Miguel Hayworth was threatened with arrest – for reading from the Bible. The Telegraph reported that “Preacher threatened with arrest for reading out extracts from the Bible in public”.
"At 2pm, I was approached on more than one occasion by several police officers who falsely accused me, stating that I was inciting hatred with homophobic and racial comments," he said.
"One plain-clothed officer, who was with the other two uniformed officers, said: ‘It is against the law to preach and hand out tracts: preaching causes offence and handing out tracts is harassment and could result in an arrest.’"
This may have been in the UK, but we in the US are not far behind. What other actions will cause “offence” in the future? The controversies over “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and the Ten Commandments in the courtrooms only highlight we are not too far on their heels.
Whatever happened to Duffy Strode, anyway?
You may remember Duffy Strode — the eight-year-old who "cried aloud and spared not" (as I wrote in a CNN Headline News script when he did it) by preaching outside his N.C. grade school on the first day of class, circa 1990.
He even held a Bible in the face of an administrator, as a TV camera rolled.
He was suspended from school. And as I recall, his preacher father home-schooled him from there. But Duffy was a national sensation — and even appeared on CNN's old "Crossfire" because of his actions. (He was downright tame on that pioneering cable "shouting show.")
I Googled his name awhile back, and found hardly any mention of him. But his case shows public preaching of the Bible has been limited in the USA for some time.
I can't remember the last time I heard that name. I had to look it up to refresh my memory, in fact. It's kinda funny because someone asked the same question you did in 2006 [link now gone].
There is a difference, though. Duffy was suspended from school. God has been kicked out of schools for some time now.
Frankly, I also would have a problem if my child told the principal to "go to hell", and I don't mean a theological problem, either. There's a definite attitude there. He did not say, "You are going to hell." He said, "Go to hell." That isn't a warning message, that's just plain mean-spirited.
These days, street preachers are being kicked off of public streets. Some, like the Phelps family, are not helping in that regards, either.
Actually, after thinking about it, I had to check that Duffy and Phelps aren't from the same states. 🙂
However, it is still rare, to my knowledge, for someone in the US to get arrested for street preaching. There have been times where civilian security guards have harassed people, like in the "Sharia Law In America?" article I posted last month that took place in Dearborn.
There was a case that should have been decided by now, though, of "counterfeiting" because someone was passing out those tracts from Living Waters that look like $1 million bills. Of course, they look nothing like real money, but that didn't stop the govt goons from arresting them.
The tide has been turning for some time against fundamentalist type Christianity. It's OK to be a fundamentalist Muslim, but don't dare be a fundamentalist Christian or the media will do its best to skewer you.
The way I see it, one of 2 things will happen (or, both in this order):
1. Christianity will be outlawed. Anyone with a Bible will be hunted down and arrested for possessing "hateful" materials.
2. Some event will cause a backlash against liberals and perhaps Muslims so that fundamentalist Christianity suddenly swells. This fundamentalist religion, though, will not tolerate others as it has in the past and will persecute non-Christians and "Judaizers". The COG, of course, will be persecuted at that point.
Now, 1 could cause 2. However, it is just as likely that further decadence and disaster causes Germany and the new "US of Europe" to invade and impose 2.
[Of course, this is not a prophecy, only speculation. It's a sad world when I have to add a standard disclaimer b/c people are so willing to jump on the accusatory wagon. OTOH, it is also a sad world that there are so many false "prophets" in the COG movement.]