On Friday, April 23, John Sherwood was ‘preaching the gospel’ outside Uxbridge Station. However, police arrived after the 71-year-old was accused of homophobic language, soon arresting him under the Public Order Act, which cites ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour’.
In footage uploaded to Twitter, officers can be seen pulling him off the stepladder after he refuses to come down and using force to restrain him. He was later released without charge.
As reported by the MailOnline, Sherwood said, ‘I wasn’t making any homophobic comments, I was just defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. I was only saying what the Bible says – I wasn’t wanting to hurt anyone or cause offence. I was doing what my job description says, which is to preach the gospel in open air as well as in a church building.’
He explained, ‘When the police approached me, I explained that I was exercising my religious liberty and my conscience. I was forcibly pulled down from the steps and suffered some injury to my wrist and to my elbow. I do believe I was treated shamefully. It should never have happened.’ (Read more from “71-Year-Old Pastor Arrested for ‘Homophobic Statements’ After Preaching From the Bible” HERE)
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https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/preacher.jpg8691295Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2021-04-29 17:11:502021-05-01 21:46:45WATCH: 71-Year-Old Pastor Arrested for ‘Homophobic Statements’ After Preaching From the Bible
Beneath the cloak of “progress,” an increasingly hostile secularism is threatening Christians in the West with a “polite persecution,” contends an annual report on religious freedom worldwide.
“If Christians in the Middle East need to fear the machete, Christians in the Western world need to fear the media, higher education, activist organizations and government,” says Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, in a commentary on the report. “They are the ones advocating, or imposing, a secular agenda on religious institutions.” . . .
The persecution of Christians takes two forms today, the report says. Everyone is familiar with the violence against people and property, but there is a more subtle form, Donahue said, “relying on restrictive measures encoded in public policy and law.”
The second form is called “polite persecution,” the ACN report explains, because it hides under a veneer of “enlightened” secularism.
Donohue says attacks of that kind against religious believers “may not be as immediate or acute, but they can be culturally lethal.” (Read more from “Concerning Report: Christians Increasingly Targets Of ‘Polite Persecution'” HERE)
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A new bill introduced by California State Assembly Member Ash Kalra in San Jose would prohibit police officers from serving if they have used arbitrarily defined “hate speech” or are affiliated with a “hate group.”
The bill, known as the California Law Enforcement Accountability Reform Act (CLEAR Act), claims to combat “the infiltration of extremists in our law enforcement agencies” and would mandate a background check for all officers who have “exchanged racist and homophobic messages.”
Kalra claims that AB 655 is necessary to prevent “the apparent cooperation, participation, and support of some law enforcement” in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
The bill defines hate speech as “as advocating or supporting the denial of constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.”
Pacific Justice Institute Senior Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds said this broad and purposefully arbitrary definition could give way for Christians and conservatives to be classified as “hateful” based on the premise of rejecting abortion or supporting Proposition 8 in California, a same-sex amendment that passed in 2008. (Read more from “Disturbing New Bill Proposes Removing Cops Who Express Religious or Conservative Beliefs” HERE)
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https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/california-state-flag-5.jpg12751920Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2021-03-16 17:49:062021-03-20 19:46:51Disturbing New Bill Proposes Removing Cops Who Express Religious or Conservative Beliefs
Christians in India face persecution “in all areas of public and private life,” according to a study by the Christian Aid group Open Doors.
In majority Hindu India, “Christians are persecuted in all areas of public and private life, and anti-conversion laws (currently in nine states, with more considering adoption) are abused to harass and intimidate Christians,” according to the organization. Although few people are actually convicted under the anti-conversion laws, related cases “can drag on for years.”
According to the U.S.-based Open Doors, “Hindu extremists” in India “believe that all Indians should be Hindus, and that the country should be rid of Christianity and Islam. They use extensive violence to achieve this goal, particularly targeting Christians from a Hindu background.”
Indian Christians are often accused of adopting a “foreign faith” and may be blamed for perceived “bad luck” within their majority Hindu communities. The tension has lead to Christians suffering physical attacks and being killed by fellow community members in extreme instances. Hindu converts to Christianity are “under constant pressure from their family and community to return to Hinduism,” according to the study. “If they do not ‘re-convert,’ they may be boycotted by their community, with a devastating effect on their ability to earn income.”
