written throughout her 30-plus-year political career.
That’s what pulled Bishop Pohjola into the maelstrom. Fifteen years before her tweet - and seven years before the secular blasphemy law (A.K.A. “hate speech” law) was enacted - Päivi wrote a 24-page booklet about the Christian understanding of marriage. Pohjola’s crime was that he published it.
Funny how the American Library Association gets its hair on fire for moving smut out of the children’s section, but never mentions Pohjola’s plight. That’s why it has lost all credibility.
I wrote about Räsänen and Pohjola in this column nearly four years ago. At the time, they were awaiting the verdict of their first trial. In the meantime, they were acquitted, unanimously, but hauled back to court for a second helping. They were acquitted in that trial, too - also unanimously. Now they are back in a case of triple jeopardy.
If they are acquitted again, they could still face another trial in the European Court of Human Rights. Lawfare is the gift that keeps on giving. Ultimately, the verdict is not the point. The process is the punishment.
Prosecutors know that merely pointing a loaded gun at a person is an assault with a deadly weapon. You don’t have to pull the trigger. The threat alone does plenty of damage.
The case of Räsänen and Pohjola demonstrates several other aspects of lawfare as well. First, there is a deliberate vagueness in the law. Unjust laws must be flexible enough to invent new crimes as targets are identified. While nobody imagined that the photograph of a Bible might be a “hate crime” in 2012, by 2019 that became a thing.
Second, lawfare dispenses with the legal principle that new laws cannot punish retroactively. When Päivi penned her 2004 booklet, there was not the slightest hint that it was prohibited speech. Now, she is being prosecuted for breaking a law that didn’t even exist.
Third, the point of lawfare is to squelch speech. The Finnish prosecutor wants to scrub the internet of every media appearance or writing in which Rasanen discusses any physical, psychological, and theological differences between men and women. The lawfare itself is meant to chill the speech of anybody who doesn’t want to suffer the same harassment.
If you think that this madness is far from Wyoming, you would be wrong. Not only have citizens of nearby Colorado like Jack Philips, Lorie Smith, and Kaley Chiles been suffering similar lawfare since 2012, Wyoming’s legislature very nearly passed a similar hate speech law in 2015.
To distort reality, it is necessary to quash the truth. So, to straighten out messes, it is equally necessary to speak the truth.
That’s why free speech and the free exercise of religion are the pillars of a just society. Stay vigilant and pray for Päivi and Juhana. They are standing strong for you.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.
