Christian faces court over 'offensive' gay festival leaflets

[buffalo]

Christian faces court over ‘offensive’ gay festival leaflets

A police force was caught up in a freedom of speech row after its officers arrested an anti-gay campaigner for handing out leaflets at a homosexual rally.
South Wales police admitted evangelical Christian Stephen Green was then charged purely because his pamphlets contained anti-gay quotations from the Bible.
Mr Green faces a court appearance today charged with using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour’ after his attempt to distribute the leaflets at the weekend ‘Mardi Gras’ event in Cardiff.
A spokesman for the police said the campaigner had not behaved in a violent or aggressive manner, but that officers arrested him because ‘the leaflet contained Biblical quotes about homosexuality’.

more…

 

[WanderAimlessly]

There is going go to come a time where we are going to have to ignore the secular authorities and enforce God’s law.

PF

 

[buffalo]

We will see more of this modern day persecution.

 

[helgasdogs]

There is going go to come a time where we are going to have to ignore the secular authorities and enforce God’s law.

PF

How will you be able to do all this “enforcing” from your jail cell, pray?

 

[bones_IV]

We will see more of this modern day persecution.

Unforntunately. This era will be anti-gospel, anti-church and anti-God.

 

[JReducation]

There is going go to come a time where we are going to have to ignore the secular authorities and enforce God’s law.

PF

If this story is true, the was a grave injustice committed against this individual and everyone should denounce it.

That being said, the idea of ignoring secular authorities and enforcing God’s law sounds too much like the rhetoric that fanatical Muslims are using to engage in holy war. I wouldn’t want to see that either.

The first problem is to determine whose understanding of God’s law are we going to enforce? If you look at Israel it has one idea. Look at Muslims, they have another idea. Catholics have another and fundamentalist Protestants have another. I’m sure that the Orthodox in the East have their own idea of God’s law.

Let’s not forget that the term “enforce” has the word “force” embedded in it. I’m for continued dialogue between people of faith to understand God’s law on a common ground.

Again, if this story is true as it appears here. There is a violation of natural law which everyone must denounce. Like everyone else, this person has the right to freedom of religion.

If the individual was provoking the crowd, that’s another story.

In any case, we Catholics must set the example of self-control and discipline in these matters. In civil matters, we must be the voice of reason. We must help others understand what is rational and what is not. What is rational will also be good, as reason and morality go hand in hand.

When you get emotional about an issue, you lose your perspective and you run the risk of responding with knee-jerk reactions. These are not the behaviours of holy men and women. Knee-jerk reactions usually cause more problems than they resolve.

Look at what happened when the bishops and major religious superiors acted from their feelings as all of the allegations of child sexual abuse were coming in. Instead of using reason to solve the problem, they reacted at an emotional level. Their objective was good. They wanted to protect the Church, but they lost their objectivity and in the end many people have been hurt, including the priests who may have been helped to heal.

I’m very nervous with any kind of talk on any civil issue that sounds too emotional or that calls enforcing God’s law. God’s law is to be embraced, not enforced.

 

[Dale_M]

If this story is true, the was a grave injustice committed against this individual and everyone should denounce it.

It did take place, although it is worth pointing out that it occurred more than 1.5 years ago and charges were dropped.
telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/28/ugay.xml

At the time, Mr. Green threatened civil action against the police, but I couldn’t find any follow-up on that story. Does anyone happen to know?

 

[JReducation]

It did take place, although it is worth pointing out that it occurred more than 1.5 years ago and charges were dropped.
telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/28/ugay.xml

At the time, Mr. Green threatened civil action against the police, but I couldn’t find any follow-up on that story. Does anyone happen to know?

I’m glad that the charges were dropped and he should have take legal action against the police. From the article that was posted, it didn’t seem as if he was being a problem (i.e. gay bashing or resisting police, etc.).

The police’s logic was flawed at best. Thanks for the follow-up response. Interesting piece.