The ongoing Chinese coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the economic and social blacklisting of Christians in India. (Read more from “Report: Indian Christians ‘Persecuted in All Areas of Life’” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/f7d08a9bbac4983d91890719db520b7f090516caddee6898af53304093d0.jpg6301200Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2021-01-15 19:28:172021-01-15 19:27:01Report: Indian Christians ‘Persecuted in All Areas of Life’
Christians in the United Kingdom and Canada are being warned that foundational religious beliefs and practices soon could be criminalized under laws banning the counseling of people seeking help with unwanted sexual attraction.
Activists want to ban not only the so-called “conversion therapy,” they also want to prevent people from criticizing their lifestyle.
And that includes a veto on the preaching and the practice of churches regarding sexuality, according to the U.K.’s Christian Institute.
Pastoral counseling, communion or even membership could become criminal matters.
For example: “A lesbian activist visits church on a day when the minister – who knows her personally – is preaching on sexual ethics. He teaches that sex is a gift reserved for marriage between a man and a woman, and says singleness is an honorable calling. She reports this as an attempt to change or repress her sexual orientation.” (Read more from “Just Saying This Famous Jesus Quote Could Land You in Jail” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/bible-3370021_1280.jpg8531280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2020-12-14 15:01:122020-12-20 00:05:13Just Saying This Famous Jesus Quote Could Land You in Jail
Matthew McConaughey said his religious beliefs are not separate from his belief in science, calling science, “the practical pursuit of God.”
“The two are not exclusive. They dance together; they go together, belief and science. I never saw those as contradictions,” he said on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
McConaughey explained how his beliefs are intertwined with his acting carer, and why Christianity is often treated as taboo and sometimes plays a role in the cancel culture in Hollywood.
While McConaughey said he hasn’t necessarily encountered pushback for his religious beliefs, he said that the progressive and “illiberal” trend of “condescending and patronizing” people who believe differently must stop.
“To throw somebody, to illegitimize them because they say they are a believer, is just so arrogant and in some ways hypocritical to me,” McConaughey said.
(Read more from “WATCH: Matthew McConaughey Opens up on Joe Rogan About Christianity, Cancel Culture, and Defund the Police” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/matthew-mcconaughey-in-white-tuxedo-648.jpg410728Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2020-10-26 20:09:592020-10-26 20:06:06WATCH: Matthew McConaughey Opens up on Joe Rogan About Christianity, Cancel Culture, and Defund the Police
Police in southwestern China this summer sentenced a Christian teenager to three years in prison for practicing her faith, human rights magazine Bitter Winter revealed on Tuesday.
In Yunnan province, which borders Vietnam, the People’s Court of Jianshui county sentenced 19-year-old Jiang Guangmei to three years in prison on June 29.
“She was charged with ‘using a xie jiao [cult] organization to undermine law enforcement’ and also fined 3,000 RMB (about $430),’” according to the magazine. Police first arrested Jiang in September 2018 when she was 17 for writing articles about her religious experience as a member of the Church of Almighty God (CAG).
“[A]ccording to the [CAG’s] official history, the denomination whose Chinese name translates as ‘Eastern Lightning’ was founded in the belief that Christ is born again and back on Earth in the guise of a mysterious leader of the faith — a woman who may now be living in the New York metropolitan area,” the Daily Beast wrote of CAG in February. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has branded CAG a cult, or xie jiao in Mandarin, and banned the church in China.
Jiang’s crime of “writing articles about her religious experience” in CAG is an action targeted by the CCP as “a common pretext to jail members of China’s banned religious groups,” according to the report. According to Jiang’s verdict, she received her three-year prison sentence because she would not admit that practicing her faith was a crime. (Read more from “Report: China Jails Christian Teenager for Practicing Banned Religion” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/praying-gesture-sunset-silhouette-pray-sea-prayer-spirituality-faith-woman.jpg587880Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2020-09-09 18:22:002020-09-09 18:20:51Report: China Jails Christian Teenager for Practicing Banned Religion
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/homosexuality-1686921_1280.jpg8531280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2020-07-17 20:05:432020-07-17 20:03:18Christian Children’s Book Author Announces He’s Gay, Is Leaving His Wife
By Fox News. Christian figures and symbols — including Jesus Christ himself — have become the target of hate and vandalism as protests continue across the nation.
