Hood River Church and Islam

Church gets flack over Islam

When Mike Harrington, a 74 year old pastor in Hood River, Oregon displayed this sign outside his church he got a bit more attention than he was expecting.  Demonstrators showed up and he ended up in the newspaper and the local Mayor called him a bigot on television, which of course ended up on the internet where the the little country church got worldwide attention.  Many local pastors asked him to take down the sign but he was firm in his convictions and left it up for the whole month of May 2016.

While there is likely few, if any Muslims in Hood River, the pastor got most of his opposition from naive leftists that know nothing about either Islam, history, or the Bible.  Hood River is a beautiful little town on shores of the Columbia River a half hour or so east of Portland.  It is a tourist destination for windsurfers, photographers, potheads and others, and the Mayor was likely concerned about the reputation of their little cashcow.

The Mayor was not likely expecting things to turn in favor of the church sign from many out of town patriots and Christians who showed up with signs of their own.  Everyone likes freedom of speech until it is speech they don't like.

During our interview the church phone rang about every ten minutes with mostly positive comments from around the world.  The church of about a dozen members had a full house of about seventy-five on Sunday with all of the visitors.  Putting out this brush fire might take awhile. God has a way of vindicating his people and preparing a table for us in the presence of our enemies.  The semi-retired Pastor told us he had receive numerous letters with gracious words as well as financial offerings.  He was greatly encouraged.  In weeks following he had the letters stolen from his sign several times but he carries on like the energizer bunny.

Watch our video interview of the pastor and the demonstration in front of the church.

 https://youtu.be/qK7MyEWij8M