Street Preaching ‘Should Be Made Illegal’

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbXQRhKJGs]At first glance, I thought this was satire, just a clever comment meant to expose liberal hypocrisy. But upon further thought, I concluded that, no, this was not satire at all. It was meant to be taken seriously.

I’m referring to a comment posted to one of my YouTube videos, which was titled, “London Mayor Cites ‘Limitations’ to Free Speech, After Street Preacher’s Arrest.”

In response to this video, “John Duncan” wrote:

Being a bible street preacher should be made illegal as they often offend LGBT People, they all think that a marriage is between a man and woman only, anyone who is against Gay Marriage should be named and shamed and face a judge in a court, it should be a criminal offence to preach the bible in public, this preacher is a criminal, this is not 1819, it’s 2019, being Gay is ok, well done police officers at arresting another evil bigot, the LGBT Community will agree with me, Bible Street preachers must be forced out of city centres when they preach, LGBT Lessons and Homosexuality must be promoted to children from the age of 4 so they grow up to respect Gay People. And at least Muslims don’t do this as they are peaceful and law abiding citizens and don’t bring up 9/11, Manchester and ISIS as they are not Muslims, Muslims do not kill, Evil People kill. I am not Gay and I am not a Muslim, I am a Liberal and I believe in Love.

Yes, these are the sincere sentiments of a “liberal” who claims to “believe in Love.” How liberal and how loving! Sentiments like this bring to mind the saying, “With friends like this, who needs enemies?” In this case, “With love like this, who needs hate?”

This is the blindness of the modern “tolerance” movement, the hypocrisy of the radical left.

In the name of free speech, we will silence dissenting voices.

In the name of justice, we will forcibly suppress any challenge.

In the name of love, we will practice bigotry and hate.

Do you think I’m exaggerating? Let’s review what this commenter advocates, since it reflects similar sentiments I’ve seen and heard by the thousands.

First, street preaching should be made illegal because it offends LGBT people. And why does it offend them? Because street preachers preach the Bible. How horrific! What a scandal! This is criminal!

The reality is that preaching Jesus has always been offensive. That’s why the apostles were killed, and that’s why, to this day, Christians are being martyred for their faith.

In this case, however, the offense is focused on one primary issue, namely, affirming marriage as God intended it (see Matt. 19:4-6). Anyone who preaches this should be arrested!

Second, those who affirm biblical marriage “should be named and shamed and face a judge in a court.” After all, this is 2019, not 1819! We are enlightened today. We are progressive. We have evolved into a higher level of human understanding. That’s why those who dare to differ with us should be named and shamed before a judge. Perhaps tar and feather them if they don’t reform?

Third, in the name of liberal love, it “should be a criminal offence to preach the bible in public.” Go ahead and read your Bibles in private (at least, for now, until Big Brother Love comes looking for you). But don’t dare carry your faith into the public square. If you do, you’re “a criminal.” Criminals should be locked up!

Great Awakening or Civil War in America Over Abortion

Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) was one of the most prominent evangelists in 19^th century America as well as a staunch opponent of slavery. As a pastor, he would not serve communion to Christians involved in the slave trade. And Oberlin College, where Finney served as president, became part of the “underground railroad” for escaping slaves.

Yet Finney’s priorities were clear, and his prediction was that if a spiritual awakening did not come first, then the battle over slavery would end with a bloody war. It did. That does not mean that Finney underestimated the evils of slavery.

In his sermon on “Hindrances to Revival,” Finney said,

Revivals are hindered when ministers and churches take wrong ground in regard to any question involving human rights. Take the subject of SLAVERY, for instance.

Finney acknowledged that there were true Christians involved in slavery. But he said,

It was because the sinfulness of it was not apparent to their minds. So ministers and churches, to a great extent throughout the land, have held their peace, and borne no testimony against this abominable abomination, existing in the church and in the nation.

That, however, could continue no more.

He explained:

Light is now shed upon this subject, as it has been upon the cause of temperance. Facts are exhibited, and principles established, and light thrown in upon the minds of men, and this monster is dragged from his horrid den, and exhibited before the church, and it is demanded of them, ‘IS THIS SIN?

