November 30, 1999

NEWS RELEASE

RE: THE RELEASE OF CHRISTIAN JOHN REYES

Liberty University student John Reyes has been told he will be released on the morning of Wednesday, December 1, 1999, from the Lynchburg City Jail (Blue Ridge Correctional Facility).

John has called a news conference at 1:00 p.m. in front of the School Administration Building on Court Street (Lynchburg) where he will speak and answer media questions. Reyes has been incarcerated for three months for misdemeanor trespass involving Christian witnessing in front of E. C. Glass High School in Lynchburg, Va..

The Reverends Philip (“Flip”) Benham of Texas and R. E. Knodel, Jr. of Lynchburg will be joining Reyes to make statements. Central among their concerns is the bad name Lynchburg has received, nationally, for this incarceration. Many national Christians and their publications cannot understand how a supposedly conservative city like Lynchburg could jail a Christian for three months for what amounted to Christian witnessing.

Behind the arrest and incarceration appears the criminalization of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Special malignancy was imputed to Reyes’ presence at E. C. Glass High School so that it became a kind of political crime, worthy of punishment far exceeding other trespass misdemeanors and felonies committed in this region. Reyes asks, “What was different, other than that I (among hundreds of other students) took the gospel with me where I went?”

That which men condemned, God apparently justified. Over twenty men converted to Christianity, through John’s ministrations in the jail. Dozens have joined him in nightly Bible Studies. Some have asked John to come to the streets and speak with gang and criminal friends once he is released from jail. Others have publicly thanked God for their sentences because they led to their salvation while in jail!

Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church
The Rev. R. E. Knodel, Jr.
1021 Federal Street
Lynchburg, VA 24504
Phone: (804) 845-8572
E-mail: KnodelJr@aol.com