(Blog) When John 3:16 Becomes Toxic - Ep. 1004 - October 28, 2026

John 3:16 and the Fight Over Public Preaching

A Christian message can offend someone without threatening or harassing them. The distinction between offense and harassment is central to the debate over peaceful public preaching.

On our Smith and Rowland Show, Alan Smith and Jeff Rowland examined a pastor's conviction after an open-air service that included John 3:16. The Northern Ireland case prompted a wider discussion about religious liberty, the conduct of street preachers, and the church's need for repentance and revival.

The John 3:16 Case That Prompted the Discussion

The article discussed on the show describes retired pastor Clive Johnston's conviction under a Northern Ireland law governing abortion safe access zones. He had held an open-air service that included John 3:16, and, according to the article, he is appealing.

That detail matters: the article describes a conviction under a law concerning safe access zones. Johnston's case involved a different law from the proposed "respect orders" discussed later.

For Jeff, the case raises a serious question about the freedom to proclaim the gospel publicly. Christianity offers hope, but its message also confronts people with sin and the need for repentance. Some listeners will find that uncomfortable.

As the article puts it:

Being challenged to turn from sin is not the same as being threatened or harassed.

The hosts return to that distinction throughout the conversation. They argue that a call to believe in Christ and receive eternal life should not be treated as equivalent to a threat of violence.

John 3:16 makes the issue especially troubling to them. If a public service containing that familiar expression of God's love leads to a conviction, they see reason to question how much room remains for Christian witness.

Respect Orders and the Meaning of Harmful Speech

According to the article as read on the show, respect orders had not yet taken effect in England and Wales. Their stated purpose was to curb persistent antisocial behavior.

Alan and Jeff focus on how authorities might apply that language. They worry that someone could classify peaceful gospel preaching as antisocial simply because it challenges a listener's beliefs.

The article describes a legal test involving conduct that causes, or is likely to cause, "harassment, alarm, or distress." The hosts agree that genuine threats and harassment require a response. Their concern is whether authorities will distinguish those actions from religious speech that causes offense.

Jeff connects the issue to the nature of Christian teaching. The gospel challenges the assumptions of its time, including assumptions about morality and human nature. If discomfort becomes the standard for restricting speech, much of Christian teaching could draw objections.

The discussion treats these cases as serious restrictions on free expression and warns about future enforcement. However, the article's account keeps Johnston's conviction and the proposed respect orders separate. The concern is how broad standards could affect peaceful preaching, not an established finding that those orders prohibit the gospel.

The hosts also understand the opposition in spiritual terms. They believe hostility toward a message of repentance reflects resistance to the truth about sin.

Equal Rights Must Protect Speech Christians Disagree With

Alan's defense of free speech includes people whose teaching he opposes.

He uses the example of a gay person preaching from a Methodist pulpit. Although he disagrees with that teaching and doesn't like seeing it in a church, he supports the person's right to speak. He expects Christians to receive the same protection when they preach their convictions.

His broccoli comparison makes the point in his usual plainspoken style: disliking broccoli doesn't mean someone else should lose the right to eat it. Likewise, disagreement doesn't justify silencing another person.

For Alan, equal rights across viewpoints require Christians to defend that principle consistently. Protecting only agreeable speech leaves everyone else's freedom dependent on whoever holds authority.

He also argues that Christianity should be able to withstand competing claims. Christians can proclaim what they believe without asking the government to prevent others from speaking.

Jeff agrees with the rights-based argument. The freedom at stake includes the ability to say what a person believes, even when others reject it. In their view, a system that protects one side while silencing another fails its own claim to equality.

Why the Hosts See a Warning Beyond Britain

Their concern for America

Jeff rejects the idea that developments in Canada, Britain, or France have little relevance to Americans. He believes policies promoted by the progressive left in those countries offer a warning about what could follow in the United States.

He briefly points to Canada's public healthcare system and Canadians seeking hospital care across the border as an example of why Americans should examine policies already operating elsewhere.

