Over the last several years I’ve posted about Christians in the U. S. being harassed by police and
government officials for standing up for their faith by preaching, handing out Gospel tracts or by simply having a Bible study. Mostly these posts have been about other people in other states; this time, it’s about what happened in our own church….
In addition to being the evangelism pastor at Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach, I also oversee nearly fifty Bible studies that meet in various locations around our community. One of these studies was held in the City of Hawthorne Library. The leader was offered a room to meet in, free of charge, so that he, his wife, and a few others could read through the Gospel of Mark over a period of eight weeks using a book called “One to One Bible Reading” by David Helm.
And they did. For one week.
The second week of their meeting, the Library Administrator informed the Bible Study leader that because of the separation of church and state, they could no longer meet in their private room. They were, however, welcome to meet off to the side in a corner of the library on a first come, first served basis.
I told the leader that we had to fight this because what the administrator told him was wrong. It is against the law to forbid a group from holding a Bible study in a public library!
I called our lawyer. He wrote a letter. It got results. Quickly.
Here’s what it said:
Results of Our Scary Lawyer’s Letter, Part 2
Over the last few weeks I posted about how one of our local Bible Study leaders from Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach, was stopped from conducting his study in one of the meeting rooms of a local library because of a L.A. County administrator’s misunderstanding of the term “separation of church and state.” I followed up this “misunderstanding” with an email to our lawyer, he wrote a letter and, like magic, the matter was resolved.
The Bible Study leader is a humble, gracious and unassuming man of God who was willing to let the whole matter slide, but I encouraged him to let me pursue this because if we didn’t, they might forbid other Christian groups from meeting in their private rooms, too. He agreed.
Here’s the kind email he sent to me (used with his permission):
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