What initially began as a campaign against Confederate figures after George Floyd’s police-related death in May has expanded to activists forcibly tearing down or calling for the toppling of monuments to former U.S. presidents, saints, abolitionists, and other figures.
Earlier this week, Washington, D.C. protesters vandalized St. John’s Episcopal Church, located across from the White House where President Trump held up a Bible after it was burned by vandals. Demonstrators said it was a way of scoring restitution for slave owners who were Episcopalian, the Washington Examiner reports. . .
“They’re looking at Jesus Christ, they’re looking at George Washington, they’re looking at Abraham Lincoln, they’re looking at Thomas Jefferson,” Trump said during a news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda in the White House’s Rose Garden. “It’s not going to happen.” . . .
I’m going on record now:
If they try to cancel Christianity, if they try to force me to apologize or recant my Faith, I will not bend, I will not waver, I will not break.
Even if activists are successful in removing the image of Christ from parts of society, former governor of Arkansas and ordained minister Mike Huckabee ultimately believes this would only serve to strengthen Christians’ faith. (Read more from “Christian Figures Attacked Amid Ongoing Riots” HERE)
WATCH: Pastors Visit CHOP to Protest BLM Threat to Jesus
By Breitbart. Several pastors traveled to the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) in Seattle, Washington, to protest against threats by left-wing activists linked to the Black Lives Matter movement to remove religious icons depicting Jesus Christ as white.
Earlier this week, left-wing activist Shaun White tweeted: “Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been. … Tear them down.”
In response, Pastor Brian Gibson and several other pastors, of different racial backgrounds, traveled to the CHOP (formerly known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ) to deliver a message of religious liberty against the intolerance of the radical left:
. . .[Gibson’s group] Peaceably Gather released a statement Thursday:
“I have personally been on the ground in CHAZ/CHOP, and seen the wanton destruction that violent agitators carried out against people and property. These are no longer protests by citizens, these are deliberate acts of violence and vandalism from anti-American groups that seek to undo our country’s history and our religious heritage.” said Pastor Gibson. “Churches will always welcome those seeking refuge and relief, but when evil people attempt to damage and destroy we will exercise our full legal rights, as well as our rights to defend ourselves and our properties with physical force. History is full of examples that when religious images and symbols are attacked what follows shortly thereafter is attacks on the people, and we will not allow that to happen in our communities.”
(Read more from “WATCH: Pastors Visit CHOP to Protest BLM Threat to Jesus” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/opened-bible-2.jpg12801920Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2020-06-25 13:45:532020-06-25 15:17:51Christian Figures Attacked Amid Ongoing Riots; WATCH: Pastors Visit CHOP to Protest BLM Threat to Jesus
In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.
Both Protestantism and Catholicism are experiencing losses of population share. Currently, 43% of U.S. adults identify with Protestantism, down from 51% in 2009. And one-in-five adults (20%) are Catholic, down from 23% in 2009. Meanwhile, all subsets of the religiously unaffiliated population – a group also known as religious “nones” – have seen their numbers swell. Self-described atheists now account for 4% of U.S. adults, up modestly but significantly from 2% in 2009; agnostics make up 5% of U.S. adults, up from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 12% in 2009. Members of non-Christian religions also have grown modestly as a share of the adult population.
These are among the key findings of a new analysis of trends in the religious composition and churchgoing habits of the American public, based on recent Pew Research Center random-digit-dial (RDD) political polling on the telephone. The data shows that the trend toward religious disaffiliation documented in the Center’s 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies, and before that in major national studies like the General Social Survey (GSS), has continued apace.
Pew Research Center’s 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies were huge national RDD surveys, each of which included interviews with more than 35,000 respondents who were asked dozens of detailed questions about their religious identities, beliefs and practices. The Center has not yet conducted a third such study, and when the Landscape Study is repeated, it is likely to use new methods that may prevent it from being directly comparable to the previous studies; growing challenges to conducting national surveys by telephone have led the Center to rely increasingly on self-administered surveys conducted online. (Read more from “Bankrupt Faith: New Research Shows Accelerated Decline of Christianity in America” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/opened-bible-1.jpg410615Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2019-11-03 19:35:122019-11-03 19:32:07Bankrupt Faith: New Research Shows Accelerated Decline of Christianity in America
