Carl Trueman warns here about the criminalizing of the preaching of John 3:16.

“Recently, Northern Ireland provided an example when Clive Johnston, a 78-year-old retired pastor, was fined for preaching John 3:16 outside an abortion clinic and within the exclusion zone specified by law. At least, I guess, he was not merely praying in silence and thus powers of telepathy on the part of the local constabulary were not needed this time to bring charges against him. For those of us who grew up in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and ’80s, this is a bizarre turn of events . . .

But, of course, this is not really about care for humanity or human beings. It is about the silencing or the destruction of any who dissent from current therapeutic orthodoxies. Everyone (at least everyone pursuing choices of which the progressives approve) must be affirmed, whether it is a sexual practice that destroys their own body or an abortion that destroys somebody else’s body. And it is the most harmless people—the retired pastor, the grandmother with the sign, the charity volunteer praying in silence—who are the real victims, while the victimizers use every means at their disposal, from stained glass windows to the police, to realize their vision.

Perhaps Orwell was right after all: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” I had always assumed that was the Soviet Union. It looks to be coming closer to home.“