News From An Uncompromising Biblical Worldview
Heather Clark, Christian News Network — (Burlington, Vermont) A Mennonite pastor that was convicted of providing assistance to an ex-lesbian who fled the country with her daughter has been jailed after refusing to testify against others who were possibly involved in the matter.U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions III ordered Ken Miller of Stuarts Draft, Virginia to be jailed for at least a week after he refused to testify before a federal grand jury during a hearing on Thursday. Miller told the judge that his religious beliefs prohibited him from taking the stand in the case.
“These people they wanted him to testify against are fellow citizens of God’s kingdom,” Attorney David Bercot, an Anabaptist lawyer from Amberson, Pennsylvania, explained to reporters. “And it’s like, you wanted me to be a rat, you know, to turn on my fellow citizens. That’s basically what it came down to.”
According to the Burlington Free Press, Sessions was reluctant to sentence Miller to jail, and struggled to find the balance in the matter.
“We can’t function as a criminal justice system without the grand jury,” he stated. “I appreciate your faithfulness to your religion and your moral beliefs, and perhaps there is an inherent conflict here.”
However, when one of Miller’s attorneys advised the judge that sending their client to jail would not change his mind about testifying, Sessions replied that the only way to find out was to see what happens.
As federal marshals began to take Miller into custody, he said to Sessions, “God bless you, your honor.”[...] “I’ve already surrendered my freedom to Christ, and if this is the path he chooses for me, I will walk it,” Miller told reporters following his conviction. “I am willing to accept the consequences.”
“I am at peace with God,” he added. “I am at peace with my conscience. I give it over to God.”
The next hearing in the grand jury trial for another man facing charges for his involvement in the matter, for which Miller had been ordered to testify, is set to take place next week. » Read More
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