It was a quiet Sunday in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Pastor Clive Johnston, a 76-year-old retired Baptist minister, stood on a patch of grass across a dual carriageway from Causeway Hospital, leading a handful of Christians in a simple act of worship.

There were no signs, no protests, no chants—just hymns and a sermon from John 3:16, arguably the most famous verse in the Bible. But the authorities, with all the grace and wisdom of a sledgehammer smashing an egg, decided that this amounted to a crime.

Under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act, Johnston is accused of ‘influencing’ people seeking abortion services, according to a report in the Christian Institute. Not harassing, not obstructing—just influencing. The sermon never even mentioned abortion. No placards, no slogans, no raised voices. Yet the police, ever-vigilant against threats to the regime, determined that preaching about God’s love on a Sunday was too dangerous to be tolerated.

Johnston now faces fines and a criminal record because he had the God-given boldness to proclaim the gospel in public. All because the thought police in Northern Ireland have made it clear that Christianity is only welcome if it stays locked inside a church, out of sight, out of mind, and most importantly, out of earshot of anyone who might be “influenced” by it.

This is where Ireland is now—a nation that once stood firm in Christian tradition has been reduced to an authoritarian playground where the only acceptable public expressions are those that align with the progressive state-approved religion. A nation that only a generation ago had some of the strongest pro-life protections in Europe has remade itself into a laboratory for secular totalitarianism.

And the abortion laws weren’t just changed—they were steamrolled through in a fashion so aggressive that one would think the government was declaring war on its own past. And the churches stayed silent, complacent. The politicians—those who still dared to claim the title of “conservative”—they all folded like a cheap suit in a rainstorm.

And now, we see the consequences. The criminalization of public Christian speech. The insanity of a pastor facing prosecution for reading from the Bible in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But if you think this couldn’t happen in America, you haven’t been paying attention. This is precisely what the progressive left dreams of—the full erasure of Christianity from public life, all under the guise of “safety” and “tolerance.” And make no mistake, they have their useful idiots within the so-called “evangelical” camp cheering them on.

People like David French, the human embodiment of a theological surrender flag, and pastors like Ray Ortlund, who spent the last election cycle wringing his hands about the “moral imperative” of voting for Kamala Harris. Yes, the same Kamala Harris who, given her way, would sign into law every restriction on religious expression she could get her hands on.

The same Kamala Harris who, as Attorney General, actively targeted pro-life activists for prosecution. But according to these progressive religious ideologues, it was the Christians who resisted this takeover who were the real problem.

Ray Ortlund—one of the leading voices in the ongoing campaign to make Christian men soft and spineless is more concerned with his morning chai latte than the actual advancement of the gospel. While real men like Clive Johnston are out on the streets, proclaiming the good news at great personal cost, Ortlund is at home in his pajamas, doing podcasts with gay priests who insist on wearing wedding bands to remind everyone that they’re “taken by God.”

When he’s not busy platforming the kind of limp-wristed spirituality that turns churches into women-owned Starbucks cafes, Ortlund can usually be found complaining about the “tone” of those who actually obey Christ’s command to preach the word boldly.

He doesn’t like street preaching. It’s too undignified. Too zealous. Too… masculine. He’d rather have a church where the men sip their overpriced coffee in silence, listen to a 20-minute homily about “gentleness” and “tenderness of heart,” and then pat themselves on the back for being so much more enlightened than those crass, unwashed Baptists who actually take the Great Commission seriously.

What these effeminate latte-sippers in slippers want—what they are actively promoting—is the domestication of the church, a Christianity that poses no threat to the reigning cultural order, one that never dares to raise its voice above a whisper.

But this kind of Christianity has a shelf life, and we’ve already seen its expiration date. Look at Ireland. Look at Canada. Look at the U.K. Look at every nation that once had a strong Christian presence but now finds itself at the mercy of the secular state. The moment the church stops standing up for truth, the moment it starts prioritizing being “nice” over being faithful, it’s already lost the battle and has become irrelevant.

Worse than that—it becomes complicit in its own destruction.

So here we are, watching history repeat itself. A pastor is being dragged into court for simply preaching the gospel, while the “respectable” Christian voices are nowhere to be found. They’re too busy signaling their virtue to their “gentle and lowly” peers, too preoccupied with their carefully curated online personas to care about actual persecution.

And make no mistake—that is what this is. Persecution doesn’t always come with handcuffs and prison cells. Sometimes, it comes with fines, with legal harassment, with an ever-tightening noose of restrictions that make public Christianity impossible.

Sometimes, it comes dressed as “tolerance” and “progress.” But the end result is always the same…the silencing of the gospel, the banishment of the church from public life, and the triumph of the secular state.

This is what they want. This is what they are working toward. And if you think they’re going to stop here, you haven’t been paying attention.