Author:
Publication: www.crosswalk.com
Date: June 1, 2001
French Christians are bracing for
problems resulting from the passage this week of a controversial new law
aimed at controlling the activities of dangerous religious sects, but also
likely to affect ordinary churches.
Some churches were already considering
removing the word "evangelical" from their names, the president of the
French Protestant Federation (FPF), the Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, said
from Paris Thursday.
Ignorance and paranoia, fueled by
negative and sensationalist media reports, have led to a situation in which
any non-mainstream churches are lumped together in people's minds with
cults, say critics of the law, which was passed by the French parliament
on Wednesday.
Opponents include human rights groups
and mainstream Protestant and Catholic leaders. Some have called the move
an assault on human rights, fearing it could encourage autocratic regimes
like China to further suppress minority religions there.
The law's sponsors argued that it
would give the courts powers to clamp down on sects that use methods like
brainwashing or drugs to attract young people. Judges will be empowered
to shut down a sect if two of its representatives have been convicted of
an offense such as using misleading publicity.
The law also makes provision for
a new offense of "mental manipulation," punishable by a fine of up to $75,000
and five years' imprisonment.
But exactly what is defined as a
sect or cult is unclear.
Following the suicides and murders
of members of the Solar Temple cult in Canada, France and Switzerland in
the mid-1990s, a French parliamentary commission drew up a list of 172
designated sects.
Organizations whose names appeared
on the list ranged from unorthodox groups like the Raelians, to large sects
like Scientologists, the Unification Church and Jehovah's Witnesses, to
evangelical and Pentecostal-type churches.
'Clean Your Own House'
The French Protestant Federation
represents 16 major churches and 5,000 associations, including Reformed,
Lutheran and Pentecostal churches, as well as the Federation of Evangelical
Baptist Churches of France.
FPF president De Clermont said Thursday
that on about 10 occasions since he took office in 1999, the inclusion
of the word "evangelical" in the name of a church or appearing in its mission
statement had "got people into trouble."
In some cases, the churches concerned
found it difficult to rent premises, or to get help from official bodies.
De Clermont attributed the problem
to ignorance. Earlier Thursday he had been challenged by a leftist politician
during a television program to remove such groups from the federation's
ranks.
"He told me: 'You have to clean
your own house. This is why you are afraid [of the new law], because you
know that on the fringes of your churches there are people under the name
evangelical who are no more than sects.' "
De Clermont said the law was ambiguous.
"It's not precise enough. We feel that one day it could be used against
any church if the mood changes in society."
French politicians were very proud
of the law, he said, arguing that they were leading the way in the fight
against cults, and expressing hope other European countries would follow
their lead.
But he hoped other government bodies
in Europe would ask hard questions of the French, and "not to leave the
churches in France as the only ones to say there is a real danger."
Earlier Thursday, an FPF spokesperson
said the law effectively challenged the constitutional separation of church
and state - entrenched in 1905 - by trying to define what religion is acceptable
and what is not.
"We're having to learn to change
our vocabulary," she said. "Everyone is frightened when you say 'evangelical.'
"
The spokesperson said even those
officials who drew up the "blacklist" of sects later conceded that some
organizations should not have been included - yet it had proved impossible
to remove those names from the list.
Catholic Concern
Protestants are not the only Christians
concerned. Pope John Paul II said when accepting the credential of a new
French ambassador to the Vatican last June that discrimination against
"one or other form of religious practice ... will necessarily create a
climate of tension, intolerance, opposition and suspicion, not conducive
to social peace."
A French daily editorialized around
the same time that the lifestyle of a Carmelite nun could easily fall foul
of the anti-sect law in the future.
"A young girl who has chosen to
live outside of the world, who has given up her belongings, left her clothes,
cut her hair, who obeys without a murmur to anything, works hard without
any salary and gets up several times a night to recite prayers learned
by heart may be considered one day, by a judge, as the victim of 'mental
manipulation,' " Le Figaro commented.
Earlier this week Rep. Christopher
Smith (R-NJ), the U.S. co-chairman of the Helsinki Commission - which monitors
human rights in Europe - was quoted as saying he hoped the commission would
investigate the new French law.
"There is a very strong anti-religious
bias that has emerged in Europe," he was quoted as saying. "If you're an
evangelical, you are a nut."
Commission spokesman Ben Anderson
said from Washington Thursday the French law could well be the subject
of debate at a parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to be held in Paris in July. U.S. congressmen
will participate in the gathering.
The Helsinki Commission, whose formal
title is the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, is an independent
agency monitoring the human rights commitments of the members of the OSCE.
It comprises nine members each from the House of Representatives and the
Senate.
Criminalize Evangelism
In further reaction to the passage
of the French legislation, the Washington-based Institute on Religion and
Public Policy said in a statement the law could criminalize evangelism
by deeming it an "exercise [in] serious and repeated pressure on a person
in order to create or exploit a state of dependence."
"This law represents the latest
effort of extremists in France to pass repressive legislation designed
to infringe upon the rights of targeted minority religions by manufacturing
a means to ban disfavored minority religions from France," said the institute's
president, Joseph K. Grieboski.
Religious adherents elsewhere could
also be affected by the move, he said, noting that the authorities in Hong
Kong were closely monitoring the law as a potential model to act against
the Falun Gong spiritual movement, regarded by the Chinese government as
a dangerous sect.
"It is great shame that a liberal
democratic society like that of France - a bastion and cradle of western
democratic thought and civilization - would deprive its citizens of their
most basic human rights," Grieboski said.