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Contact: CTSFW Communications, communications@ctsfw.edu
Päivi Räsänen Addresses Fight for Freedom of Speech and Faith
FORT WAYNE, Ind., May 21, 2026—Dr. Päivi Räsänen, a Lutheran medical doctor and longtime member of the Finnish Parliament, has endured seven years of court proceedings over faith-based public statements that were deemed “hate speech.” On May 16, the day after she received an honorary doctorate from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (CTSFW), for her courageous Christian witness, Räsänen shared her story at the Seminary, emphasizing the importance of standing firm and speaking up, no matter the consequences.
“Dr. Martin Luther handled the issue of consequences of faith aptly,” said Räsänen. “If you believe, you speak. If you speak, you must suffer, for faith, confession, and cross belong together and are part of being a Christian.”
Dr. Päivi Räsänen with CTSFW faculty member Dr. Samuli Siikavirta, who is also from Finland, after Räsänen received an honorary doctorate May 15.
Räsänen’s legal troubles began in 2019, when she shared a tweet questioning the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland’s support of a Pride event, and a citizen filed a criminal complaint. More complaints followed, and she soon also came under fire for a church pamphlet she authored in 2004, Male and Female He Created Them, which addresses marriage and sexuality.
“In the autumn of 2019, I found myself sitting in a small interrogation room at the police station three times, for a total of thirteen hours. The situation was unreal, like watching myself in a movie,” Räsänen said. “Just a few years before, I was in charge of the police as Minister of the Interior. I visited this very same police station as Minister, and now I was interrogated about my Christian convictions. The Bible lay on the table, and a ponytailed police officer sat behind the desk.”
The interrogation, she said, focused on interpretation of the Bible, and she was prepared with ready answers. “On social media, there was a joke at that time that Päivi Räsänen is once again going to have a Bible study at the police station.” The police asked if she would destroy the booklet, but she refused, stating, “I will stand behind these teachings of the Bible, whatever the consequences.”
In 2021, she was tried in the Helsinki District Court on charges of agitation against a minority group, along with Bishop Juhana Pohjola of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, who was responsible for publishing the church booklet. The court unanimously acquitted them of all charges in 2022. The prosecutor general appealed to the Helsinki Court of Appeal, which in 2023 dismissed the charges. The case then advanced to the Supreme Court of Finland. On March 26, 2026, the Court found Räsänen and Pohjola guilty of the charge involving the booklet by a 3-2 decision.
Päivi Räsänen tells the story of her battle in the Supreme Court May 16 at CTSFW.
“I was expecting the third victory,” said Räsänen. “My goal has been to fight for freedom of speech and faith so that no one else would find themselves in the same situation in Finland. Now, many people must fear for their writings, even decades old.”
While the trials have produced some “dark moments” for Räsänen, she says there have been positive outcomes, too. “I have been so encouraged by the thousands and thousands of messages I have received all over the world in which people have told me how God has, through this case, encouraged them to pray and trust His word. And some of them say that they have even found Christ, including some people with an LGBT background.”
Räsänen is appealing the Supreme Court decision in the European Court of Human Rights and will thus continue the fight for freedom of speech and faith. She encouraged those in the audience to exercise their own right to express their convictions peacefully in the public square.
“The more that Christians keep silent about the teachings of the Bible on the painful issues of our time, the more forceful and complete is the reaction. That is what we have learned in Europe. The early Christians, they didn’t renounce their faith in lion’s caves. Why should we then do it in the challenges of our times?”