Prayer is dangerous

Prayer is very dangerous

Prayer is very dangerous. Even if it is in your head. Prayer is intimidation, even if nobody knows you are praying. Be careful what you think because you could be arrested.

This is not a sci-fi movie. This is the moral decay of our society that led to a lady being arrested for standing outside an abortion clinic. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested for praying (even though the clinic was closed at the time). Eventually the charges were dropped and the police gave her £13000 to settle the case, without admitting any liability.

More recently Adam Smith-Connor was arrested for silently praying outside the abortion clinic for 3 minutes, where his son had been aborted 22 years earlier. He was accused of breaching the safe zone order, intended to prevent protesting abortion services. This would include, but is not limited to graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling and holding vigils where people pray audible if they see a service-user pass by.

In October 2024, Adam Smith-Connor was convicted of breaking the public space protection order, given a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £9000 costs. This case was referenced by the US Vice President JD Vance in a recent speech given to political leaders at the Munich Security Conference this month.

How did they know he was praying? Did they listen in? No. There is no way they would have even know that he was praying had he not told them. Yet when they found out he was praying they viewed this in secular terms as a breach of the protection order.

As these buffer zones are expanded to 150m around all abortion clinics, the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists has also specified a hope that legal guidelines will “not … permit silent prayer as an exemption,” in these zones.

Is one man silently praying really such a threat? Is one woman praying outside a closed clinic really such a threat? In short, the answer is yes – keep reading.

The Scottish government even sent letters warning people who live within these buffer zones that even private prayer in their own homes may be breaking the law.

Is that really a threat? Answer – yes.

In all these cases it’s not a threat in the physical. It’s not a threat to people. Prayer in your home or in your head cannot be a threat. But it is a threat in the spiritual. The principalities that want to rule over an area and restrict the work of the kingdom of God do not want prayer in the areas they are trying to establish their dominion over. But this is only dominion that they can take if we cede it to them – we as humans have been given dominion over this earth by God. As beleivers we exercise that dominion for the glory of God and for the mission of Jesus to whom all authority has been given.

Of course, we know this simply exposes the spiritual reality of the battle that we are facing. We fight in prayer not against people but against the spiritual forces around us. The spiritual realm understand that even silent prayer is powerful.

If we could see the impact of our prayers in the spiritual realm I wonder how that would impact our prayer lives. If we could understand the impact over individual lives of our prayers what shift would we see in the intensity of our prayers for our children?

Every prayer makes a difference in the spiritually realm, which in turn impacts the natural world. This is the mandate of us as members of the Body of Christ here on earth. If Jesus saw the importance of prayer, how much more should we step up our prayers in the light of the strategy of the enemy to silence prayer.

Let’s not be numb to the sliding state of our nation, but let’s rise in prayer to change the spiritual realm and to receive creative solutions divinely inspired that will truly impact our children. 

Let us pray for a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our children and on their generation. The Spirit of God will hold them secure and will lead them to fulfil all God has created them for here on earth. It is time for us to rise up.