JR

 

[Athanasiy]

Christian faces court over ‘offensive’ gay festival leaflets

A police force was caught up in a freedom of speech row after its officers arrested an anti-gay campaigner for handing out leaflets at a homosexual rally.
South Wales police admitted evangelical Christian Stephen Green was then charged purely because his pamphlets contained anti-gay quotations from the Bible.
Mr Green faces a court appearance today charged with using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour’ after his attempt to distribute the leaflets at the weekend ‘Mardi Gras’ event in Cardiff.
A spokesman for the police said the campaigner had not behaved in a violent or aggressive manner, but that officers arrested him because ‘the leaflet contained Biblical quotes about homosexuality’.

more…

Evangelical brother was right preaching the God’s truth.
But I think the time is coming when we have to reconsider the language of our broshures and the language of our pamphlets.
The secular laws and the future are forcing us to do this.

I think we should preach the Gospel in the spirit of love.
The Church must diminish the sense of alienation of the sinners and to do the best that those people would not feel themselves as spiritual orphans.
It does not mean that we have to stop to condemn the sin.
The sinners must know that they are sinners of course.
But I mean that the followers of Christ must represent the Jesus of the Gospel .
We are actually more in the business of mercy , than on the business of judgement.

In the eyes of the modern world the Christian message and call is
’ foolish’.
And thanks be to God , let God strengthen the Christians to stay till the end with its ’ foolish truth '.

But some times the broshure writers are not proffessional in their messages.
The Evangelical Christians must be very careful with it today.
I think the abusive language against nationality , or religion in the broshure is not wise preaching ( for example anti-arab or anti-islamic , anti-catholic ) .

I think a lot depends from the manner of preaching.
The Christian passion must be combined with wisdom also , when we point to the sinners sin.

 

[buffalo]

Evangelical brother was right preaching the God’s truth.
But I think the time is coming when we have to reconsider the language of our broshures and the language of our pamphlets.
The secular laws and the future are forcing us to do this.

I think we should preach the Gospel in the spirit of love.
The Church must diminish the sense of alienation of the sinners and to do the best that those people would not feel themselves as spiritual orphans.
It does not mean that we have to stop to condemn the sin.
The sinners must know that they are sinners of course.
But I mean that the followers of Christ must represent the Jesus of the Gospel .
We are actually more in the business of mercy , than on the business of judgement.

In the eyes of the modern world the Christian message and call is
’ foolish’.
And thanks be to God , let God strengthen the Christians to stay till the end with its ’ foolish truth '.

But some times the broshure writers are not proffessional in their messages.
The Evangelical Christians must be very careful with it today.
I think the abusive language against nationality , or religion in the broshure is not wise preaching ( for example anti-arab or anti-islamic , anti-catholic ) .

I think a lot depends from the manner of preaching.
The Christian passion must be combined with wisdom also , when we point to the sinners sin.

We will have to encode the Gospel in like the 12 days of Christmas, etc…

 

[JReducation]

I think we should preach the Gospel in the spirit of love.

The Church must diminish the sense of alienation of the sinners and to do the best that those people would not feel themselves as spiritual orphans.

the followers of Christ must represent the Jesus of the Gospel .
We are actually more in the business of mercy , than on the business of judgement.

I think a lot depends from the manner of preaching.
The Christian passion must be combined with wisdom also , when we point to the sinners sin.

I took the liberty of editing your post to highlight some of the most sensible and profound comments that have been made on this issue in this thread.

You are absolutely right. The Church is about announcing the Good News, leading men to salvation, teaching truth and not about judging.

This is why in moral theology the Church accepts that there are objective and subjective circumstances. While objectively something is wrong, the individual’s soul is not an object, it is a subject. Therefore, the Church does not label the person, only the action.

Some people let their passion about any sin get so far, that they attach names to the person.

Just to take this out of the realm of homosexuaity, since this is such a hot button, it’s like the father who calls his daughter a whore because she becomes pregnant out of wedlock. Jesus never called anyone a whore. He never said that such behaviour was acceptable. He invited the person to conversion without condemnation.

I believe that we get too caught up in the condemnation and when we do, we do harm to the Church. We come across as if on a witch hunt.