As ministers (and as Christians in general), they were duty bound to tell the truth. What, then, would they say?Finney said,

It is impossible, that their testimony should not be given, on one side or the other. Their silence can no longer be accounted for upon the principle of ignorance, and that they have never had their attention turned to the subject. Consequently, the silence of Christians upon the subject is virtually saying that they do not consider slavery as a sin. The truth is, it is a subject upon which they cannot be silent without guilt.

The time has come, in the providence of God, when every southern breeze is loaded down with the cries of lamentation, mourning and wo. Two millions of degraded heathen in our own land stretch their hands, all shackled and bleeding, and send forth to the church of God the agonizing cry for help. And shall the church, in her efforts to reclaim and save the world, deafen her ears to this voice of agony and despair? God forbid. The church cannot turn away from this question. It is a question for the church and for the nation to decide, and God will push it to a decision.

Indeed, in the eyes of Finney,

It is doubtless true that one of the reasons for the low state of religion at the present time is that many churches have taken the wrong side on the subject of slavery, have suffered prejudice to prevail over principle, and have feared to call this abomination by its true name.

Yet for all this, Finney felt strongly that the minister’s first priority was revival and evangelism – awakening believers in the church and then reaching unbelievers with the gospel. The fight against slavery came second.

Put another way, without changing hearts and minds on a massive, national scale, America would suffer a terrible bloodbath because of slavery.

And even though there was a powerful revival that swept America in 1857-58, not enough hearts and minds were changed, and the Civil War ensued.

What does this say to us today? Recently, John Zmirak declared,

Abortion in America Will End Badly, as Slavery Did.

His article is sobering, and rightly so. Yet Zmirak was not without hope, ending his article with this:

Of course, a Great Awakening and movement of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds could rouse us to do much better. To embrace life from its beginning, and abandon the sexual ethics of Margaret Sanger and the Marquis de Sade. But at this point, that’s what it would take — something akin to and on the scale of the conversion of pagan Europe.With God, all things are possible.

But if we are to have hope, we must do it without sobriety and the fear of God.

Our nation is being torn up by abortion. States are polarizing over it. The political parties are splitting over it. And with every positive, pro-life step that is taken, the militant abortionists are crying for more blood.

How does this end, without divine intervention? Will it mean the fracturing of our union, with some states free of legalized abortion and other states havens of baby-killing? Will the overturning of Roe v. Wade lead to a wholesale rebellion, with violence in the streets?

Speaking more broadly, Buck Jacobs stated that, “There is only one possibility that could turn the tide. It won’t be found through politics or politicians, economics or education. National repentance and the restoration of God and His ways as our moral base in Christ is the only hope for our nation.”

He is absolutely right.

And so, while we continue to fight for life on every front – on the streets and in the homes and in politics and in the media and beyond – we must put first things first.

There must be massive repentance and renewal in the church, coupled with massive, effective evangelism in the society, and with that, the changing of hearts and minds about abortion.

Anything less than this, as Finney and Zmirak have warned in different contexts many years apart, will end badly.

May God stir our hearts with the urgency of the hour.

Why Don’t We Care About the Slaughter of Nigerian Christians?

Thousands of Christians are being butchered in Nigeria and whole villages being destroyed. Why are we so unconcerned? Why don’t we care? I believe the biggest reason is that we simply don’t know about what’s happening there. Well, now you know. Here are the facts.

For the last several months, one of my good friends, a Christian missionary serving the poorest of the poor in Nigeria, has been sending me emails with terrifying news. Fulani tribesmen raping and killing villagers. Children being used as Islamic suicide bombers, resulting in scores of casualties. One horrible report after another.

Yet with each email I received, as I scoured the major news agencies in the West, I found nothing reported. Not a word.

At the same time, Nigerian news sources were ablaze with reports of the latest atrocities.

Today, I saw this shocking headline on Jihad Watch: “Nigeria: Muslims wipe out 15 villages in mass slaughter of Christians, government does nothing.”

