The Rev. Jason Poling is pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.
When the 2005 publication of the Mohammed cartoons in a Dutch newspaper made headlines, I felt torn. As a libertarian, I wouldn't want to say it should be illegal to publish such cartoons. But as someone who tries to be sensitive to the religious views of others, I would also not want to publish them in order to avoid giving offense. Perhaps it's cowardice for me to want a world where they can be published but where I don't publish them.
The same angst returned for me when South Park's portrayal of Mohammed in their 200th episode was censored by Comedy Central. A pornographic from the Bible, of all things, has resolved the tension for me.
A few years back I preached through the book of Ezekiel. For those unfamiliar with it, it's one of the longer prophetic books in the Bible; it's also one of the most outrageous. Not once but twice (in chapters 16 and 23, if you're interested) God describes the unfaithfulness of his people with language that would make a sailor blush. Naturally, I was pretty fired up to preach these passages.
When I got to chapter 16, I was five minutes into my sermon when a family with young kids slipped into the back of the church and sat down without hearing the warning during our announcements that the sermon would be dealing with some R-rated material. Rapidly downshifting from R to PG, I still managed to get my point across. (But I never saw them again.) When I came to chapter 23, I gave strict instructions to the ushers not to let that happen again. I also made sure that folks were aware that the sermon that day would deal with some mature subject matter, providing warnings in our bulletin, in the announcements, and at the beginning of my sermon.
The sermon was not well received by everyone. One visitor contacted the senior pastor of the church that planted us to express her disapproval, and wrote a long letter excoriating me for…well, preaching the text that I had in front of me. She said she would not be returning to New Hope until we changed our ways. I had the good manners not to ask if that was a promise or a threat.
You won't find these passages preached in most churches; most aren't willing to go into that kind of territory, even when the Bible does. At New Hope, we believe that having a high view of Scripture means that we treat all of it as inspired — the red letters, the black letters, and the purple prose, too. And I must say that I feel no responsibility whatsoever for the offense our visitors took that day: They were made aware of what was coming three different ways. They were warned that they were about to be exposed to offensive material, so they really couldn't complain when it happened as promised. Even if the [WARNING: Gratuitous male nudity ahead] Pompeiian fresco of Priapus was projected on the front wall of the sanctuary. Which it was.Much the same thing can be said of those who are offended by South Park. Frankly, if you've watched the show much and haven't been offended then you probably haven't been paying attention. Offending anyone and everyone is its modus operandi, and it was in response to an episode making fun of Scientology that one of its practitioners, Isaac Hayes, quit his role as "Chef." Matt Stone, one of the show's creators, quite rightly noted that Hayes "has no problem – and he's cashed plenty of checks – with our show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons or Jews."
I have not made an extensive search but I do not recall seeing those objecting to the portrayal (however oblique) of Mohammed objecting to the show's treatment of other religious figures, including the 98-pound-weakling version of Jesus that is a recurring character.
Among your rights in a free society is the right to free speech. Among your other rights is the right to ignore the speech of others. If you have any sort of cultural awareness, you know that South Park is likely to offend you. If you don't want to be offended, don't watch it. If you watch it and you're offended, you have no right to complain. It's like stepping into a boxing ring and complaining that somebody hit you.
I still think it unwise and uncharitable to gratuitously offend the sensibilities of others. I still don't think I would want to publish an image of Mohammed because I really don't want to do that to my Muslim neighbors. But I am horrified by the notion that the threat of violence has prevented others from freely exercising poor judgment.