Hi GeorgeFox...
GeorgeFox wrote:
What about getting a permit to preach? I know that John Bunyan went to jail because he refused to get a permit to preach the Gospel.
Actually, this is not entirely accurate. John Bunyan was NEVER arrested for merely [i]preaching[/i]...nor was he required to get "a permit to preach the Gospel." Bunyan was free to preach the Gospel, but not in certain "non-sanctioned" places. However, John Bunyan was arrested (twice) for preaching in areas that were legally reserved to "licensed" ministers of the authorized by the state church.
Was this law correct? Of course not. However, John Bunyan did knowingly break the law. He decided to preach in an area where he was required to have a national license that he refused to get. Some biographers have pointed out that this was part of his motivation to preach there...as a point to preach to people in an area that was limited to a denomination that was authorized by the government.
The difference between this and, say, an open air preacher who travels from campus to campus is that the open air preacher HAS the right to preach on the campus (without restriction) if he simply registers as a visitor. He doesn't need a "license" by the school. He simply needs to state that he is a visitor there. At this point, he can preach to his heart's content. John Bunyan did not enjoy such a right. He had no legal "constitutional" rights to preach there and didn't invoke any. He didn't "sue" to obtain such a "right." Now, he could legally preach his particular views in England, but under particular restrictions about what he said and where he said it.
I suppose that the major difference in this analogy would be that open air preachers in the United States aren't prohibited assembly based upon the [i]content[/i] of what they are saying. There are simply some local jurisdiction rules for such organizations that impede ANYONE from speaking without telling the school that they are there. This includes open air preachers of the Gospel...or salesmen, Muslims, Satanists, or activist individuals or organizations (like environmental protesters or PETA).
Do you understand the difference? I cannot claim a Constitutional right to walk onto the grounds of a local elementary school and claim that I have a "Constitutional right" to be there just so that I can preach to a captive audience of school children. The same legal principle applies to colleges and universities.
Some historians have argued that John Bunyan could have found a different method in which to petition for a "right" to preach in such restricted locations. However, Bunyan chose his method. However, I think that it is difficult to draw a fair comparison with what Bunyan did and what some open air preacher in the United States is often trying to do. Bunyan was arrested for the content of what he preached (mingled with the fact that he had no authorized national license to preach his views). There was no "constitutional question." Open air preachers are [u]free[/u] to preach if they simply register as a visitor. Once they register as a visitor, the school has no right to tell them what they can or cannot say.