The article began with this quote, “Despite several calls to the governor and his deputy, and other security apparatus, the government remained silent as the atrocities continued. The Fulani were able to carry out their deadly attack. They stayed for hours in the vicinity, moving at will, unchallenged.”

How could this be? According to Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch, it’s because “Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari clearly has no sympathy for the victims. He shares the world view of the jihadi attackers.”

When I emailed my friend in Nigeria to ask if this were true, she wrote back immediately:

This article doesn’t state which villages, so I am not sure. It is happening every day. The worst this year was the New Year’s Day massacre, followed by a mass burial of 73 victims. There have been many attacks since then. Villages razed, girls and women raped, men butchered. Cutlasses have been replaced by AK-47s. The military has, at times, seemed complicit.

The president only gets upset when there are reprisal killings of Fulani. He himself is a Fulani man and a cattle-rearer. The stated reason is grazing rights. If you object to cows eating your crops, you, your village and maybe surrounding ones will be attacked. It is in every paper, every day. The nation is smoldering. Only Jesus. (Her closing sentence meant, “Jesus is our nation’s only hope.”)

She also sent me this YouTube link, viewed over 180,000 times at present, in which a Nigerian social commentator who lives in the States blasts the president’s alleged inaction (and, worse still, alleged wrong actions).

The video begins with a clip from a pastor, boldly denouncing wickedness in the government and stating plainly that, “The killing, the killing that is going on in Nigeria shows the irresponsibility of the president called Buhari.”

And the pastor urged every Nigerian to fight back, not with weapons but by getting their voter’s cards, urging the people not to let wicked men in government to decide their fate. Yes, he bellowed, “Enough is enough!”

As a result of his sermon, we are informed that a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Outrageous? Absolutely. But Nigeria is a nation divided, with a Muslim majority in the north and a Christian majority in the south, with terrorist groups like Boko Haram still on the prowl, and with systemic governmental corruption.

And as Christianity continues to spread across the nation at an exponential pace, so also persecution is spreading. As reported by Christian Today in 2016, “Muslims are converting to Christianity in northern Nigeria amid rapidly rising levels of Christian persecution, which has seen more than 10,000 Christians killed in five years, according to a new report released today.

“While much media attention has been focused on Islamic State and the plight of persecuted minorities in the Middle East, 11,500 Christians in northern Nigeria were killed in five years between 2006-2014, and 13,000 churches were destroyed, forcing 1.3 million Christians to flee to safer areas of the country.”

As devastating as these statistics are, they are more likely under-reported than over-reported, which again begs the question: Why don’t we care? Why aren’t we raising our voices? Why aren’t we standing with our fellow believers in prayer?

Again, I believe it is largely because of our ignorance.

But if you’ve read this article, you can’t claim ignorance any more. And the first thing you can do to help combat these atrocities is share this article with your friends. Let’s get educated, let’s get praying, and let’s get the word out to the rest of the world until the Nigerian government does what is right – or is replaced by leaders who will.

Punishing The “Wicked Christians”

Call me paranoid if you like, but I’m simply quoting what Tim Gill, the foremost LGBT political donor says in his own words “We’re going into the hardest states in the country,” he declares. “We’re going to punish the wicked,” by which he means Christian conservatives. In short, if you will not comply with LGBT activism, be it as a minister or as a businessperson, you will be punished. That is Gill’s goal, and to deny it is to be in denial.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, which interviewed Gill last month, he is the “Megadonor Behind the LGBTQ Rights Movement” who “turned a $500 million fortune into the nation’s most powerful force for LGBTQ rights.”

His accomplishments are impressive indeed: “Today, Gill’s sprawling network of LGBTQ advocacy groups rivals any big-money operation in the country. The Gill Foundation, which he started in 1994, underwrites academic research, polling, litigation, data analytics and field organizing. Gill Action, a political group launched a decade later, has helped elect hundreds of pro-equality lawmakers at the local, state and federal levels.