Several months ago Archbishop Chaput, OFM, Cap. did an inerview. You can look it up in the Archdiocese of Denver website. The issue of homosexuality was introduced into the interview. He said that the basic question was not about homosexuality, but the dignity of life.

I share this, because it was interesting to see that he didn’t follow the reporters lead and take advantage of an opportunity to say how those gay people were going to burn in hell. He turned the focus back to where it belongs. Human life is sacred and anything that we teach, defend or reject must always have this positive spin on it. We’re doing it not to condemn, but to announce the sacredness of life.

Every time we denounce a sin, we must also anounce the dignity of life, with that comes God’s mercy and his love.

When Catholics get into the business of denouncing sin without announcing mercy, then we may as well close the doors and join the fundamentalist Protestants. It’s a tough balance to achieve, but possible.

 

[Athanasiy]

Thank you JReducation !
I am thinking , was Jesus ever punitive ?
I think very rarely .
Some one would even try to prove that reading the Gospels , Jesus was never punitive at all.

Yes , you are right .
It is important to convey the sense of dignity to the person , preaching the Gospel in the spirit of love .

Of course the Evangelicals , the same as Catholics are measuring right and wrong in terms of the God’s Will.
And we can not and must not keep our believe out of politics.
But we see that the Christians have less and less influence.
We have been removing out of the politics.
For the modern consiences our message , which is based on God’s revelation is considered as discrimination.

In my opinion , the Christians should conquer the realms of journalism , literature , sociology , history , the realms of social services and charity ministries.
And of course to preach the Gospel , but in the Spirit of Love , in the Spirit of Jesus.

 

[CapIV]

stuff like this drives me nuts.

 

[mmm1]

God’s law is to be embraced, not enforced.

What a great post, JReducation. I thought this last line was particularly insightful.

 

[Athanasiy]

I mentioned some other ways of reaching the people , but I think its more understandable for the Catholics.
Because the matter also is in the different approach to the understanding of ’ spiritual’ , ’ moral ’ , through the unexpressed and unemphasized patterns.
For example ;
I think that some of the Shakespeare’s works , are not just intensely religious , but a preaching.
But , ’ Evangelical mind ’ would not admit , or perhaps could not see those works as religious or as a preaching at all , and for one simple reason - there is no direct appeal to the Scripture.

Ok , its has nothing to do with our topic.

Let’s get back to our thread.

Its very bad , when the Christians are already persecuted , in the state which was Christian , and was build by the Christians .

Evangelicals are very often preaching in the Spirit of John Baptist.
Is our time does not need the John Baptists ?
But what I want to say ;
Yes , I think the baptist brother was inspired by the Holy Spirit .

Why I decided to join this discussion , because I used to take a part in the different Evangelizations.
And I know that some times , mostly among independent Baptist communities , the people who write the broshures , ( Sorry if I insult some one ) indeed has a lack of education.
You can notice it , by the very primitive way of writing , and also by the gramatical and lexical mistakes .
And also I remember when I ve been in Europe , on the city main square there was evangelization , and the group of American Evangelicals who were spreading the broshures , which held in my opinion the nationality and religious insult.

Oh , yes the saint Peter , prophet Amos , and I think Jeremiah were not educated too.
And as for me , I wish that in my country , Ukraine , would be more Jeremiahs , ( better among journalists than among the street preachers) .

But what I want to say when I say about more compassionate than judgemental way of preaching , I mean we should not insult .

If we consider this case , with persecuted brother.
I am on his side.
But let us equip with wisdom and remind the words of the
Saviour , who said , ’ - Be wise as snakes and innocent as doves.

 

[JReducation]

To get back to the original post, from what I read in the article, the person who was arrested was not disturbing the peace or disrupting the event.

I can understand where the police would be concerned that the literature could upset the participants in the event and lead to some kind of confrontation. We have all seen those happen and usually people get hurt. But I didn’t see in the artile where they asked him not to do this or to maintain a certain distance from the event. Often this is a common rule. The police creates boundaries that the opposing sides may not cross. This reduces the danger of confrontation.

I believe that the police mishandled the situation.