Media · Nationwide · August 20, 2026
Denmark Publishes Public Ban List Naming 17 Foreign Preachers, Including 3 Americans
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 13
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The Danish action does not state a general rule and leave enforcement quiet; it publishes seventeen individual people by full name, birth date, nationality, residence and ban end-date, with photographs reproduced in the coverage. That is the mechanism the rule describes — a target picked, frozen for a fixed two-year term, personalized down to the date of birth, and set apart from the public as a 'public order' threat, while the specific conduct that triggered each listing is not published. Whatever one thinks of the men named, naming without published reasons is the isolating move.
Counter-Rule 13 · Radical Solidarity
Stand publicly with whoever has been singled out. Isolation is the whole mechanism; refusing it disarms the tactic.
The counter here is not defending anyone's teaching but defending individualized process: read what the Danish Immigration Service says the listing standard is and what remedy exists (reconsideration by the Immigration Service, then appeal to the Immigration Appeals Board within eight weeks), and note that no reason-for-listing is published. When the list comes up in conversation at church, refuse to repeat the seventeen names as a talking point about people whose alleged conduct you cannot describe. If a Christian worker you actually know is ever listed anywhere, say his name publicly and stand next to him rather than letting him be handled alone.
Rule 9
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
Action item 4 asks the church to discuss how a 'public order' classification 'could someday be applied to biblical preaching abroad.' The dread there is doing more work than the facts: the source itself says it does not know the religious tradition of those listed or the conduct behind any ban. An unnamed, undated, unsized threat is more frightening than the actual thing, which is a seventeen-name Danish entry list with a two-year term and an appeal route.
Counter-Rule 9 · Courageous Realism
Name the worst case out loud and cost it honestly. Fear of the unnamed is doing most of the work.
Cost it out loud this month instead of leaving it vague. Write down the real worst case for your congregation — a missionary or guest speaker refused entry to one Schengen country for two years, with reconsideration and an eight-week appeal window — and then ask what that would actually cost in trips, visas and support. Read one country chapter of the State Department's International Religious Freedom report for a country your church sends teams to, and bring the actual text, not the feeling, to the elders.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
The free 4-minute assessment identifies your mountain and your institution’s capture phase — so alerts like this one arrive matched to where you actually stand.
Facing this yourself? Ask. Describe what is happening and get what the book, Scripture, and the law of your state say, with the exact words to use. Your first one is free.