OutGiving, his donor club, coaches the country’s richest pro-LGBTQ funders on how best to spend their money. Gill’s fingerprints are on nearly every major victory in the march to marriage, from the 2003 Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Healthcase, which made Massachusetts the first state to allow same-sex marriage, to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision two decades later that legalized it in all 50. ‘Without a doubt,’ says Mary Bonauto, the attorney who argued the Obergefell case, ‘we would not be where we are without Tim Gill and the Gill Foundation.’”

So, when Tim Gill says he wants to “punish” Christian conservatives who do not affirm LGBT activism, you can take him seriously.

I understand, of course, that for him this is a matter of equality, and in his mind, he is fighting against discriminatory practices and laws. For him, this is a matter of fairness and justice, and so we who oppose LGBT activism are “wicked” people who should be “punished.” When your worldview is upside down, that is a logical conclusion.

Those who believe a child should have a mother and father are the KKK. Those who cannot participate in a same-sex “wedding” are Nazis. Those who don’t want a biological boy sharing a locker room with their daughter are transphobic bigots. And obviously, the KKK and Nazis and bigots are wicked people, and wicked people deserve to be punished. Such is the logic of LGBT activism.

I just returned from Ontario, where a child can be taken from his or her parents and raised by others if the parents do not affirm the child’s perceived gender. And throughout Canada, you can be penalized for not using a person’s preferred gender pronoun.

Here in the States, CBN News reports

California is on its way to passing a new law that makes it illegal to call transgender senior citizens a pronoun they don’t like. For example, if an elderly person who was born male and lives in a long-term care facility wishes to be called ‘her’ or ‘she,’ the workers there had better do it or face the consequences. The proposed law would even apply to Christian facilities.

But again, none of this should surprise us, just as we should not be surprised with the latest LGBT attempts to indoctrinate our children

That’s why I’ve said for years that those who came out of the closet want to put us in the closet, referring, of course, to LGBT activists. And as much as critics scorned my words more than a decade ago, mocking me as paranoid and crazy, it’s hard to scorn those words now.

That’s why we must be all the more determined to stand up for what is right, regardless of cost or consequence, and we must do this while still loving our neighbor as ourselves. That means that we can be kind and loving to our LGBT co-workers, family member, and friends without celebrating their relationships or affirming their causes. As Christian conservatives, this is how we live.

You might say to me, “Who cares about being punished? If gay activists come after us for doing what is right, so be it. Our brothers and sisters in other countries are being slaughtered for their faith, so the least we can do in America is take a righteous stand. Gay activists are hardly beheading us or throwing us to the lions.”

In principle, I agree with you, and I’m quite happy to take a stand, come what may. But there’s something else I think about. What about our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids? What kind of world are we leaving to them?

That’s why we must push back against those who want to punish us for our faith. Liberty is not something to be surrendered without a godly fight.

A Prophetic Picture of America

It was the act of only one man who drove his vehicle into a Ten Commandments monument in Arkansas, but it reflected the sentiments of a growing number of Americans: “We do not want the Ten Commandments in our midst, nor do we want the God of the Ten Commandments in our midst.” In that sense, the destructive act of this individual reflected the attitude of tens of millions of Americans. This is not simply a decreased interest in the Bible and the God of the Bible. This is outright rebellion.

Enough with God’s laws and standards. Enough with His moral principles. Enough with His prohibitions of idolatry and adultery and murder.

We will do what we want to do, when we want to do it, and no law – or God – will tell us otherwise.

The America we want must have no connection to its Judeo-Christian roots, no connection to the moral values of many of its Founders, no connection to the Scriptures which so influenced their thinking.

We will worship created things more than the Creator, and we will be full of covetousness and greed. We want our idolatry.

We will have sex with whomever we want to, whenever we want to, in any combination and sequence. And if we so desire, we will call these relationships “marriage,” and neither God nor man will tell us anything different. We want our adultery.

We will kill our babies in the womb if we so choose, and anyone who defies our wishes will be trampled underfoot with derision and scorn. We want our murder.

Yes, we will do what we want to do when we want to do it. We declare ourselves free.