Applied to religious expression, his warning is direct: pressure to treat Christian preaching as harmful could also influence American law. This is his prediction about where current attitudes may lead, rather than a report of an equivalent American law already in place.

Jeff's interpretation of Revelation 17

Jeff also connects the discussion to Revelation 17. In his reading, the ten kings associated with the Antichrist eventually turn against false religious systems and direct worship toward the Antichrist.

That interpretation shapes his concern about censorship. He believes people who support silencing Christians may later face the same treatment themselves.

His warning extends beyond the church: once authorities claim broad power to suppress unwelcome beliefs, other voices can become targets too. The Revelation passage supplies his biblical framework for that warning; it isn't a claim established by the article about British law.

Who Decides Whether Preaching Crosses a Line?

Attitude affects judgment

Alan questions the attitudes of people who place themselves in authority over public speech. He argues that a personal agenda can affect their decisions before they consider what someone has said.

He illustrates the problem with a cherry-pie contest judged by someone who doesn't eat pie or is allergic to cherries. He also says he would have no business judging a brain surgeon's work because he doesn't understand the subject.

His concern includes self-appointed theologians and podcasters who judge others with excessive confidence. Alan and Jeff describe Scripture as their authority; they don't claim personal expertise in everything.

For Alan, attitude often reveals more than an argument's presentation. A hostile attitude can affect a judge's response, but it can also shape the preacher's delivery.

The cost of an arrest without further action

The article also describes the arrest of street preacher Dia Moodley after comments about Islam and transgender ideology. Police later ended the investigation without further action.

According to the account read on the show, Moodley nevertheless spent hours in custody and months under investigation. The hosts see that experience as part of the issue, regardless of whether someone agrees with every word he used.

An investigation can impose a substantial burden even when it produces no further action. For Alan and Jeff, the case raises concern about whether public preaching increasingly carries the risk of police intervention.

Street Preaching Requires Calling and Honest Motives

Alan and Jeff support street preaching, but they don't treat every approach as equally wise or effective.

Alan says preaching done poorly may still be better than no preaching at all. He makes clear that he isn't calling all street preaching poor. His position is that Christians shouldn't dismiss public proclamation simply because some people do it badly.

Jeff believes the New Testament provides a model for preaching publicly. At the same time, he doesn't believe everyone has the same calling or should use the same method.

Both hosts distinguish obedience to God from deliberately seeking a confrontation. Going into the street simply to see whether the police will make an arrest gives them reason to question the motive.

Alan uses an alligator comparison: being smarter than an alligator doesn't mean someone should go out and feed it chicken. Knowing that an action carries danger doesn't establish that God has called a person to take it.

Their position allows for costly obedience. If God directs someone to preach and that obedience leads to jail, they won't condemn the person for following that direction. However, they emphasize the importance of knowing that the direction came from God.

Public Witness Can Take Different Forms

Jeff gives an everyday example of public evangelism: standing in a Walmart line and sensing the Holy Spirit's prompting to speak to someone nearby about Jesus. He regards that conversation as public witness and soul-winning.

That differs in delivery from standing on a street corner and shouting as people pass. He questions how much passersby hear when a preacher raises his voice above the surrounding activity.

The hosts also discuss two people Jeff has seen at a busy intersection in Lenoir. One holds a sign declaring that Jesus loves people. Another appears to be worshipping.

Jeff appreciates their freedom to express faith in public. Although he hasn't stopped to speak with the man who worships, he says his spirit bears witness with him.

Still, neither host claims to know every person's motive. Someone may act from sincere obedience; someone else may want attention. Alan says each individual has to examine his own heart.

That distinction matters to their discussion: sincere witness and deliberate provocation can look similar at a distance. The hosts defend the freedom to speak without pretending they can judge every person exercising it.

Freedom of Speech Doesn't Remove Every Boundary

The hosts also acknowledge limits related to conduct and location.

