The Life Challenges Podcast
Modern-day issues from a Biblical perspective.
The Life Challenges Podcast
Navigating Free Speech, Faith, and Culture with Grace and Grit
Freedom of speech sounds simple—until you try to speak a hard truth at work, post a conviction online, or share the gospel with someone who disagrees. We unpack what free speech actually protects, where the guardrails are, and why the ability to speak openly is essential to practicing faith, especially when it comes to pro‑life and pro‑family advocacy. Along the way, we look at how cancel culture, “hate speech” labels, and the claim that “speech is violence” are reshaping public conversation and pressuring people into silence.
We walk through the First Amendment’s intent and limits, the deep link between freedom of religion and freedom of expression, and why global restrictions on evangelism hollow out true religious liberty. Then we get practical: how to speak with conviction and gentleness, how to respond when you’re misrepresented, and how small, face‑to‑face conversations often do more than viral posts. Drawing on Jesus’ example—firm with hardened hypocrisy, tender with the searching—we explore a posture that builds bridges without bending the truth.
If you’ve wondered how to navigate tense cultural issues without losing your witness, this conversation offers clarity, courage, and actionable wisdom. You’ll learn to distinguish offense from harm, keep your focus on the mission field right in front of you, and rely on the Spirit’s help to say what’s needed rather than what’s popular. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who needs a confidence boost, and leave a review to help more people find thoughtful, faith‑first conversations about speech, culture, and the gospel.
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On today's episode.
JeffSamelson:We should remember that that free speech is not just about the ability to stand on a street corner or get on the internet or some TV show or whatever and have a big audience and speak to crowds. Freedom of speech is just as much about the conversations that we have with just one person or a few people. Frankly, those are often the ones that actually make a difference because this is face-to-face the chance to give and take, a chance to explain that this is why this is important to me in a different way. Welcome to the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for life challenges.
ChristaPotratz:Hi, and welcome back. I'm Krista Potritz, and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samelson. And today we are going to talk about free speech. Part of the reason, or probably a very large part of the reason we're going to be talking about this topic is because it has been very related to a lot of current events and things going on. Specifically, I would think, like to the Charlie Kirk assassination. There was so much that came out with that. And it's honestly still going out with all of that, too. We just thought it would be really good to just talk about again what free speech is and how as Christians, too, we can think about our free speech and use that to glorify God. Where we want to maybe start just today is talking about what is free speech and what are some maybe common misconceptions about what it protects and what it doesn't protect.
JeffSamelson:It should be pretty easy to define and understand. You know, should be. Free speech is being free to speak whatever it is you have to say.
ChristaPotratz:Sounds great. Episode over.
JeffSamelson:Yeah. Um, it it it is a right, it is a form of liberty. I am free to do this. But there's always going to be a but when you start off saying, you know, it should be. It's not a freedom from consequences when you do speak. It's not uncommon for someone to speak his mind, get in trouble for it, and then claim, oh no, that's really unjust. I was just exercising my freedom of speech. When in reality, he's simply facing the consequences for freely speaking his mind. He said something that offended somebody. He said something that got him in trouble. And very often the trouble that he's in is in the form of other people speaking their minds, saying, I don't like what you have to say. Another thing that requires a bit of fine-tuning on our understanding of free speech is that it is generally understood that freedom of speech is not an absolute right to say absolutely anything. We do put guardrails on it, because the reckless disregard for other people's safety that would be shouting fire in a crowded theater and creating a riot in which people could get injured and such, that's something just about everyone is comfortable saying, No, no, no. We should restrict that. That should not be something people are allowed to do. And similarly, we we at least tolerate, if not encourage, laws that criminalize words that are spoken to do something wrong, to incite violence or to destroy someone's reputation. We're comfortable restricting the freedom of speech in instances like that because there's concrete harm to other people that is resulting from that, or perhaps to society as a whole. I believe it was Oliver Wendell Holmes, I might be th getting the person wrong, but said something to the effect of your right to swing your fist ends at my my nose. And that's related to free speech in that once you cause harm by what you say, deliberate, conscious harm, that has gone too far.
BobFleischmann:The problem with the free speech doctrine is that it challenges your internal moral compass, I suppose, and Christians operate in it from a different uh set of standards. Christians are concerned about our primary what's our primary concern for free speech? We want to be able to talk about Jesus. And so as a result, we tend to compromise and say, well, we're willing to put up with hateful speech or or bad speech and slanderous speech, swearing speech, that kind of stuff. So laws that protect our right to share the gospel and to worship God and so forth. And the the First Amendment, free speech, gets gets twisted and turned by who's ever controlling the microphone, really. I did a kind of a deep dive into what legal scholars have said about free speech over the years. And it definitely is viewed differently today than it was twenty, thirty years ago, and it was viewed differently then than it was a century before that. There are some who've argued that free speech should always be you're free to speak as long as it's for the betterment of society. Well, even then, who decides what's for the betterment of society?
