A pastor from Burnley has said he was warned by a police officer that he could face hate speech allegations over a Bible verse on the back of his motorhome.
Mick Fleming, a well-known local pastor, has sold most of his worldly possessions to live in his ‘Church on Wheels’.
Whilst filling up at a petrol station, he said an officer approached him with a “friendly” word of warning.
“He just tapped me on the shoulder,” Mick told Premier Christian News. “He said, ‘Don't be alarmed, but I just wanted to just mention the writing on the on the back of your van. You know, it could be seen as hate speech.”
Mick responded: “But it says ‘For God so loved the world’. That's the first line. That's the key, you know, love. I don't think it's hate speech.”
The officer allegedly told Mick he was simply giving him a “heads up” as to how the message might be perceived – despite nobody having complained.
“I’m just a bit shocked and surprised, but I think society has become much more secular,” Mick said. “There's a little bit of a push back towards Christianity at the moment, because people are kind of lost, and they're searching for identity.
“It’s in this search for identity that people will be offended by the gospel, and they're looking to see who they are, what they feel, where they belong/ I think that's the that is where the notion is: ‘It's my way, not your way.’”
Mick shared the encounter with his YouTube followers, who have responded overwhelmingly positively, even if they are not Christian.
Yet even in the controversy, he sees God at work.
“It’s been picked up by newspapers, and national press,” Mick said. “Now John 3:16 has gone all over the country.”
The pastor says pushback should be seen as encouragement to believers.
“As Christians, our faith has to be authentic. I'm not saying everyone has to give everything away, but you have to stand by your convictions. You have to stand on the truth of the Word of God, and you have to show people that you're living it out,” he told Premier. “You've got a light in here that changes things. It doesn't argue and pull people down. It lifts people open.”
Premier Christian News has reached out to Lancashire Police for comment on the incident.