In war on Bible, pastor convicted for preaching gospel

That’s a message of love, not harassment. But in what the Bible calls “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4), God’s love is a very offensive subject. There are many controversial concepts in the scriptures, but our Creator’s love and sacrifice for humanity should not be one of them.

Over six years ago, I quoted the same verse, John 3:16, in my “Intro to Gender, Race, and Sexuality” class at Rutgers University — my professor was so offended, in her own words, that she docked me a whole letter grade. I used the verse to prove that God loves and died for everyone, regardless of what kind of sins they commit (in this case, sodomy), so Christians shouldn’t be hateful toward gay people.

Despite my appeal, the professor did not change my grade. Thankfully, a few media outlets picked up my story and gave me a voice to push back on anti-Christian persecution. It was this incident that inspired me to become a journalist, focusing on liberal indoctrination on campus.

Opposition to the Bible doesn’t stop in higher education — just last month, a California public school district began weighing whether to ban the King James Bible. The complaint filed in Redlands Unified School District claimed God’s perfect word is “inappropriate” for students and demanded it be pulled from shelves. A Utah school district successfully banned the King James Bible from its schools in 2023, and similar complaints have been filed across the country from Colorado to Texas.

John 3:16 is so popular and powerful for the same reason it is so hated, despite being perhaps the least offensive of the 31,102 verses in the King James Bible. It summarizes the gospel of salvation in one sentence.

The message of John 3:16 is that God loves every one of us — even though we are all sinners (Romans 3:23) who through our own actions have earned an eternity in hell (Romans 6:23) — and came down from heaven to take the punishment we deserve, offering salvation as a free gift (Romans 5:15). And to receive that gift, we must stop trusting in their own righteousness which God sees as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), but instead “submit to God’s righteousness” (Romans 10:3-4) by placing our trust in the shed blood of Jesus Christ to wash away our sins (Romans 3:25). If you ask Him to save you, while trusting in nothing other than His finished work on the cross to pay for your sins (Romans 10:9-10), he will never turn you away.

That’s why John 3:16 is so powerful and so hated by the world. When we stop seeing things as a physical battle, but a spiritual one, it all starts to make sense. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Secularism is quickly becoming the state-sanctioned religion of the West, and attacks on the Bible will not stop as long as Satan remains the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). As Christians, or people with enough common sense to recognize that Christianity is the glue holding together the moral fabric of society, we must push back on this dangerous trend while we still can.

Here’s an extrabiblical prophecy for you: Like in Northern Ireland, the U.S.’s secular Left will someday try to establish similar “safe access zones” where they can prosecute Christians for sharing the gospel message of John 3:16. And if we as a society don’t vote for leadership willing to oppose this, they will be successful.