ChristaPotratz:Well, you kind of touched a little bit, Bob, on free speech and with the religion, too. And that is one of the things we wanted to talk about, also about how free speech and freedom of religion are connected, especially in the way Christians express their beliefs publicly.
JeffSamelson:Aaron Powell Here in the United States, the right to free speech and the right to freedom of religion, they're put together in the First Amendment to the constitution. It's it's fundamental in in the Bill of Rights there. And so we're very used to it. It's very American. And there's actually some danger in that because being American Christians, we sometimes think that, oh, oh yeah, this our understanding of freedom of speech, that that must be in the Bible, right? Like, well, there's certain things that support that and maybe inspire that or whatever, but we can't necessarily equate what is American in regard to freedom of speech with what is Christian. And just something it's it's good to be aware of. But since Christianity is a faith that is all about speaking, we speak the gospel, we speak the truth, we speak the speak it in love, it would be difficult to say we have freedom of religion if we don't also have freedom of speech. It's kind of an essential kind of thing. I'll just say a country I'm familiar with, not the United States, has what appears to be a very robust freedom of religion, judging by the variety of religions that are present there and that mostly function without any kind of government interference or anything like that. But the law there actually and actively restricts their ability to speak publicly to people who aren't already connected to their religion. And this means that Christians in particular are not as free to express their faith and carry out the Great Commission as they would like to, as they have been called to do. So that's a case where lacking the a full freedom of speech does affect their ability as Christians to freely practice their their religion.
BobFleischmann:I'm going to read the First Amendment. It says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. So that's the first amendment. And if you think about it, it's sufficiently vague. So Christians I I think it it does well for Christians to robustly support the freedom of speech. We've got a dear friend who's like a uh like a daughter really to us uh who lives in China. And uh we've had her on the show. Yeah, Jolie. Jolie. She's talked about how at their church they're not permitted to evangelize. They cannot they cannot evangelize and they cannot proselytize. They can do their work with their people only with their people. And of course that's a problem because uh the Great Commission calls for us to go to all people and share it. And so it it presents unique challenges. So Christians will want to look for as much freedom as they can. The problem that we have is what you have to put up with in order to get it, because there are people who do not believe in a god who will form nonprofits for this specific purpose to get away with some of the freedoms that religion has. Some of these nonprofits are formed for sexual reasons, some of these nonprofits are are formed for other cultural reasons uh to try to change the culture and so forth. And they sometimes form directly in opposition to Christianity under that broad umbrella of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. And this is almost seems like old fashioned now, but where this used to come up a lot was where the freedom of religion and freedom of speech seemed to clash is when you would have your small town, USA, you have your Nativity Crish downtown, the wise men and the manger and all that kind of stuff. And then all of a sudden the Americans United for Separation of Church to State come in and say, we find that as a violation of the separation of church to state, which is a whole nother topic. Then under freedom of speech, people say, well, then we should be able to put in the menorah for Jewish religion. And then it starts expanding, and then the Satanists want something and the Wiccans want something. And you've got all of these others, and of course, Christians find themselves having to tolerate it because you want to still be able to talk about Jesus.
ChristaPotratz:You know, Bob, you kind of talked a little bit about how our cultural understanding of free speech has changed over time, and I think we've even seen that more too in the rise with cancel culture and especially other forms of social media as well. And so how has this cultural understanding shifted with all of these things that we've been exposed to?
JeffSamelson:For a long time, and I I'd say historically, uh the focus was on being free to speak without government restriction or interference. And that's basically the language of the First Amendment. The government shall not do this. But these days the question, are we free to speak? Uh isn't asked so much about the state as it is about other people and the culture and its institutions, in the academy, universities, uh on social media, on TV. It's like, if I speak freely, am I gonna pay for it? And if you are going to pay for it for speaking freely, are you really free to speak? And that's uh that's why this is uh I think that's a lot of why this has really become a hot button issue in our society. Because people feel that, well, yeah, I've I've I've got this right, but what good is a right if I express it and uh I still suffer consequences for it that are are strictly in regard to my having had the audacity to say something that somebody else didn't want to hear. And there's a lot of fear of being canceled or or worse, or for simply advocating what what you think and believe these days. Sometimes it's even for speaking truths that people find uncomfortable, that they just don't want to hear. You know, there's nothing wrong about it, it's just that somebody doesn't want to hear it, and so they they find a way to shut you down. Maybe it's sh shouting you down on campus if you're a speaker, maybe it's getting you fired from your job for something that you said, expressing an opinion. And uh it is concerning because it is a restriction of what used to be robust uh freedom of speech, and it's fear that's driving it.
