{"id":21536,"date":"2014-05-23T15:56:16","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T19:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=21536"},"modified":"2014-05-23T16:00:57","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T20:00:57","slug":"church-sign-investigated-as-hate-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/church-sign-investigated-as-hate-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Church sign investigated as hate speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

From here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"sign\"<\/a>A baptist church was at the centre of a police probe after a sign which suggested non-Christians would ‘burn in hell’ was investigated as a ‘hate incident’.<\/p>\n

The offending sign at Attleborough Baptist Church in Norfolk, pictured burning flames below words which read: ‘If you think there is no God you better be right!!’.<\/p>\n

Now the church has been forced to remove the sign after a passer-by complained to police that it could ‘not be further’ from the Christian phrase, love thy neighbour.<\/p>\n

Robert Gladwin, 20, said: ‘It is my basic understanding that Christianity is inclusive and loving in nature.<\/p>\n

‘The message being displayed outside of the church could not be further from the often uttered phrase \u2018love thy neighbour\u2019.’<\/p>\n

Mr Gladwin said he was ‘astounded’ when he spotted the poster by chance as he was walking home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Robert Gladwin, who makes no claim to being a Christian, has taken up the burden of interpreting what true Christianity is for the benefit of those who actually are Christians. Apparently, true Christianity is \u201cinclusive and loving in nature\u201d; clearly Gladwin is a latent Anglican.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Gladwin\u2019s prospects for a career in hermeneutics, Jesus mentions gehenna <\/em>or hell, twelve times in the New Testament, making it clear that it is an extremely disagreeable place of punishment where the unredeemed are liable to spend a very long time. Not<\/em> to point this out to those who are perishing is hardly an act of kindness. Pretending that hell doesn\u2019t exist and everything is just fine is the most unloving thing a Christian can do; it\u2019s almost a hate crime.<\/p>\n

Pascal’s wager<\/a> makes much the same point as this sign – rather more subtly. I imagine Pascal would be accused of hate speech today, too; although he might be saved by the unlikelihood of today’s doubters having a long enough attention span to read and understand his argument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From here: A baptist church was at the centre of a police probe after a sign which suggested non-Christians would ‘burn in hell’ was investigated as a ‘hate incident’. The offending sign at Attleborough Baptist Church in Norfolk, pictured burning … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":13,"footnotes":""},"categories":[846],"tags":[1801,1802],"class_list":["post-21536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hate-speech","tag-attleborough-baptist-church","tag-robert-gladwin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}