{"id":24597,"date":"2026-03-31T23:42:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=24597"},"modified":"2026-03-31T23:42:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:42:48","slug":"court-hearing-for-pastors-alleged-abortion-zone-breach-postponed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=24597","title":{"rendered":"Court hearing for pastor&#8217;s alleged abortion zone breach postponed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                            <span class=\"credit\">\u00a0(Photo: The Christian Institute)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>A retired pastor was due to appear in court on Tuesday for allegedly breaching controversial abortion buffer-zone laws, but the hearing has been postponed.<\/p>\n<p>Pastor Clive Johnston, 77, was cautioned by police after holding an open-air service within 100 metres of the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine. Video footage of the incident shows Johnston preaching from John 3:16 and singing praises to God next to a large cross.<\/p>\n<p>When confronted by police, Johnston said that the event was nothing to do with the issue of abortion. He told police, \u201cWe\u2019re not mentioning an abortion \u2026 this is not a rally. This is simply proclaiming a message that will change people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, Johnston stands accused of intentionally influencing a protected person, or being reckless as to whether his actions had that effect.<\/p>\n<p>In December District Judge Peter King asked for written submissions to help determine whether Johnston\u2019s actions could have crossed into criminality under the current law. If convicted, Johnston could face a fine as well as a criminal record.<\/p>\n<p>Johnston, who is being supported by The Christian Institute, said, \u201cI am grateful for the kind messages of support I have received from members of the public both here and abroad, and for the prayers being offered up to God about this case by many Christians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy legal representatives have strongly contested the allegations against me and I pray the wider public will understand the implications of this case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Simon Calvert, Deputy Director of The Christian Institute, commented, \u201cShould a law designed to stop abortion protests be used to criminalise gospel preaching? John 3:16 is a wonderful, famous verse and everyone knows it says nothing about abortion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have amazing freedom in this country to share the Christian message. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve taken on this case. Prosecuting Pastor Johnston for preaching \u2018God so loved the world\u2019 near a hospital on a quiet Sunday is a shocking new attempt to restrict freedom of religion and freedom of speech in a part of the world where open air gospel services are a part of the culture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChristians are pro-life. But preaching the good news about Christ is not the same thing as protesting against abortion. The Police and the Public Prosecution Service are overstepping the mark.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0(Photo: The Christian Institute) A retired pastor was due to appear in court on Tuesday for allegedly breaching controversial abortion buffer-zone laws, but the hearing has been postponed. Pastor Clive Johnston, 77, was cautioned by police after holding an open-air service within 100 metres of the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine. Video footage of the incident<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[205,2040,8023,316,3410,716,1491,3277],"class_list":["post-24597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-abortion","tag-alleged","tag-breach","tag-court","tag-hearing","tag-pastors","tag-postponed","tag-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}