Displaying items by tag: Barry Trayhorn

‘Preach the Word, but if you want to preach the whole gospel of God, the state wants to shut you up. Rev Barry Trayhorn, a Pentecostal minister, worked in HMP Littlehey, a prison for male sex offenders. Barry provided music, ministry and sermons at the chapel service, which prisoners could choose to attend or not. During a service, he quoted from memory 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11 and then continued, ‘You may want to complain about this, but this is the Word of God. God loves you and wants to forgive you.’ A single complaint was put in by one of the ‘cross-dressed’ prisoners to the equality and diversity officer of the prison, saying that his human rights had been violated by the preaching. Barry lost his job, went to the Employment Tribunal and then an appeal tribunal, but lost his case. The judge questioned whether 1 Corinthians 6 should be preached in a prison chapel service.