Days ago, a 78-year-old pastor stood before a magistrate’s court in Northern Ireland and received a criminal conviction.
His crime was preaching John 3:16.
Not screaming it. Not shouting it through a megaphone at frightened women. Just preaching it.
Pastor Clive Johnston — former president of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, grandfather of seven, a man who has given his life to the gospel — held a small, quiet, open-air Sunday service near a hospital.
He played the ukulele. He stood beside a large wooden cross. And he preached on the most recognizable verse in the Bible: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
A government court looked at the elderly pastor and decided he deserved to be punished.
Johnston was convicted on May 7 under Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act. He was fined, branded a criminal, and told that preaching God’s love constitutes unlawful “influence.”
His sermon never mentioned abortion. He was not violent. He was not threatening.
Authorities did not dispute any of this. He was convicted because he preached the gospel within earshot of a hospital that performs abortions.
“At 78 years old,” he toldFox News, “I never imagined I would leave a courtroom with a criminal conviction for preaching the Christian gospel.”
Source: The Gateway Pundit
