On the difference between Christianity, law religion, and totalitarian political law religion.
Most Danes walk around with the idea that "religion is religion".
That Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and political Islamism are fundamentally the same thing. Just different variations on the same theme and the same phenomenon.
But nothing could be more wrong.
So let me, like a modern-day Jørgen Clevin, draw and tell a bit.
Because we cannot understand anything clearly if the same words mean everything and nothing at once.
For ordinary Danes, religion feels like something private. Something that happens in the heart. Something you don't talk about, because it's embarrassing, or because we've culturally made it wrong to believe. It's something you may do - but in our time, preferably shouldn't.
And precisely there, the misunderstanding begins.
Because there is a world of difference between faith and coercion. Between a relationship with God and a political ideology that uses God as justification for power.
Christianity, as Denmark has grown out of it, is relational. It's built on the idea that truth is found in the meeting between man and God. Not in blind obedience to a set of rules.
Jesus didn't come to seize power or write a constitution. He said - "My kingdom is not of this world." And therefore, no one in Denmark demands that you profess Christianity in order to be allowed here.
You can actually live an entire long life without ever being asked what you believe. No one checks how often you go to church, no one interferes and no one knocks on your door.
Faith is voluntary.
Because freedom is built into the faith.
Christianity says - "You shall love God and your neighbour as yourself." Not because you'll be punished if you don't, but because love is only genuine when it comes from the heart.
In this understanding, true faith can ONLY exist where man has the freedom to refrain.
Because ONLY there does it become a voluntary choice, chosen by one's own free will and surrender of the heart.
...
However, there also exist religions where the relationship with the divine is an accounting system - and in fact, these are the vast majority.
They are arranged so that if you do the right thing, you're accepted. If you DO the wrong thing, you're outside. Faith becomes a checklist with an answer key.
In such religions, man doesn't stand in a personal relationship with God, but in a juridical one. It's not about love or conscience, but about 'correctness'. God becomes a judge, not a father.
In these, there are rules - in some, for EVERYTHING - how you should dress, eat, speak, love, pray, and even how you should think. The divine is reduced to a ruleset, what you may and may not do, and where salvation depends on obedience, not on faith.
This is what you call a law religion - a system where man's primary value is measured in compliance with the letter of the law, and where the relationship with God goes through duty and commandment instead of through heart and freedom.
These too can be accommodated by a secular democracy - as long as they remain and are practiced in private contexts and faith communities.
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The problem Western societies face only arises when religion no longer settles for being religion.
When faith becomes law.
When law becomes politics.
When politics becomes control.
Then we no longer stand before faith, but before totalitarian political law religion. A theocracy disguised as faith.
In this mixture, the separation between state and religion ceases. Faith is no longer something you choose. It becomes something you obey.
You can no longer say - "I don't believe in that." Because the answer is - "It doesn't matter what you believe. It is the Law and no one is above it."
And here comes the crucial point - which many Danes still don't understand.
The problem is not Islam as private faith.
The problem is Islamism as political project.
Where Christianity says - "The truth shall set you free," a totalitarian law religion says - "Obedience makes you free."
In Christianity, freedom is the starting point.
In law religion, freedom is a reward, IF you obey.
And this is difficult to understand when you've grown up around here.
Danes take freedom for granted, because we've grown up in Christianity's cultural soil. We think it's normal to think freely, speak freely, doubt freely, love freely.
We think it's universal.
But. It's not.
It is Christianity's inheritance.
Freedom exists ONLY where faith is voluntary.
Faith is only voluntary where the state does NOT enforce it.
When faith becomes law, and law becomes politics, then freedom ceases. Because then there no longer exists a neutral space between individual and state. Everything becomes political. Everything becomes religious. Everything becomes regulated.
And therefore it's so serious that we - this applies to both Denmark and Europe - allow a faith community that doesn't believe in freedom to use freedom to grow into institutions, schools, municipalities and politics.
In the confusion and in the belief that we're dealing with "the same as ourselves," we leave the doors open, because we think all religions want the same for us. Peace, freedom, community.
But some systems are not designed for coexistence.
They are designed for dominance.
And in that light it becomes visible that an open society without boundaries does not remain open. It becomes a society that slowly closes from within.
And what's worse - this simply hasn't been accounted for, not in the constitution, not in our society's design, nor in our way of thinking.
And that's why more Danes are only now beginning to ask questions that five years ago were unthinkable -
"How does a free society defend itself against something that wants to abolish freedom?"
These questions don't come from hatred.
Nor do they come from fear.
They come from common sense and realism.
Awakening.
Because it's only when you understand the difference between faith and coercion that you also understand why democracy has a duty to protect itself.
Freedom is not taken from us.
We give it away.
One naive concession at a time.
Should it be on our watch?
And what will you say to your children if we let it happen?
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Did you grasp the three levels of faith in a society?
1. Voluntary.
2. Private Rules.
3. Coercion that applies to all.
Choose.
❤️🔥🪽
Good Wednesday evening, friends
