Arrested Development
Posted by Todd Rhoades in Current Events on May 5th, 2011 | 15 commentsThree people were arrested for reading the Bible in public in California. Â Here is a video explaining and documenting the incident. Â Take a look and let’s discuss:
Your thoughts?
Todd
15 Responses to “ “Arrested Development”
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First… what a bad approach, imho. Obnoxious. I’m sure he thinks it’s scriptural, I’m less convinced.
“You have been asked to leave, and you didn’t.” Pretty cut and dried. This man wanted to be arrested and made sure it happened. And it sounds like they were legitimately arrested.
Peter, I agree that the approach is simply bad.
I still wonder though if anything illegal was actually done. “You have been asked to leave, and you didn’t,” isn’t as cut and dried I don’t think. Especially if they are on public property which news articles seem to imply they were.
Additionally, they weren’t using any type of amplification and he wasn’t even yelling. We have seen a lot worse from the street preaching crowd. I simply don’t see how this was justified. But, then again sometimes I’m wrong.
I agree that this was an attempt to get arrested to show how our bad our country has become. Their appeared to be no attempt to connect with people in line, it was just an irritation.
Is anyone who does not already agree with this church going to be led to change with this type of behavior? I don’t think so.
I agree with the other comments. He should have stopped when asked. In places like the DMV where tempers tend to run high in California (I know I live here) they are very quick to ask unruly people to leave. As soon as he failed to comply with the security officer he was unruly.
The only thing I would have liked to have seen was the officer explain to the man he must leave or be arrested.
I don’t believe he was arrested for reading the Bible. He was arrested for being a jerk in a public environment.
I think the charge is the one they use for homeless people sleeping in front of a doorway. Something on par with littering.
Even so, I doubt the citation will stick. They weren’t impeding access to the facility.
And they were hardly a “captive audience”.
hah. I bet if the donut shop handed out donuts to everyone, the CHPs would have a different perspective.
Granted, it probably wasn’t effective. It wouldn’t be the way I would do it. But, it isn’t up to me to decide how they would like to advance the gospel.
I agree with most of the comments, not the best approach. A stronger witness would have probably been handing out coffee and donuts as people wait in line. I doubt they would have been asked to leave and would have been able to share with people more 1 on 1.
So what exactly was he preaching? “Hey Christians are insensitive and obnoxious jerks”? I think when you preach to create a public spectacle in the hopes you will get some good footage you are preaching the gospel in vain. Dude is just making it that much harder for legitimate witnessing. I tend to think the next time you are at the DMV you ask the Holy Spirit which individual specifically you should talk to, save the shotgun scatter shot for open preaching to a non-captive audience.
I think the people in this video and the guy in this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaoLU6zKaws) were cut from the same cloth. Take something that could be beautiful and beneficial/enjoyable to people then mask it with your obnoxious personality so that it becomes distasteful and irritating to people.
No way! The sax is awesome. Or at the very least, funny.
At least most people liked that guy and it was just the authorities that didn’t. Actually, when I say it that way, I guess sexy sax man is more like Jesus than the guy in this video.
I felt like they were trying to build a testimony. “I’ve been arrested for preaching the Gospel! And now I am qualified to preach the Gospel!” At least for me, that is impression I get from the way the minister starts the video and the way the video ends. Also why are they videoing it anyway? Would they video it if it was one on one evangelism? The whole thing feels wrong. But, maybe I am the one who is wrong, maybe they are sincere in what they are doing and maybe they really believe that is an effective outreach/evangelism method.
I agree with the others that the approach by this church is wrong and there was a determination to be confrontational. However the heavy handedness of the Police seemed over the top as well.
We don’t see the facts behind the video, perhaps this is not the first run in with the police by this church, perhaps there is an ongoing investigation, perhaps the DMV has already asked them to leave before. I use the term perhaps, in order to give the church the benefit of the doubt. However because of the reaction of the Police it seems they have been there before.
Welcome to the new face of evangelism.
“Well, Jesus evangelised and he was arrested, too!” will be the justification for this model.
However, Jesus’ evangelism centred around loving the unloveable. Healing lepers. Showing up self-righteous religious zealots who condemned everyone else. Stuff like that.
Is Romans 1 actually part of the Gospel in terms of the message to be preached? I mean, it’s in a letter Paul wrote to a group of Christians in Rome, right? Why read that part of the Bible and not John 10? Or Matthew 6? When Jesus found himself in front of a crowd, did he purposefully target minority groups based on their sexual orientation?
Well, maybe if he was wanting to be the YouTube hero of Mr Peaceful Preacher he would have.
However, what irony that the cop doing the arresting was so camp! Oh, if only he knew the fuel he was adding to this little fire in fundieland…
I just wonder how the situation would have been handled if it were a Muslim reading the Koran publicly… it would have made news worldwide and caused riots in several Middle Eastern Nations. I get weary of the media treating Christians differently than other groups.
Well he stands in a long line of those arrested for sharing the Word of God in public, stretching all the way back to the 1st century and beyond. At least he didn’t get killed by the government or the people for it yet. I say read on and preach on!