Jun 30 2009
Bible-Dispensing Family Arrested At Pride Festival
[WCCO]
he Pride Festival kicked off in Loring Park Saturday. There were live bands, food and thousands of people. It’s now the third-largest gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender celebration in the country.
But there was some trouble there Saturday night.
Minneapolis Police arrested three people from Hayward, Wis. for trespassing. An amateur photographer named Aaron Bogle gave WCCO-TV video of a father, mother and son being arrested.
For 11 years, Brian and Doris Johnson have passed out free Bibles at the festival.
This year, they were not allowed to have a booth. Pride paid to rent the whole park and that gave them the right to choose which vendors they allowed in.
The Johnsons said they are born-again Christians and they believe homosexuality is a sin.
Read more here.
[From me]
They did break the law. I sure they knew something like this would happen if they showed up. Isn’t breaking the law a sin? Does protesting a something a person believes is a sin by sinning themselves make it right? Just wondering.
What do you think?
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I like your blog. I agree with you alot. But if you are suggesting that this family shouldn’t have distributed Bibles because it was “against the law” then I strongly disagree with you. Thank God Peter and John were willing to “break the law” when, in Acts 4, they boldly proclaimed “whether it is right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than God, you decide; for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
The freedom to distribute God’s Word (since He is the Lord of Creation itself) transcends any law that this world makes. The day it becomes illegal to distribute the Word of God publicly is the day that every Christian must become a lawbreaker. Our laws do not stop the homosexuals from distributing their literature and viewpoints in public and also through the public education system, media, etc… and I don’t believe Christians should be intimidated into submission by these tactics. I for one, wish there had been a thousand other Christian families ready to stand in this family’s place, all willing to go to jail for handing out the Word of God. Then we’d be getting somewhere. Shame on this homosexual promoter and the local police.
Breaking the law is not right. I get that (Rom 13). But when laws are immoral and unjust, they lose their power over those they are supposed to govern and the governed must obey God over man.
So Martin Luther King Jr. and all those involved in the Civil Rights Movement should of listened and obeyed all those in law enforcement because they were afterall breaking the law. NOT
In Christ
Andrew
.-= Dozer´s last blog ..Evangelical Divorce =-.
This has nothing to do w/ a Bible. It has to do w/ tresspassing. Why not sit outside the park & pass it out? I think it is great they wanted to pass out Bibles but they had to know they were tresspassing. If our government outlawed passing out Bibles I would agree w/ disobeying but that is not the law. Again, this has nothing to do w/ Bibles & all to do w/ tresspassing for me.
I can say that I don’t agree with you on this Kevin. It is better that man obey God rather than man, but we should also obey God as He puts limits on our actions THROUGH man (aka our authority). Now, since the society had rented the area, and the couple were trespassing, do I think it was wrong for them to get arrested? No. They were trespassing. There is nothing immoral or wrong about arresting someone for trespassing. Could they have stood outside the rented area and done it? Yes. I feel they went foolishly into an area that they shouldn’t have gone and they could have avoid getting arrested through due diligence. Innocent as a dove wise as a serpent, that’s what the Bible says. If you can do something and get arrested for it or do something and not get arrested for it then do it without getting arrested. They didn’t get arrested for handing out Bibles or preaching against homosexuality, they got arrested for being in on private property that they were asked not to be on. The article says Pride had a right to choose the vendors, and that Christian couple were not chosen. They should have stood on the street and handed out Bibles to passerby’s. That’s my opinion.
.-= Michie DeBerry´s last blog ..Guide Your Heart =-.
I have to wonder what their motivation was. Did they want their arrest to make news so they could come of as the “victims?” If that was remotely part of their plan, their actions were sinful.
How does this spread the Gospel message to those who need to hear it most? Now they are lumped in with those “Christian fanatics” and seen as Bible thumpers instead of people who are willing to sit down and have a conversation about that very Bible they were trying to hand out.
.-= Angie´s last blog ..Jon & Kate and other marriage thoughts… =-.
We supposedly recovering pharisees are in judgement about how sinful the family was for their actions… so what were those actions? Witnessing on public property? Lots of early church Christians were arrested too y’know.
But then again…. I guess Jesus was wrong for hulling wheat on the sabbath. David was wrong for eating showbread… Do ya really wanna go there?
Andrew
.-= Dozer´s last blog ..Evangelical Divorce =-.
Two things: My pastor says “it’s never right to do wrong to do right”. I’d classify this as that.
Second: everyone who was IN the park had to walk on public sidewalks, drive on public streets, etc to get there. I believe Bibles could well have been passed out from there, to those who wanted one.
I wouldn’t have trespassed. I don’t criticize them for doing that, nor do I criticize the cops who arrested them.
.-= Bob´s last blog ..When the Bottom Line Really IS the Bottom Line =-.
I’m curious about whether the policemen who arrested them are Christians or not.
I feel they were in the wrong. A visitation team has no right to “break and enter” in order to witness to the child of a parent who doesn’t wish them there, yet the logic presented by many of you is that these trespassers were doing the same thing Paul and Peter and the apostles did. The apostles were persecuted for WHAT they were teaching, not where they were at.
It’s complicated. A Muslim has no right to enter my church and start reading the Koran. So why do we Christians wish to abuse the protection of private property in this fashion?
.-= Bernard Shuford´s last blog ..Project Ultrasound =-.
Hello….Loring PARK!!!! Public Land
.-= Dozer´s last blog ..The Fine Art of Blowing It =-.