July 2001 - Evangelicals Now - Christian Newspaper

French Christians are bracing themselves for problems resulting from a controversial new law aimed at controlling the activities of dangerous religious sects. But it is 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.

Ignorance and paranoia, fuelled by negative and sensationalist media reports, have led to any non-mainstream churches being lumped together in people's minds with cults, say critics of the law, which was passed by the French parliament on May 30.

Assault on human rights

Opponents of the new law include human rights groups and mainstream Protestant and Catholic leaders. Some have called the new law an assault on human rights, fearing it might encourage autocratic regimes like China to further suppress minority religions there.

The law's sponsors had argued that it would give the courts powers to clamp down on sects using 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 using misleading publicity.

The law also makes provision for a new offence of 'mental manipulation', punishable by a fine of up to $50,000 and five years' imprisonment.

But the definition of 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. Organisations on the list ranged from groups like the Raelians, to larger sects like Scientologists, the Unification Church and Jehovah's Witnesses, and on to evangelical and Pentecostal-type churches.

Why are evangelicals classed as sects? Apart from being seen as a departure from Roman Catholicism, they are regarded as imports of American culture, very unwelcome in modern France which fiercely defends its cultural uniqueness. According to the new legislation, one of the hallmarks of a sect is that equality between the sexes is denied, so any opposition to women's ordination would be perceived as inequality.

'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 that on about ten 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, those churches found it difficult to rent premises, or get help from official bodies. De Clermont attributed the problem to ignorance. Earlier he had been challenged by a leftist politician during a television programme to remove such groups from the Federation's ranks.

The politician told de Clermont: '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.'

Return of the Protestants

Many churches are resurrecting the use of the word Protestant and ditching the description evangelical. The reason for this is that 'Evangelique' on its own may sound like a sect, but 'Protestante' links into 400 years of French history. People know that Calvin was a Frenchman and also know of the injustice of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, when the Protestant voice of the Huguenots was almost wiped out.

Leading the way

French politicians were very proud of the law, he said, arguing that they were leading the way in the fight against cults, and expressing the hope that other European countries would follow their lead. But he also hoped other European government bodies 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'.

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 organisations 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 in June 2000 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 newspaper, Le Figaro, said 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.'

Criminalise 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 criminalise 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 disfavoured 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 civilisation - would deprive its citizens of their most basic human rights', Grieboski said.

Patrick Goodenough,
London Bureau Chief, CNS News,
and other sources

France: religious clampdown