Wait a minute, arrests have taken place in the United States too already for trying to hold services at someones home, and not that long ago either. Here is a few for now.
1. A southern California couple has been fined $300 dollars for holding Christian Bible study sessions in their home, and could face another $500 for each additional gathering. City officials in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. say Chuck and Stephanie Fromm are in violation of municipal code 9-3.301, which prohibits “religious, fraternal or non-profit” organizations in residential neighborhoods without a permit. Stephanie hosts a Wednesday Bible study that draws about 20 attendees, and Chuck holds a Sunday service that gets about 50.
2. Last Thursday, a swarm of police officers descended on Michael Salman‘s northwest Phoenix home. Armed officers herded Salman, his wife Suzanne, their five young daughters, and their visiting friends into the living room — and kept them under watch for 90 minutes while other city officials searched the grounds. And here’s the crazy part: The officials weren’t looking for drugs, weapons, or stolen property. They were looking for evidence that Michael and Suzanne Salman are holding church services in their backyard.more
NASHVILLE – An Americans United for the Separation of Church and State official told Vanderbilt University Christians to “stop whining” about the institution’s all-comers policy and hold their meetings in private homes like Christians in communist China.
During the 2012 National Religious Broadcasters Convention’s public policy debate on Tuesday, AU Executive Director Barry W. Lynn defended Vanderbilt’s right as a private institution to impose a campus-wide nondiscrimination policy that could potentially drive religious student organizations off campus.
“I would suggest that people in this position – to use a phrase on a button in my dentist office that he always wears when he works, it says, ‘stop whining.’ I’d say stop whining here. Why not do what evangelicals do: go out into the world, out into the community [and] have your meetings, if you have to, off campus. Show your faith [and] meet with students not in a club room somewhere in the university, but in those home churches that kept Christianity alive during the darkest days of communist China.”
China, though it allows Chinese Christians to worshipin two state-approved churches, does not give its people the right of religious freedom. Last year, many Chinese Christians were arrested and detained for conducting religious services in unregistered home churches, according to ChinaAid, a support group for China’s persecuted Christians. more
post has been editited @ 1:05pm Feb. 25, 2012 shera~
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