LA Shopping Mall Bans Billboard Because It Has a Preacher Holding a Bible

MovieGuide.org in a column titled “Christian Crusade Has Billboard Banished from LA Shopping Mall” written by contributing writer Tess Farrand reports:

Each year, Harvest Christian Fellowship Church puts on a series of special events called the Harvest Crusades. The crusades are a multi-faceted event that takes place around the country where thousands of people searching for a deeper spiritual connection hear the word of God. The crusades include, worship, testimonials and a call to the altar where new believers profess their faith in Jesus.

Harvest is gearing up for their SoCal Harvest crusade which will take place at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California August 17-19. SoCal Harvest will feature MercyMe (the band who inspired I CAN ONLY IMAGINE), Christian rapper Andy Mineo and Phil Wickman, who serves as a staff worship leader, along with many others.

As per usual advertisement strategies, Harvest paid for many billboards detailing the crusade at the Fashion Island Mall in Newport Beach, California. If you’ve visited the Movieguide® website recently, you’ve most likely seen our banners advertising for the crusade. This same image, of Pastor Greg holding a bible – an homage to Billy Graham – was taken down by the mall.

A formal statement by Greg Laurie reads, “It’s disappointing that billboards advertising the SoCal Harvest – an event that positively impacts people throughout our community each year has done so now for 29 years and running- were removed from the Fashion Island Mall and the Irvine Spectrum Center this past week, all because the ads contained an image of the Bible. Countless people throughout the ages have been transformed by the Bible, and its impact around the world is literally impossible to quantify. Instead of being offended by it, people ought to pick it up, read it and see for themselves what it has to say. I believe our communities, our cities, our nation, and the world will be immeasurably better off the more famous the Bible become.”

Read more.

Ayn Rand in her monograph “Textbook of Americanism” notes:

What Is the Basic Issue in the World Today?

The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism. Individualism holds that man has inalienable rights which cannot be taken away from him by any other man, nor by any number, group or collective of other men. Therefore, each man exists by his own right and for his own sake, not for the sake of the group.

Collectivism holds that man has no rights; that his work, his body and his personality belong to the group; that the group can do with him as it pleases, in any manner it pleases, for the sake of whatever it decides to be its own welfare. Therefore, each man exists only by the permission of the group and for the sake of the group.

These two principles are the roots of two opposite social systems. The basic issue of the world today is between these two systems.

God is the enemy of the state and must be silenced. Socialist forms of government work to silence religion and fundamentally transform believers into non-believers.

As Ayn Rand wrote:

“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”

Removing this billboard because some find a Christian preacher holding up a Bible offensive has become one of the greatest uncontested absurdities of the 21st Century.

EDITORS NOTE: Readers may learn more about SoCal Harvest here.

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