Ironically, the man in question, Michael Tate Reed, who livestreamed on Facebook as he drove his vehicle onto the Arkansas statehouse lawn, allegedly yelled “Freedom!” as he crashed into the Ten Commandments monument less than 24 hours after it was erected. (He was previously charged with a similar attack on a Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma in 2014.)

The reality is, the more we depart from God’s laws, the more we find ourselves in bondage, far less free than we were before. Rather than shouting “Freedom!”, Reed should have shouted, “Bondage! Self-destruction! Captivity! Decline!”

Reed claimed that such monuments are a violation of the separation of church and state, a phrase not found in the Constitution (something that seems to have escaped Justice Sotamayor this week) and, more importantly, a phrase that meant the opposite of what Reed envisions.

In truth, the so-called wall of separation was there to keep the State out of the Church, not the Church out of the State. And the idea that having a public Ten Commandments display would be a violation of American principles would be totally foreign to our Founders.

While doing research for my new book, Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Reformation (due out in September), I was struck by how big a role the Bible played in early American education, from the colonies to the late 1800’s. I was also struck by how deeply biblical principles influenced our Founders, even though they did not want America to be a theocracy.

In other words, they were not trying to impose the biblical faith on the nation (which certainly included a significant minority of irreligious people, even back then), nor were they trying to impose biblical morality on the populace by judicial decree. Instead, many of the Founders were convinced that the Bible was filled with practical wisdom and that God’s commands brought life, not death. To the extent we would embrace these principles as a Democratic Republic, the better.

Consider this extraordinary quote from our second president, John Adams: “Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry, to justice and kindness and charity towards his fellow men, and to piety and love, and reverence towards Almighty God.

In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness, or lust—no man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards, or any other trifling and mean amusement—no man would steal or rile or any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and good will with all men—no man would blaspheme his maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. What a utopia, what a paradise would this region be.” (This quote, along with those that follow, is found in Saving a Sick America, with attribution.)

Today we are told that the Bible is an evil book and the God of the Bible an evil, bigoted, petty tyrant. Such tyrants deserve our scorn. That is that attitude aflame in many American hearts today.

In sharp contrast, Samuel Adams, one of the leaders of the American Revolution, stated that the rights of the colonists “may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law-giver and head of the Christian Church [Jesus], which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.”

Because of that, Adams could say, “A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they can not be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or eternal invader.”

Michael Reed not only represents that “general dissolution of principles and manners.” He articulates it in a full, frontal assault, thereby speaking for millions of Americans.

We do best to quickly re-erect that Ten Commandments monument and, more importantly, recapture the life-giving beauty of God’s commandments in our own hearts and lives. That is the only hope of our nation.

In Canada, Big Brother Is Ready to Raid Your Home and Steal Your Child

We have not been crying wolf. We have not been exaggerating the danger. The unthinkable is now reality in Canada. And it could be coming to America next.

In 2012, headlines announced, “Homeschooling families can’t teach homosexual acts sinful in class says Alberta government.”

As the article explained, “Under Alberta’s new Education Act, homeschoolers and faith-based schools will not be permitted to teach that homosexual acts are sinful as part of their academic program, says the spokesperson for Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.”

So, in the privacy of your own home, as you teach and instruct your own children, you would be forbidden by law to teach them what the Bible said about homosexual practice. And how, pray tell, was the government planning to monitor this?

In 2015, Dawn Stefanowicz, herself the child of a gay father who died of AIDS, raised her voice as well. The headline to her article read, “A Warning from Canada: Same-Sex Marriage Erodes Fundamental Rights.”

She wrote, “I want to warn America to expect severe erosion of First Amendment freedoms if the US Supreme Court mandates same-sex marriage. The consequences have played out in Canada for ten years now, and they are truly Orwellian in nature and scope.

“In Canada, freedoms of speech, press, religion, and association have suffered greatly due to government pressure. The debate over same-sex marriage that is taking place in the United States could not legally exist in Canada today. Because of legal restrictions on speech, if you say or write anything considered ‘homophobic’ (including, by definition, anything questioning same-sex marriage), you could face discipline, termination of employment, or prosecution by the government.”