BobFleischmann:I think some of the historical background was that when the United States was formed, and Jeff probably is better at this with his background, we went from thirteen colonies to a federal form of government, and then the uh the amendments came up to to basically ensure the the s the colonies, the states, that you still are going to enjoy your freedoms. So the first amendment to the Constitution is this freedom of speech, freedom of religion. So it was to basically hem in the federal government from overstepping. So that was kind of the the idea behind it. Now what we've got, of course, you know, the founding fathers didn't anticipate the internet and all that kind of stuff going on. And so we we tend to be crafty in the way that we like to restrict. I think calling something hate speech is really a a clever tool because nobody wants generally no sane person wants to be attached to anything called hateful. So you're you've got a can a campus speaker coming on and he's he's going to talk about traditional marriage over against uh the Heinz 57 version of marriages that we're working on nowadays and so forth. And and immediately all those who want this freedom of marrying whoever you want or they'll they tag it as hate speech. We don't want him because it's hate speech. And then then you kind of start migrating that thinking towards any religion that talks that way. They participate in hate speech. So Christianity is oftentimes tagged as practicing hate speech. Now what makes it really super complex is we'll just talk about Christianity, the wide assortment of Christians who one church body like our own, which says there's a traditional view of marriage, which we advocate, and then you get others who sometimes even use the name Lutheran, let alone Christian, who will say, well, we permit gay marriage, maybe even uh trans marriages and other kinds of varieties of it, and now all of a sudden hate speech is because you hold a minority view. If you believe in traditional marriage and that's deemed a minority view by someone's polling, should you be permitted to have it? Well, I believe the First Amendment was very much had that in mind, that minority views were protected. And with that kind of protection in mind, you can still talk about the Bible even if people want to insist it's outdated. Christians, we talk about surrendering in our faith. There are a lot of things in the Bible my evil inclination is constantly fighting against. You know, simplistically, society thinks that all Christians just we love everything that God says about us and so forth. No, no, we're fighting the battle too. But we acknowledge that there's a higher authority.
JeffSamelson:Bob mentioned hate speech, and I'll follow up with another thing that complicates and confuses things is uh something it's a fairly recent development, but in a way not too surprising, but particularly comes out of the academy. It's the concept that speech is violence. And you hear this a lot on campuses and things like that, but it's made it out into the general culture. The idea that your speech is hateful and it makes me feel bad, that's the same as if you beat me up. It's the same as if you hit me or knifed me or shot me or something like that. And that therefore that since violence, that kind of violence is bad, therefore that kind of speech should also be outlawed or restricted or punished in in some way. The problem there, I'm guessing most of our listeners realize this, is you're stealing home base when you only got a single there. It's like, yeah, these things aren't equivalent. Speech is not violence. Violence is its thing, speech is is is its thing. Sad thing is it's got recently gotten turned around with people also saying, well, violence is a form of speech. And well, if we have freedom of speech, then we should be free to burn down buildings and and and loot stores and things like that, because that's that's just our way of expressing ourselves. And this is a dangerous thing, but we recognize the extremes of that and we say, well, maybe maybe the extremes should be policed in some way, but again, it just gets complicated.
ChristaPotratz:Yeah, I think some of the complication too is maybe what you were getting at was just like uh subjective type of thing too. I mean, I think we can all agree somebody yelling fire in a theater or something, okay, like that's not good, you know. But if somebody is saying that um a marriage is between a man and a woman, some people are going to think that that is personally offending, obviously, like their lifestyle, and they could get really upset about that. Other people think like, well, that's just that's the truth. So, I mean, what's the big deal about that? So it just it it hits people just different ways emotionally, and then that is hard to know then if well, I mean, like we are clear on something like that, but um, with other people, you know, just their their perception.
