Northern Ireland once stood as one of the West’s strongest pro-life witnesses. Now, after Westminster expanded abortion access over local resistance, a 78-year-old Baptist pastor has a criminal record for preaching John 3:16 near a hospital abortion zone.
A retired Baptist minister has been criminally convicted for preaching the Gospel near a Northern Ireland hospital that performs abortions.
Pastor Clive Johnston, 78, a former president of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, was found guilty on May 7 at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court on two charges under Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act 2023 for preaching on John 3:16 near the abortion buffer zone located outside of Causeway Hospital.
Pastor Johnston must pay a fine of £450 (approximately $600) and now has an official criminal record, according to The Christian Institute, which has supported his legal defense.
The Abortion Services Act in Northern Ireland, which became law in 2023, bans anti-abortion demonstrations and certain other activities within designated safe access zones surrounding abortion facilities. The law is enforced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Prosecutors argued that the retired pastor either intended to influence people seeking abortion services at Causeway Hospital or acted recklessly regarding whether his actions could influence those individuals. During the proceedings, the court reviewed evidence and police body camera footage showing Johnston standing beside a large cross, speaking into a microphone while reading passages from the Bible, including John 3:16.
The pastor said he plans to appeal the ruling. Commenting on the verdict, Johnston denied harassing anyone and described the decision as a threat to religious liberty.
“We held a small, open-air Sunday service near a hospital,” he said. “We made no reference whatsoever to the issue of abortion. And yet the buffer zones law is so broad that holding a Sunday service has been found to be a criminal offense. And at 78 years of age, I find myself, for the first time, convicted of a crime.”
He added: “If someone is out there causing trouble, stirring up violence, harassing or verbally attacking people, then, absolutely, go ahead and prosecute them. But I wasn’t doing any of those things as the police video shows and as everyone involved in this case accepts.”
John 3:16, one of the most widely known Bible verses, states: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Before the hearing, Simon Calvert, the deputy director for the Christian Institute, argued that the verse had no connection to abortion and accused authorities of improperly expanding the scope of the law. “John 3:16 is a wonderful, famous verse and everyone knows it says nothing about abortion,” he said.
He also criticized police and prosecutors for pursuing the case, stating,
“We have amazing freedom in this country to share the Christian message. That’s why we’ve taken on this case. Prosecuting Pastor Johnston for preaching ‘God so loved the world’ 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.”
Christian Institute Director Ciarán Kelly added:
“Despite assurances to the contrary when this legislation was being considered, we now see that an already controversial and deeply unjust law is being selectively applied to criminalize gospel preaching. This is creeping censorship. If the ruling stands it will represent a shocking new restriction on freedom of religion and freedom of speech so we will be helping Clive to consider the options for appeal.”
Pastor Johnston’s conviction for preaching the Gospel shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who understands the slippery slope strategy of abortion ideologues — they ask for an inch and soon they take it all.
For context, it’s important to remember that Northern Ireland — which is part of the U.K. but has its own government — had long been one of most devoutly pro-life countries in the world.
Until October 2019, abortion in Northern Ireland was criminalized in all but very limited circumstances — chiefly where continuing the pregnancy posed a serious, long-term or permanent risk to the mother’s life or physical or mental health. That legal framework reflected a culture that regarded unborn children as image bearers of God and recognized moral limits on what any just society should permit.
In 2019, thanks to unremitting pressure from the U.N., the global pro-abortion movement, and activist judges, the U.K. Parliament used an amendment to the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Act 2019 to decriminalize abortion in Northern Ireland while the region had no functioning Executive as part of a much larger bill known as the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Act 2019; prior to the official vote, U.K. lawmakers slipped in an amendment that repealed two sections of Northern Ireland’s Offences Against the Person Act 1861 which had long rendered abortion illegal.
The legislation was passed by MPs from England, Scotland, and Wales but fully rejected by MPs from Northern Ireland, effectively forcing abortion on Northern Ireland against its will. Within the year, a new legal framework governing abortion was passed, further expanding and normalizing abortion access and services across the tiny country’s six counties.
As a result, abortion is now permitted without conditionality up to 11 weeks and 6 days; after that, it is lawful in specified cases, including risk to physical or mental health up to 23 weeks and 6 days, and in cases of severe fetal impairment or fatal fetal abnormality without a gestational time limit.
In 2019/20, Northern Ireland recorded 22 hospital terminations of pregnancy. By 2024/25, official figures show 2,899 abortions carried out in Northern Ireland — a staggering post-legalization surge, though officials note the newer abortion statistics are not directly comparable with pre-2024 publications.
Given that background, it’s little wonder that getting Christians in Northern Ireland to accept abortion — or at least to remain silent about their opposition to it — would necessitate tyrannical censorship laws; the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act in Northern Ireland, similar to buffer zone laws rolled out across the rest of the U.K., received Royal Assent from King Charles III in 2023.
Now, less than three years after Northern Ireland’s first safe access zones were introduced, a 78-year-old retired pastor has been officially branded a criminal for preaching the Gospel near a hospital where, among other things, abortions are performed.
Johnston was not accused of violence, harassment, obstruction, or intimidation. Even authorities acknowledged that he was not threatening anyone. He was preaching a Christian message and quoting John 3:16, one of the most recognized verses in the Bible: “For God so loved the world.”
If that can be treated as criminal behavior, then the definition of “safe access” has expanded far beyond protecting patients from harassment. As has been seen repeatedly in England and Scotland, these laws are nothing less than weapons to suppress disapproved thoughts and speech and to criminalize Christian beliefs about the sanctity of life.
A free society cannot survive when religious expression is considered dangerous based only on the possibility of disagreement.
Christianity has had a major impact on Northern Ireland’s identity and its people for generations. Historically, open-air preaching, public prayer, and visible displays of faith have all played important roles.
The conviction of a 78-year-old minister for peacefully preaching the Gospel near a hospital raises troubling questions about the state of religious freedom in the U.K. and what it could mean for the future for America.
If quoting one of the most beloved verses in the Bible can now lead to criminal punishment on the off-chance it might influence a pregnant woman to keep, rather than kill, her child, then the real question facing the West is no longer whether religious freedom is under pressure, but whether society still truly believes it deserves to exist at all.
When preaching John 3:16 can earn a criminal record, silence is not stewardship. Your tax-deductible gift helps the Standing for Freedom Center expose censorship, defend the unborn, and equip Americans to stand when truth is treated like a threat.
