A man who made headlines around the world when he baptised a friend in floodwater under the Hartcliffe roundabout has been turning heads again - by preaching to shoppers in the middle of Asda.
Barry ‘BJ’ Walsh has been filmed spreading the word of the gospel next to the tea bags at the end of the aisle in the Asda store near The Mall at Cribbs Causeway on Saturday morning, just before noon. The Hartcliffe man, a born-again Christian who said he turned his life around after being addicted to drugs, told shoppers that he has come to share the good news of Jesus, after posing a series of philosophical and theological questions.
A 32-second clip captured the moment the preacher began shouting in the supermarket, but ended before the point where a member of staff stopped him and asked him to preach outside the front door. “You know you have come shopping here today,” Mr Walsh asked. “But I will ask you a quick question - where are you gonna spend eternity? Where are you gonna go when you die?”
Read more: Man baptised in flooded roundabout underpass in South Bristol
“Friends, heaven and hell is a real place. Friends, do you know where you are going to spend eternity? Friends, we have come here today in this supermarket to share the good news, the good news of Jesus Christ,” he continued.
It was back in March this year that Mr Walsh was filmed baptising a friend in the underpass underneath the Hartcliffe Way roundabout on the A4174 in South Bristol, months after setting up a weekly church called the Set Free Ministry in Hartcliffe’s River of Life Christian Centre, which meets every Tuesday evening from 7pm.
Mr Walsh told Bristol Live he was passionate about spreading the word, even if that meant inside a supermarket. “I am the drug addict who was set free, so I want to help other people,” he said. “A member of staff came and said ‘would you mind going outside the store’ if I wanted to preach, so I did,” he added.
Only time will tell if the viral video of the baptism at the Hartcliffe Way roundabout saved at least one soul, but it did prompt Bristol City Council into action - the embarrassment of the underpass inside the roundabout being under enough water that a fully-grown man could receive a full-immersion baptism was enough for the council to finally sort out the drainage issues there and the underpass was passable for the first time in almost four months.
Read next:
- Council finally start to fix Bristol's flooded baptism roundabout
- Hartcliffe's baptism floodwaters slowly begin to recede
- Work on South Bristol's biggest housing development finally begins
- Two arrests after disturbance at Imperial Apartments in South Bristol
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