BobFleischmann:I get frustrated because I always feel that when we get into arguments about free speech, that we're s not just talking past each other, we're almost like playing with two separate game books. Yeah, I I when I what I mean by I think we talk past each other is that I think Christians, when we talk about Christians being engaged in embracing free speech, there's something ahead of that that we're talking about that we take for granted that we should never take for granted, and that is Christians are knowledgeable about what it means to be a Christian. When you engage in in the freedom of speech, it means you you know how to use it and you know how to respond to it. Sometimes I feel like, especially in our very charged culture today, that I'm c I'm sounding like a Quaker all the time, a pacifist. Because you know, let your gentleness be evident to all. With correct rebuke and encourage with great patience and gentle instruction. Bill Cosby I used to have a comedy album where he used to talk about how a coach used to try to get the team all riled up and you know, we're gonna win, we're gonna win, we're gonna fight, we're gonna fight, we're gonna win, we're gonna fight, we're gonna win, we're gonna fight. He goes and they charge to the door and the door's locked. You know, it just pulls the air right out of you. And sometimes as Christians, I almost feel like there's something about the Christian instruction, about the way we talk and the way we deal with people, pulls the air out of the way the world wants us to do it. Because in the world, we want to fight, we want to win, we've got to win our case, we gotta we gotta win the vote, we've got to have the highest votes, we've got to make the biggest case, we've got to turn out the largest crowd. And instead, you know, God comes to you like a gentle whisper.
ChristaPotratz:Well, we wanted to talk about like how Christians should think and respond. And you kind of touched on a lot of that, Bob. And also to the role of free speech playing in pro-life and pro-family advocacy. How can we effectively and faithfully use our free speech?
BobFleischmann:When Jesus was confronted about the paying taxes question, I mean that was incredible. It was like, well, who's whose image is on the coin? Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's give to God what's what is God's. And a lot of times when we live in a representative form of government, we we kind of I think lose track of the fact that ultimately I'm still responsible only for what I do and what I say. So the admonition to let your gentleness be evident to all. I wish other people were a little bit more gentle about the way they did it. And I wish they were But in the end, I can only control me. The thing to remember is that everything about the Christian faith is about justice and righteousness. That's that's what it always is. It's uh it's reflecting God in everything we do. So justice, righteousness, justice, righteousness. So what we want to do is you've got to have a relationship to practice both. And you don't have a relationship by making the other side constantly angry at you. I just was listening to um uh Albert Albert Moller has the um he has uh he's the editor uh for Christianity today. He's uh president, I think, of Southern Baptist Seminary. I was listening to his podcast and he had Jonathan Haidt on. And I'm a big Jonathan Haidt fan. Jonathan Haidt is an atheist. Yeah, the president of the seminary, and he has an atheist on. But it's interesting the exchange between the two of them, when you listen to it, how respectful it is. Both using freedom of speech, both challenging each other, but it's respectful. I know that a lot of people say, well, my solution is I don't talk religion because I'm nervous about it. No, no, just remember what you're really talking about. You're talking about uh someone who sacrificed it all to save you forever. I don't think when you internalize that you can keep quiet about it. And all we're talking about is how do you talk about it in a way that that even an atheist will sit on the other side of the table and maybe say, I don't agree with you, but they're still willing to come back next week and still talk to you. That's bridge building, that's using freedom of speech in a way that keeps the door open.
JeffSamelson:We've got to remember that if if we want to convince somebody to join our side, whether it's a political issue or pro-life, pro-family issue, whatever it is, you you're going to have to be able to speak freely to communicate those things. So you're going to value that. But I think, you know, in it this relates to somewhat what Bob was was talking about. We should remember that that free speech is not just about the ability to stand on a street corner or get on the internet or some TV show or whatever and have a big audience and speak to crowds. Freedom of speech is just as much about the conversations that we have with just one person or a few people. Frankly, those are often the ones that actually make a difference because this is face-to-face, the chance to give and take, a chance to explain that this is why this is important to me in a different way. And we shouldn't feel, well, if I I I'm I'm I don't feel comfortable standing in a crowd and practicing my free speech. Yeah, but you can talk to your friends. You can talk to your family members, and and that's where the most effective work is usually done.
ChristaPotratz:How should we respond when opponents of pro-life or pro-family messages use free speech to attack or misrepresent us? Sometimes people feel attacked by what people say. What is maybe something good to think about in those moments where we feel like that?
JeffSamelson:Well, our first instinct as humans is going to be to do the same because they're doing to us what we don't want done. And we think, well, well, we should do that back to them so they understand like, well, that's eye for an eye, that's that's not the way we function in society with things like this. That's that that was a rule for law from the Old Testament or whatever. But the main thing is, regardless of the situation, regardless of what your level of free speech your society actually has, the main thing is you respond with faith. Faith that God has you and has the situation in his infinitely capable hands, and that he's handling you and handling the situation with his infinite love, patience, and wisdom. You appreciate that, that God's got you, and suddenly that attack, that silencing, that misrepresentation doesn't loom quite so large. Yeah, this this felt really big, but but yeah, it's not really that big. Because whatever it is, God can handle it, and God can handle me in this situation. And that's that's I think really the most important first thing.
