A real estate company advertising for Greg Laurie’s SoCal Harvest event has removed billboards for the event at an Orange County mall.
The billboard at the outdoor mall, Fashion Island, depicted Laurie holding a Bible and promoting SoCal Harvest. Harvest Crusade hired real estate company, Irvine Company, to advertise for the event, but the company later said the billboard drew complaints and one “serious threat.”
Harvest changed the artwork of the ad and pulled the Bible from the picture, but the Irvine Company still removed all the ads for the event, according to CBN News.
“There was nothing overtly religious about it,” John Collins, Harvest Executive Director told CBN News.
“We changed it to a more simplified ad that simply said ‘Harvest,’ giving the dates and some of the musical artists that are going to be with us. Then they came back and said they just wanted the ads completely removed and they refunded us,” he added.
SoCal Harvest is slated for Aug. 17-19 at Angel Stadium
“We’re certainly not upset with The Irvine Company. Obviously, they’re catching heat for allowing us to run these ads. We feel it is just unfortunate that people are complaining,” Collins said. “It’s sad that our culture is at this degree of intolerance…There’s such intolerance against Christianity that we aren’t allowed to state that or to publicly advertise this event. That’s amazing.”
This year’s SoCal Harvest is its 29th anniversary, and it is the longest-running, large-scale evangelistic event in the U.S.
Some 90,000 to 100,000 people attend the annual event.
“We typically have about 9,000 to 10,000 people make a profession of faith,” Collins said. “That’s 9- or 10,000 people coming forward and saying, ‘I want to know more about what it means to be a Christian. I want to give my life to Christ. I want to rededicate my life to Christ.’”
Publication Date: August 7, 2018
Photo Courtesy: Facebook
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