American street evangelist jailed in Scotland
March 26, 2010
I don't know much about Shawn Holes, except that he was in Glasgow last week preaching the Gospel on the street, and then arrested and charged with making homophobic and prejudiced statements. Apparently someone asked him what he thought about homosexuality; when he said it was a sin, he was reported and arrested. One of the local Christians who went along to the Sheriff Court to support the team on the day of the trial told me about her experience in the courthouse, which was equally unpleasant, with security guards and police intimidating them while they were there.
There are lessons to be learned here, I am sure, about the way to do street evangelism; but I am left with an overwhelming sense of sorrow that this should have occurred in Glasgow, whose official motto is 'Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of God's Word and the praising of his name'. Long since it was shortened to 'Let Glasgow flourish'.
The gay lobby is not slow to silence the voice of street preachers, and the weight of the British justice system seems to be behind it. Is this the price we will pay in the West for preaching the Gospel? A return to Acts and to the persecutions we once thought only happened elsewhere?