BobFleischmann:Peter had written that we should follow the example of Jesus. And I think a lot about that because I find it interesting in Jesus' interaction with people, when it came to the religious leaders, uh he could be very harsh. They have the standard of truth, and they were not following it. And so he was always pointing them back to the to the standard of truth. And then he revealed, I remember the story of rich man and poor Lazarus. Uh the rich man who uh really was he was talking about the the Pharisees who got completely lost in their practices and their lifestyle and were basically away from the faith, said, Well, send back somebody from the dead. And Jesus says they have Moses and the prophets. If they don't listen to to them, they won't listen to anything. And and so I often saw when Jesus was harsh with the religious leaders, it was because they already had the foundation of truth and they ignored it. When it came to the people, he says, Love your enemy, turn the cheek, walk the extra mile. Everything was sacrificial about it. And I think sometimes we forget that. But when it gets when you get to the laity, when you get to people, even people with incredibly strong opinions, a lot of times they're misguided. They don't know the truth. You happen to have the edge, you know the truth. So your quest the question you have to wrestle with, and that has to do with personality and opportunity, is your personality and the opportunity you have, what's the best way to get them into the truth? Now, sometimes there'll be people who are really clever who could turn the tables around on them and and win the intellectual victory. Did that build a bridge? You gotta ask that. Did that get them into the truth, or did I just merely win the argument? And like Jeff said, God God knows how this is playing out, and he'll accomplish it. Your goal is to be a witness. You want people to marvel at your sacrificial nature and your your love and let Christ rule in your hearts, Peter also said, that they may see your good words, and you want them to glorify God in heaven. There's something about the way you live that creates a mystery for them. They want to solve it.
ChristaPotratz:What encouragement would you give to Christians or people that just feel hesitant about speaking up in today's cultural climate?
JeffSamelson:Repeating. Trust God. That's gotta be first. And one of the things to trust, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would help us when we we speak his word. Didn't make quite the same promise for when we uh speak up to share our opinion on redistricting or anything like that. But you know, when we're speaking for him, when we're representing him, when we're sharing the gospel or sharing the truths that that that God has given us, he said that the Spirit's gonna help you, and we can have confidence of that. You know, I I can certainly say, speaking as a pastor, there have been many times where later on I'm like, where did that come from? I said that pretty well, I think. Where did that come from? That that was the Holy Spirit. He's he's gonna protect you, and even if some there are negative consequences to your speaking, again, he's got you. But I uh just I guess a final encouragement there is like it's more important to be right than to be popular. And it's more important to say what people need to hear rather than what it feels good to say. As human beings, we we want to say things and have people say, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's great, you you preach it. That's what we want. And sometimes that happens and it's all good. But sometimes we crave the acceptance, the popularity more, and we've got to guard against that. And just remember that when you speak, speak what is true. That that's what's more important. When you s say speak to someone, speak what they need to hear. What's the to edify them to use the you know the scriptural language rather than just what makes you feel better for having said it.
BobFleischmann:And keep perception correct. Be be correctly perceive what you're what you're looking at. You you you watch the news and you see riots in the city over something. You go on to your s newsfeed and your internet uh social media, and you see hundreds of thumbs up, thumbs down, you see interesting stories and you see outpouring of opinions on it and everything. And the reality is, is going back to what Jeff said, your audience generally is not thousands of people, it's not even dozens of people. Most of the time your most effective audience is one or two. I'll go home at night and I'll watch news and everything, and then you go to work the next day, and it's still the same six people you interact with more most and so forth. And that that is your immediate mission field. And don't lose perspective. I mean, people it's it's all all of a sudden you you know you see uh an outburst, and then maybe even in the workplace you encounter somebody who says, Well, I'm not comfortable talking about religion religion with you anymore. Okay. Then then live your faith. You don't have to talk about it. Live it, but still live it in such a loving, compassionate, sacrificial way. The old 1 Peter 3.15. They're wondering about the reason for the hope that you have. There's just something peculiar about you that makes them want to eventually come back. And and no matter how poorly they treat you, what an incredible impact you make when you don't treat them the same way back.
ChristaPotratz:There's probably a lot more we could say on on this topic, but we appreciate the discussion today. And for all of our listeners, if you have any questions on this topic, please reach out to us at the Express Your Freedom of Speech. Yeah. Yes, please express your freedom of speech and reach out to us at lifechallenges.us. Thanks a lot, and we look forward to having you back next time.
JeffSamelson:Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it. And sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions on today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us or email us at podcast at ChristianLiferesources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at Lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit Christianliferesources.com. May God give you wisdom, love, strength, and peace in Christ for every life challenge!