Alan says that holding a sign near traffic could create a distraction, regardless of what the sign says. His point is that a religious message doesn't automatically settle every question about public safety.

They use two examples to explain the boundary. A person couldn't stand in the middle of a runway as a plane prepares to take off and claim an unrestricted right to remain there. Likewise, someone couldn't stand in front of a movie screen during a showing and disregard the disruption to everyone watching.

These are the hosts' illustrations of why freedom of expression doesn't mean a person can stand anywhere and behave however he chooses.

Their support for public preaching includes attention to the setting and the behavior. A sincere message can still accompany disruptive conduct.

That qualification doesn't remove their concern about Johnston's case. They return to the difference between addressing an actual disruption and penalizing a peaceful service because its message offends someone.

Christian Responsibility Includes Voting

When Jeff asks about God's call to America, Alan begins with a responsibility Christians can exercise privately and lawfully: voting.

He bluntly challenges people who criticize the nation's direction but don't use their opportunity to vote. In his view, public complaints carry less weight when someone ignores an available way to act.

Alan connects that opportunity to the sacrifices people made to preserve it. He also argues that Christians should use their votes to support what they believe is right, rather than support what he calls pagan ideology.

Jeff sees an issue of integrity. A person who preaches conviction while neglecting a responsibility connected to that conviction weakens his own witness.

The point applies directly to their discussion of street preaching. Neither host is impressed by someone who makes a public display of concern but refuses a lawful opportunity to act on that concern.

Their challenge is about consistency between words and conduct. Speaking boldly doesn't relieve Christians of responsibilities that draw less attention.

Wales and the Warning to Ephesus

Jeff finds the discussion of Wales especially troubling because of its history of revival around the turn of the twentieth century. He contrasts that history with what he sees as the country's present spiritual decline.

He connects the contrast to Christ's warning to the church in Ephesus: return and do the first works, or risk the removal of the lampstand. In Jeff's reading, the loss of the church at Ephesus illustrates the seriousness of failing to repent.

Alan brings the prophet Amos into the street-preaching discussion. He observes that biblical scenes of a prophet arriving with a public warning often come after people have already rejected earlier opportunities to respond.

That is why the hosts find the situation so sobering. They believe a society can reach a point where another warning alone will not reverse its direction.

When they describe parts of Britain as having gone too far, they also identify what they believe could change the situation: an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Their answer to spiritual decline is repentance and revival. They aren't presenting a better public argument as sufficient to restore what has been lost.

Revival Can Begin With Ordinary People

Places where the Holy Spirit still has freedom

Jeff believes rejection of God, legislative decisions, and false religion have grieved the Holy Spirit. In his description, there are still small places within nations where people remain surrendered and allow the Spirit to work.

He calls these places little "Wales," drawing on the country's revival history. They may be small, but he believes renewal can grow there and spread as people respond in obedience and repentance.

Alan and Jeff therefore retain hope even while speaking severely about national decline. They believe God can work through faithful people whose surroundings offer little encouragement.

An outpouring beyond church walls

Alan emphasizes that God often uses people without fame or impressive credentials. He mentions tax collectors and ordinary working people as examples of those God calls.

There are far more ordinary people than people considered important, he observes. That gives him hope that God can turn things around without depending on prominent figures.

Both hosts express a desire to experience another outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They also welcome the disruption it could bring.

"I welcome the inconvenience of a good old outpouring."

Alan's statement captures the kind of revival they want. Jeff adds that he wants to see it move beyond a church building and affect a community.

Their final connection returns to public preaching: if revival reaches the streets, the people already speaking there may find themselves in the middle of it.

The Freedom to Preach and the Hope of Renewal

The Johnston case brings the central concern into focus: peaceful religious expression needs protection even when its message challenges listeners. Alan and Jeff also insist that a preacher's motives and conduct deserve honest examination.

Their hope reaches beyond legal protection. They want repentance and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that touches ordinary people and whole communities. The streets where Christians now face opposition are also places where they hope to see revival.

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