She was not exaggerating. In fact, she may have understated her case. The latest headlines from Canada announce something even more Orwellian: “Canada’s New Law Lets Government Take Children Away If Parents Don’t Accept Their Gender Identity.”

What exactly does this mean?

“A Canadian province has passed a law that gives rights to the government to take away children from families that don’t accept their kid’s chosen ‘gender identity’ or ‘gender expression’.

“The Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act of 2017, also know as Bill 89, was passed in Ontario by a vote of 63 to 23, The Christian Times reported.”

This is beyond mind-boggling. It might even be beyond Orwellian. Really now, would even Orwell have predicted that the government could seize your 8-year-old boy if you wouldn’t let him dress like a girl or if you refused to affirm his perceived female identity?

For good reason, Jack Fonseca, a political strategist for Campaign Life Coalition, slammed the new bill in no uncertain terms: “With the passage of Bill 89, we’ve entered an era of totalitarian power by the state, such as never witnessed before in Canada’s history. Make no mistake, Bill 89 is a grave threat to Christians and all people of faith who have children, or who hope to grow their family through adoption.”

And it is not just an era of totalitarian power. It is an era of misguided totalitarian power.

Not only is it saying that the government, not the parent, knows best. It is saying that the child, not the parent, knows best. It is saying that it is impossible that little Johnny is confused and that one day, he will outgrow his belief that he is really a girl.

No. If he’s convinced he’s a girl and his parents don’t affirm this, he could presumably tell his teachers at school, who would then report this to the government.

Soon enough, there’s a knock at your door, and government agents are taking your son – yes, your very own child – and putting him in a new environment where he can live as Jane.

As nightmarish as this scenario sounds, it is now the law. And it was passed with ease by a vote of 63 to 23.

Soon enough, Johnny will be taking hormone blockers to stop the onset of puberty, and before you know it, he’ll be a lovely young lady, sex-change surgery and all. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Nothing.

There’s a reason that so many of us have been raising our voices so loudly for so many years. It’s not because we hate gays or transgenders. It’s because we foresaw the disastrous consequences of LGBT activism and have been standing as watchmen on the wall, sounding the alarm. I urge you from the bottom of my heart: Please don’t hit the snooze button again.

And please don’t console yourself by saying, “Well, that’s Canada, not America.”

First, are the people of Canada unimportant? Does something matter only if it affects America? Surely you won’t say, “Who cares if Christian families in Canada have their children seized by the government? I’m OK here in America.”

Second, we’ve seen how LGBT activism has become the principle threat to our freedoms of speech, conscience and religion here in the States. Canada is just one step ahead.

Third, already in America, “A federal district court judge just dismissed a mother’s lawsuit, essentially upholding Minnesota’s very harmful and unconstitutional ‘emancipation statute’ that allows minor children — with the aid of outside groups — to leave their families whenever there is conflict, as long as the child is living independently and can support himself or herself.”

In the case at hand, the mother’s minor son had “decided to be treated with hormones in an effort to ‘change’ his biological sex and to change his name.” The mother opposed this, which was one of the reasons the child sought “emancipation.” Now, the government (here in America!) is helping to underwrite his “transition,” and there’s nothing his mother can do to prevent it.

Recently, the flagship gay publication The Advocate, celebrated an 8-year-old drag queen – meaning, a boy who identifies as a boy but who likes to dress up as a girl. (Interestingly, the boy lives in Canada.)

Yes, “Montreal’s newest drag superstar has the poise of someone four times his age.

“A new girl on the Montreal drag scene is making the city’s other queens look geriatric by comparison. That would be Lactatia — a.k.a. Nemis Quinn Mélançon Golden, an 8-year-old who started getting into drag at the ripe old age of 7.”

In this case, the boy’s parents are highly supportive of him (that’s bad enough). But if they weren’t supportive of him, since this is part of his gender expression, the government could remove him from his home.

This madness must be stopped.