Nicholas Miller and the Protestant Case for the First Amendment

[Stan]

In November 1769, magistrates in Culpeper County, Virginia, warned a young Scottish immigrant named James Ireland that preaching without an Anglican license would land him in jail. He…

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[Asia Joe]

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In November 1769, magistrates in Culpeper County, Virginia, warned a young Scottish immigrant named James Ireland that preaching without an Anglican license would land him in jail. He preached anyway, and the authorities kept their word. Ireland spent the next five months behind bars, and from his cell window he kept right on preaching to the crowds that gathered in the street below, undeterred by opponents who tried to smoke him out by burning pepper and brimstone at the window, poison his food, and once even attempted to blow up his cell with gunpowder. His crime was never violence or sedition. It was answering to God rather than to a bishop’s license. Ireland’s ordeal became the most retold instance of a pattern that kept recurring in that same county.

Everyone thinks we have a wonderful right to free speech because of the first amendment. 

But that is not true. Just go to Dearborn, Michigan, as I have, and try to preach any Bible doctrine on any street corner. Or try to hand out ANY Christian tract, and see what First Amendment you have.