Thread: Pastor arrested for holding home Bible study

Pastor arrested for holding home Bible study
July 11, 2012

Today, Michael Salman sits in jail following a raid on his home because the city doesn't allow people to hold private Bible studies on their own property! Fox News quoted Phoenix City Prosecutor Vicki Hall as saying, "It came down to zoning and proper permitting. Anytime you are holding a gathering of people continuously as he does, we have concerns about people being able to exit the facility properly in case there is a fire."

Pastor arrested for holding home Bible study - Atlanta Bible study | Examiner.com

You're dumb.

Bout time the started cracking down on this junk.

He broke the law, was warned repeatedly that he needed a license to run a church, and he refused to comply. Guess what - it has nothing to do with religion - same thing will happen if you're selling food out of your house and refuse repeatedly to get a licence or to stop operating the illegal restaraunt.

When I moved into this house I was told by the building inspector that I needed to install a fireproof door between the house and the garage. I didn't get all huffy and say "oh yeah, just try and make me copper" - I complied with the law because I didn't want to go to jail or pay a hefty fine.

Australian has similar laws but it is legal to have a few friends around for a cuppa and a chat. So we call them house meatings and when a house meating grows to about 10 people it is split into two groups.

These are very supportive local groups with singing, a sort bible message then they pray and heal each other. Everyone brings a small plate of cake or sandwiches and they just have a cupper and chat aftrrwards.

In the 70's my Paster, Clark Taylor had a 2,000 strong congragation but saw it was not meeting peoples needs. He was the first in Australia to have house meetings. We soon discovered that some folks who wouldn't come to large, loud, impersonal church, were very happy to walk down there street on Wednesday night to socialise and get prayed for in a more cosy environment.

Yes

The law tried to stop us but they couldn't because we were just a small group of friends meeting in a friends house. The idea caught on like wild fire with many different denominations doing the same thing.

The trick is to never get too big. Keep training new Home Group leaders and split when you reach ten.

Exactly what I was thinking - they could have split it into two days rather than one, and only have half as many people - or maybe have a 10:00 and then a 1:00 or something. Or if the weather's good meet out on the lawn. No fire escape hazard there I reckon. I'm sure if they only met irregularly now and then nobody would give a rat's ass, it only came to the city's attention because they kept doing it regularly. But of course, I can see why they'd want to meet once a week. Maybe they should all go on Tinychat?

Realistically, it's not that fucking difficult to get a a license and I'm disgusted by how much Christians love playing the victim card despite being the biggest bullies on the planet.

Idealistically, I think people should be able to sell what they want from their home, say what they want in their home, invite who they want to their home, etc, etc. All this licensing bureaucracy is a bunch of stupid bullshit.