re: Northern Ireland Pastor convicted of buffer zone law because he preached the gospel

Why is this guy preaching about abortion? He needs to stay out of politics. Stick to religion.

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Why is this guy preaching about abortion? He needs to stay out of politics. Stick to religion

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Attention. Its always about attention. He wouldnt have gotten any of the attention he is currently getting if he chose to preach somewhere else.

Matthew warned us that the focus should always be on proclaiming the message, rather than drawing attention to oneself.

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He did not harass, and he did not impede.

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Neither are required under the law. Influencing or attempting to influence is against the law. Next you will tell me he showed up there to preach without the intent to influence? Haha

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Sure you can, but i dont feel sorry for a guy...

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You might not feel sorry for him, but you were making moral statements without support.

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…that showed up to a place that signed up to be protected from such behaviors under the law and refused to leave

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His argument was that they were not “protected” from a Christian worship service or Christian preaching unrelated to abortion.

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If the US had a law that I could sign up for saying noone could record, harass, or preach within 100 yards of my work id sign up for it as well

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I’m sure you would. The issue isn’t about what you would like, but the morality of the law and/or its interpretation.

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Attention. Its always about attention. He wouldnt have gotten any of the attention he is currently getting if he chose to preach somewhere else.

Matthew warned us that the focus should always be on proclaiming the message, rather than drawing attention to oneself.

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So now you quote the Bible, after all of your complaining about preaching? We are supposed to spread the word from a place of genuine faith, rather than trying to impress people with our speech. In other words, don't be pretentious and self-righteous, but demonstrate true righteousness and be an example in that way.

Once again, Jesus, Himself, stirred up the people, routinely, in the places He went. He set the example of how to be. Go where the people are. The fact that it may or may not "cause a scene" is a consequence of preaching the truth where the truth is rejected. That is exactly why he needed to be there. If all you do is preach to the choir, you aren't spreading the word.

He went there because he felt a need, thought he was fine to be there based on his lack of getting in the way or speaking about abortion, and the police decided they knew better. And he could have left, but he decided being a coward and letting bad faith individuals boss him around was not the way to go.

The fact that you don't understand or respect such an act of courage does not make you right, or prove a point.

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sgallo3

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I hope nobody is any longer under any illusions that the American Left wouldn’t gleefully enact these sort of restrictions on liberty, after watching this ghoul going this hard in the paint to defend another government arresting a guy for saying a prayer.

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Nothing courageous about being an attention seeker that thinks what you want to do or say is more important than everyone elses' lives, despite what social media makes people think.

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You continue to deflect from the point by simply imposing YOUR displeasure with someone else's choices.

You call him an attention seeker, because you don't like the message. If the man is willing to put his freedom on the line for what he believes, then he has more courage than you can apparently comprehend, given your dedication to bending the knee to whatever the government deems disruptive and criminal, on a whim. You can't see the obvious implications of where such attacks on civil and religious liberty lead. Because they won't stop there. Eventually, as history has taught us over and over again, they will come to your place of worship and tell you you can't do that either, because your religion is now a violation.

And social media has nothing to do with this. That is a total non-sequitur.


Edit- By the way, what he was preaching IS more important than people's lives. People's eternal souls are far more important than their finite lives. That's the whole point of preaching.

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The persecution fixation is so dishonest. You can't show up to one of the only 100 meter areas within a hundred square miles you arent allowed to do something and then claim persecution when you get in trouble for it.

Persecution is when they come for you, not when you purposely seek out an action and place they will come stop you.

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If the law is intended to shut down abortion protests within a certain distance of an abortion facility and then the law is applied to a religious non-protest that wasn't about abortion, then I hope you can see where there would be concern about the religion, itself, being attacked (persecution).

The central point of this case is that religious expression was curtailed because of a thought crime, rather than the actions, themselves. The natural implication is that because Christianity is anti-abortion, that promoting Christianity publicly within earshot of a place that performs abortions is tantamount to protesting abortion. That means, if you are a Christian, you are guilty of harassments for teaching about Christianity near an abortion provider even if your teaching has nothing to do with abortion, itself.

Christianity is being conflated with anti-abortion rhetoric, and therefore preaching the gospel is considered the same thing as proclaiming a political or ideological message about abortion. That's a dangerous path towards outlawing Christianity.

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The persecution fixation is so dishonest. You can't show up to one of the only 100 meter areas within a hundred square miles you arent allowed to do something and then claim persecution when you get in trouble for it.

Persecution is when they come for you, not when you purposely seek out an action and place they will come stop you.

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Way to let the point go right over your head. What did I just finish saying? You let people push you around and tell you that you can't practice your faith in open air, and the rest follows accordingly.

Did you know that a man (Steve Maile) was arrested in England this month for street preaching (not in a "protected safe zone") and criticizing the violence of Islam? That's right, the country that has been invaded by violent Muslims, raping women and doing what they generally do, has decided that it's "offensive" to criticize said Muslims, and was arrested for "religiously aggravated offenses". Other people in England were in the news in recent years for being arrested for SILENT prayer outside of an abortion clinic. There is not a chance to make an argument that people who aren't even speaking are somehow bothering people.

Oh, but that can't be, because you just assured me that Christians aren't being persecuted, and I'm just being dishonest by suggesting that there are consequences to letting people attack your freedom.

Also, this man in Ireland did not seek out a place where he would be stopped. He wasn't even at an abortion clinic. I mentioned this earlier, and you have ignored it, that this hospital does not have any right to claim protection under an "Abortion Services" safe zone. This hospital never should have been granted protection, but nevertheless, this man did not come to address abortion. John 3:16 has nothing to do with anything anyone should have been bothered by. They can not like it, if they aren't Christians, but the law does not protect them from any and everything that they don't like.

You have no idea how many places this man has been. You act as if, in all his life, this is the one place he chose to go and preach. He's 78 years old. You think this is the first place of business he's gone to? Everyone needs the Gospel. Why wouldn't he go where people are? I've said this many times, and you've ignored that, too. You don't like being reminded that Jesus did the same, so you either ignore it, or you attack a strawman when you respond.

I meant sorry for losing your reading comprehension with age. It happens unfortunately for some sooner rather than later.