Arrested for praying and anointing in Washington, D.C.

tall73 said:

Did you watch the video?

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Yeah I saw it. But you raised the question. What does your spirit say?

LaBèlla said:

Yeah I saw it. But you raised the question. What does your spirit say?

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Actually you re-framed the question I had indicated about whether he was raising questions of freedom, or whether he was discussing suffering for Christ, and instead posed a new question which centered around John's statement of Christ increasing and John decreasing.

Regarding my spirit, I am not sure how my spirit would know anything about this. I have received no direct statements from God on the matter , and I do not have the spiritual gift of discerning of spirits.

As for biblical tests when he claims to have received a message, we do not know him so cannot use the test of fruits. We do not know his Christology, so we cannot apply John's test of whether Jesus came in the flesh. We do know that the Bible doesn't require touching a building in order to pray for leaders. And it does say to submit to the authorities in Romans 13, and in I Peter, which he is not doing. It also indicates we should serve God over man in Acts 4. However, it appears he could do both in this case.

As Nithvala pointed out, prayer to be seen of men or broadcasting of prayer is discouraged. Now I didn't get the feel he was being loud or drawing attention to himself particularly, but he did reference the secret service being aware of what he was doing previously, so it must have been known somehow.

It basically boils down to his claim that the Holy Spirit convicted him to do this years ago. He did not clarify if he was further convicted to violate the command of the government in honor of God.

As to the principle you referenced from John, the video was mostly about his prayer for years, his practice, what the secret service did, and how they gave him a perimeter. The general feel was that America was special to God, and that he should have the right to pray there.

I don't doubt that it might inspire people to pray for the president, and that would be a good thing. However, it also focused very little on God or the president.

You?

Shiloh Raven said:

Maybe we'll be told that the Secret Service who arrested him are liberals who wanted to silence him.

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A poster wil tell you that if they are liberals it is a secret.

cow451 said:

A poster wil tell you that if they are liberals it is a secret.

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That's why they're called "secret service"

Deborah D said:

Thanks for posting this. He has my prayers!

It's sad to see that in America a man is arrested for praying over the White House while thugs have been given free rein at times to destroy private property and cause serious bodily harm to others without negative repercussions.

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I refer you to post #20 for a better perspective. The secret service I suspect are worried that his activities, walking in circles around the whitehouse dropping a mysterious substance, will see people reporting it as suspicious activity. They might be fully aware that all it is is praying, but if mistaken reports of suspicious activity drown out a genuine threat they would not be doing their job.

DennisTate said:

My apologies if my fascination with near death experience accounts...... and my tendency to read the Bible itself less and less as I study these accounts is in fact me going off in a wrong direction??????

I so thank you for getting involved in this particular case... I know that your prayers for him Brinny will be powerfully answered.

Oh.... I had a really unusual last fifteen months or so. I would describe it as a higher level of CONVICTION over my pride... my self-righteous attitude.... my spiritual lethargy...... my general low level of thankfulness in comparison to where I should be at considering how my life and my family has been blessed!!!!! This last year has been astonishing..... thank you for continuing to pray for me Brinny as I've been going through all this!

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Thank you for sharing this, Dennis. It means a lot to me. God bless you and your family. I will continue to pray for you and your family, and Richard Patten. He is a dear dear soul, and we need more like him. Thank GOD that he has a ministry of prayer walks.

I think his words got him arrested. From what I got out of the video. And I believe he was released. After they found out. He was threatening. Just an honest prayer. I dont really pray for the presidents. Unless something was wrong with them.

FenderTL5 said:

I'm not at all surprised that law enforcement/secret service would be a tad bit suspicious of someone walking circles around the White House and smearing an unidentified liquid from a vile along the way.

It sounds like they picked him up to check it out, released him uncharged, but then discouraged further practice. I don't think it unreasonable. ymmv.

fwiw, I understand and 'get' anointing with oil. otoh, I also get why secret service would take a skeptical interest in it in this case. ymmv

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It's amazing that people would get so irritated by people acting weird and smearing some substance all over the place.

DennisTate said:

Perhaps they were ordered to do this by some people who knew about the power behind prayer?

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...or they weren't. Sometimes? Acting weird is reason enough for doing something.
tulc(is just sayn')

FenderTL5 said:

I'm not at all surprised that law enforcement/secret service would be a tad bit suspicious of someone walking circles around the White House and smearing an unidentified liquid from a vile along the way.

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You put it in those terms and it does sound rather suspicious. Especially because anointing with oil in that manner, by somebody that doesn't wear anything recognizable as religious clergy, isn't something many people would be familiar with. Evangelicals, much less charismatic/pentecostal evangelicals, are a small part of the American public and tend to have a certain cultural isolation. My guess is the mainstream public is more familiar with Roman Catholicism than Pentecostals/Charismatics.

Hm... now I am not an American, or even in close geographical vicinity. Nor have I a serious interest in taking an expensive flight over the Atlantic to prove my theory.

But I would be very much interested in the reaction of some specific people here on the forum (who shall remain unnamed), if I were to come over the Washington, went to the White House and got arrested for praying against the Monumental Evil that occupied the highest office in your country.

variant said:

It's amazing that people would get so irritated by people acting weird and smearing some substance all over the place.

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Some vile of something, That can cause people to get extremely sick. Is the first though in my mind. Sorry people cant be trusted.

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:

Some vile of something, That can cause people to get extremely sick. Is the first though in my mind. Sorry people cant be trusted.

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Law enforcement's job isn't to trust people. It's good that they aren't so naive to let people spread unknown liquids wherever they please.

People are no more deserving of prayer than anyone else just because their job is a political leader.

Richard Patten has prayed outside of the White House for 16 years without incident. Personally, I would like to read the incident/arrest report. Maybe it has something to smearing a foreign substance on the gate.