Rebekah Kimble – Houghton STAR

On January 7, 2015, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo made international headlines after two gunmen entered its office in Paris and proceeded to kill eight journalists. The attack sparked a three-day manhunt in Paris that culminated in the deaths of the two gunmen, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi. The brothers, who had links to the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda, had targeted Charlie Hebdo because of its portrayal of Islam, generally, and Muhammad, specifically, in both articles and cartoons.

The act of terror, heralded by journalists as the worst attack in France in forty years, familiarized millions of outsiders with the name Charlie Hebdo. Within days, the cry “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”) had filled social media, as foreigners adopted the phrase to show their support for free speech.

Here, however, it seems important to make a distinction between the two issues at hand: terrorism and free speech. The attack on Charlie Hebdo, undoubtedly an act of terror, cannot be justified, and France is right to take the necessary actions to bring the perpetrators to justice and prevent further attacks.

But the issue of free speech isn’t as straightforward. Although most Westerners view freedom of speech as a paramount value, in this instance one wonders how many people know exactly what kind of free speech they are supporting. After all, familiarity with the title of a publication doesn’t necessarily signify familiarity with its content. And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of the people who jumped on the bandwagon of free speech would stop short of supporting some of Charlie Hebdo’s publications.

In light of the American tendency to pay at least verbal homage to tolerance, Charlie Hebdo is a bit of an anomaly. Its reputation for lambasting Islam, Christianity and Judaism and for publishing articles and cartoons intended to cause offense to adherents of these three world religions certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed. (In fact, major American and British newspapers have refused to republish some of Charlie Hebdo’s content – though whether this stems from scruples about decency or from fear of inviting attacks similar to the one in Paris is unclear.) That is why I hesitate to ally myself with the cry for free speech in this particular instance.

Like most Westerners, I view freedom of speech as an important value. But I also believe that there are values more important than this – values such as, say, decency, respect, and truthfulness in publishing. In other words, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to distinguish between free speech and responsible speech. In an ideal world, the two would go hand-in-hand. But Charlie Hebdo serves as a reminder that we don’t live in an ideal world. Here free speech can be both irresponsible and insensitive. It can be used, as Charlie Hebdo uses it, to publish inflammatory content purposefully designed to anger and offend certain groups. Over the last several days, Charlie Hebdo’s content has elicited not a few articles distinguishing between free and responsible speech. And given some of the magazine’s tasteless – may we even go so far as to describe the content as crass? – publications, I’d say that that is a fair distinction to make.

Before I’m accused of looking at Charlie Hebdo through the biased lens of toleration, I will point out that the issues surrounding some of its content have already evoked responses in its defense. One French citizen, in particular, asserts, “Even if their sense of humour was apparently inacceptable to English minds . . . it fell well within the French tradition of satire – and after all was only intended for a French audience.” The likes of Rousseau and Voltaire did come out of France, so I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise. When, however, did cultural practice become the litmus test for basic decency?

In the upcoming weeks, people of vastly different religious beliefs will be working through the two issues surrounding Charlie Hebdo, and as they do so, I think that it is perfectly appropriate to distinguish between supporting France’s fight against terrorism and supporting Charlie Hebdo’s inflammatory content.

Two Views: What are the moral dimensions surrounding the immigration debate?

In 1892, Annie Moore became the first immigrant to cross the threshold of Ellis Island and soon came to symbolize the 12 million immigrants who entered America between 1892 and 1954. Since then, millions of other people like her have immigrated to America in the hopes of attaining a better life.

But the Commission on Immigration Reform has concluded that the number of legal immigrants is too high, leaving us with the question of how to deal with the Annie Moores of today – a difficult but important question for Christians to consider.

Unfortunately, as Drs. Mark Amstutz and Peter Meilaender explain in “Public Policy and the Church: Spiritual Priorities,” “Christian groups have become somewhat noteworthy for issuing unhelpful statements” about this topic. Many Christians argue for an open-door policy loosely based on biblical passages about migration, hospitality and human dignity without due consideration of the differences between biblical culture and our own.

So how should Christians respond to the immigration issue? First, they need to abandon the idea that the Bible prescribes a particular policy suitable to the U.S. Clearly, the Bible says nothing about it, and although Scripture certainly endorses the value of human dignity, that principle is too general to offer specific guidance on the issue of immigration policy. Second, Christians need to reconsider the moral dimensions that surround the issue, specifically whether immigration limits are morally justifiable, and if so, whether there is a moral imperative to give preference to one group of immigrants over another.

Here Dr. Meilaender offers a way forward. He believes that Christians can make a strong moral case for immigration limits and argues that we determine the morality of such limits based on our relative obligations to two basic groups of people: members and potential members of American society. He explains that although “we owe something to each person simply by virtue of his or her humanity,” we have special obligations to persons “for whom we bear special responsibilities” – e.g., our fellow members of American society. On Meilaender’s view, defending their interests takes precedence over our obligations to outsiders. Christians often view this as fundamentally self-interested, but Meilaender disagrees; he argues that we are obligated “to preserve [our] common life” and that such an obligation stems not from “a narrow focus on personal self-interest” but from an obligation to fellow members of American society. In other words, once Annie Moore becomes a member of our society, we bear a special responsibility for her – one that is stronger than our responsibility to potential members.

But this naturally raises another question: Whom should we allow to immigrate? We could randomly choose immigrants based on the lottery system, or we could give preference to immigrants based on an agreed-upon set of qualifying circumstances (what I call a categorical system). Whereas the lottery system acts indiscriminately, the categorical approach allows officials to take morally compelling circumstances into account. Say, for instance, that members of Annie’s nuclear family are U.S. citizens or that Annie can’t return to her own country due to a reasonable fear of persecution. In both cases, our moral obligation towards her exceeds our obligation to immigrants in general – thus indicating that the categorical system is, in at least some instances, morally compelling.

Politicians and the media largely ignore the issue of legal immigration, choosing instead to focus on the (much more controversial) issue of illegal immigrants. Currently, however, 1.1 million people legally immigrate to the U.S. each year, and Americans need to respond with moral sensitivity to the high number of Annie Moores who desire to enter the U.S. through the appropriate channels.