Law enforcement scrutiny, detainment by police, and a court date to answer trumped-up charges: these are the consequences of preaching Christianity to Muslims not only throughout much of the Islamic world, but sometimes even in America as well.
The most infamous example occurred last June, when four missionaries from Acts 17 Apologetics were arrested and charged with breach of peace while they calmly discussed their faith with Muslims at the Arab International Festival in Dearborn, Michigan. Armed with self-recorded video showing that they had acted in a civil fashion, the Christians were vindicated by a jury several months later.
An important but virtually unnoticed Philadelphia case from 2010 bears striking similarities to the one in Dearborn, including police shutting down religious speech directed toward Muslims and a prosecutor filing charges patently at odds with video evidence. Islamist Watch attended the trial, which offered a unique window into the battle to protect First Amendment rights in an era of hypersensitivity.
On the evening of July 3, Michael Marcavage of Repent America — a Philadelphia Christian group known for its strong stances on hot-button social issues such as abortion and homosexuality — was driving with two visitors, Kenneth Fleck and Mike Stockwell. The men say that they spotted Masjid Al-Jamia, a fortress-like mosque located near the University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia, and spontaneously decided to pull over and preach on the public sidewalk out front.
This much was not in dispute: They began with a hymn and took turns reading Gospel passages. However, a bicycle-bound guard working for AlliedBarton, a private security firm contracted to patrol the streets close to campus, soon approached the evangelists, who by then had drawn a boisterous crowd of a dozen or more Muslims, some visibly upset with the call to Christianity.
Read the rest of this article on: Islamist Watch
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