From the BBC: Academic sentenced over Ataturk

A Turkish court has handed down a 15-month suspended jail term to an academic found guilty of insulting the state’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Professor Atilla Yayla said the trial highlighted the limits on free speech and academic debate in Turkey.

His crime was to suggest in academic discussion that the early Turkish republic was not as progressive as portrayed in official books…

I suppose the same could happen in the U.S. as we slide merrily along in our adulation of cultic figures. Insult President Bush, his administration, Brittany Spears, Israel, the war on terror ™ any other “sacred” visage you may well find yourself before the courts. But of course faith is an open target – especially Jesus.

Just the way things should be in truth.

Unless faith stands counter to the world it is prone to act in subservience to itI would cite acquiescence to government mandates on reproductive “health” services by Catholic hospitals or caving to other government mandates by Catholic Charities agencies as a symptoms of such a problem. What amazes me is the annual ritual in my state capital involving Catholic Bishops who demand government money for Catholic schools. And you want the government telling you what to teach … why?. We may well be hated by the world – and if we are we are probably close to spot-on. That’s what witness brings. It is something faithful Christians are called to do in ways big and small.

Government is not the friend or protector of religion, especially the radical witness of faith in Jesus Christ. Those who think it is are sadly mistaken. While we are blessed by freedom in the United States – or at a minimum a faí§ade of freedom, that does not mean that we can be lazy in our faith. Freedom is not a license to relax in our witness. It is an opportunity to speak the truth. Let’s use that freedom wisely. Let’s use our freedom like the wise servants used their talents.

`Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ — Matthew 25:21 (RSV)